Learning how to build a homemade wind generator is a great idea. It doesn’t matter if you want to save money over buying a wind generator or whether you want to start an extremely interesting project I’m glad you’ve taken this very important first step on your journey.

Where To Begin?

One of the most important things that many people looking to build a homemade wind generator don’t do is proper research into whether their area has enough wind for a wind generator to be economically worthwhile. The picture at the left is a wind map of the entire USA (you can click on the image for the full size version). If you live outside the USA don’t worry! Just do a Google search for “wind map + your country”. In order for a wind generator to be useful to you it’s best if the average wind speed in your area is 7 – 7.5 m/s (or 15.7 – 16.8 mph). You can go lower, but I wouldn’t go lower than 6.4m/s for the simple fact that wind generators need a minimum wind speed to ‘start up’ and this is usually around 7 m/s.

If you’re not sure whether your area can support a wind generator you can do some research yourself. You can buy wind loggers that will record the wind speed in your area which will give you a much more precise picture on whether a wind generator is a good idea. If you decide to go with the wind logger make sure you put it up high in the air because the higher you go the faster the wind is (TV towers are great for this because now you can pretty much get them for free).

I Have Enough Wind, What Next?

Now that you know that you have enough wind to support your wind generator you’re going to have to gather all the parts and tools that you’re going to need. I’ll go into more detail in later posts as the list is quite large, but I like to break it down into 3 parts:

• The Tower
• The Body
• Blades and Motor

The Tower

When it comes to wind generator towers taller is better. That’s because the higher up in the air you can get your wind generator the more reliable the wind will be. Try to make sure that you get the wind generator high enough up in the air that there are no obstructions for at least 300m in all directions.

What should you use for your tower though? The absolute best solution that I’ve come up with to date are old TV towers. It’s a bit tricky to find them these days, but if you do a little searching you can usually find a home with one on it. Just go up to them and tell them you’ll take their tower off their hands free of charge. Most people jump on this suggestion because they think that it’s an eyesore.

The Body

The body of your wind generator houses the generator. Basically it’s a piece of wood or steel that the motor is mounted on. On the bottom there’s a swivel so that it can spin in all directions.

Sticking out the end of the body is the tail. One very important thing to remember is that the body of your wind generator needs some kind of shroud on the outside to prevent the motor from getting wet. Electricity + Water = lots of sparks flying and damage. There are tons of things that you can use, but the most widely used is chimney pipe (you can paint it white too). It’s used because it’s round and fits nicely around the body.

Blades and Motor

Now we get to the lifeblood of your homemade wind generator… the blades and motor. Although many people suggest that you build your blades out of PVC pipe I highly recommend that you don’t go down that route.

Firstly, PVC blades are extremely inefficient. Sure, it might save you money up front, but the power generation that you’re going to lose simply isn’t worth the savings. I recommend you start out with some fiberglass blades (if your on a budget) and stainless steel or aluminum blades. The reason is these are much more efficient and are going to produce a lot more power AND they’ll last longer than flimsy PVC blades.

As for motors you can get pretty much anything. Many people use Ametek motors although they suffer from something called ‘cogging’. I recommend you get a wind generator motor that has permanent magnets and make sure they mention low or no cogging… because you’re wind generator will start up with lower wind speeds.