I can remember back when I was looking at wind generators. I remember feeling bad because I couldn't afford one... even though I really wanted one. After doing some research though, I was happy to find out that homemade wind generators are significantly cheaper and they can look just as good as an overpriced commercial model.

I think one of the biggest problems that many people have with a homemade wind generator is that it's complicated. What I've found with many of these how to's on the internet is that they overly complicate things (or it's complete trash). Wind generators are really not very complicated machines and by the end of this article I hope that I can prove it to you.

First, let's break down our homemade wind generator into it's most basic parts. You have the blades and hub, the body and tail, and the tower. When we look at it in it's most basic parts it becomes quite a bit easier to understand.

The blades and hub are pretty much the easiest part of a wind generator to build. If you're like me you don't have the money for a good set of blades. For those of us (which included me) you can build your first set of blades out of PVC pipe. I know it sounds weird, but when you cut PVC a certain way they actually make pretty decent blades. These blades will last you for a year or two until you've saved enough money (from what you've saved in electricity) to buy a good set of blades. I did this and I recommend it. I absolutely love the idea of having a low start up investment (couple hundred dollars) let it pay for itself and use the money that I've saved to upgrade. Anyways, building blades only takes a couple of hours and all you need to do is bolt them onto your hub.

The body of your homemade wind generator is simply where everything gets attached to. Your generator motor gets mounted here (which your blades and hub gets attached to). The tail is mounted on the other end. A flange is attached to the bottom of the body so that you can stick it into the top of your tower. This however, leaves our wind generator looking pretty ugly. There are two ways you can pretty it up. Firstly, you can cut a piece of PVC (on line down the center) and simply slide it over the body. The second way is a little bit more time consuming, but can be very rewarding. It requires that you make a fiberglass body and some sanding, but if you take your time it will turn out quite good. Either way, people are going to ask you where you bought your homemade wind generator. The tail is a pretty simply piece of equipment. Pretty much all the you need to do is attach a piece of plexiglass (or anything flat) to a 3 or 4 foot rod. Depending on how you want to handle high wind you may also attach a pilot vane to your tail as well.

The tower is a very simple part of a wind generator. There are several different things you can use as towers. I've fallen in love with old TV towers (easy to find and they're quite strong). Basically you can use anything you want for a tower provided that it's fairly strong. You will need to attach guy wires to your tower for some extra strength so make sure you put your wind generator in a somewhat spacious area. You're also going to want to ensure that the top of your tower is 15 feet above (minimum) the highest point within 300 feet. This isn't always possible, but you will get more constant wind speed higher up. Your tower should get mounted on a concrete base (nothing fancy, just a hole 3 feet wide and 3 feet deep). I usually overdo the tower, but it's better to be safe than sorry.

I hope you have a better understanding of homemade wind generators. They aren't very complicated machines although some people make it seem like that (probably to keep you buying them). But with a good set of instructions they are quite easy to build.

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