Anyone ever make a wind generator from an alternator!

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I've seen them done as in the article with one-wire alternators used in tractors that were already set up to run a charge with a slower rpm. You have to have some pretty steady and powerful wind to build much strength to a battery bank and then have enough storage capacity to hold the charge and then invert it to useable power at a device. Down here, we don't get enough usable wind all the time to do a real good job.
When I built this log house, I really intended to go off the grid completely. Fact of the matter was, not enough funds to build a system 26 years ago big enough to do all we like to do. Your large draws kill you. AC, refrigeration, heating, forget welding....
Scientific advances have been made I'm sure, but the facts are, I decided against spending twice what my house cost to build just to try an off the grid electric set up that wasn't truly off the grid. I would still have had to have a power source to operate enough daily use devices to be comfortable. Power company's first quote was 30 grand to run power to me. After beating on them for over a year, I got it whittled down to about 7 grand to put power in...:eek:
 
Your large draws kill you. AC, refrigeration, heating, forget welding....

The wind blows most of the time here & I'd really like a small charging system to run battery tenders in one of my barns where I keep my tractor & some other cars. [dr

BoB
 
If you can keep enough wind to make a one-wire spin fast enough, You could use a set-up like that pretty good then. For small uses it would be great. We really studied the wind power alternatives and solar panels too...just couldn't do it reasonably.
 
I have an old starter off my F100 I thought about doing that with. It's on the long list of projects. But then, so is "Trebuchet that can toss a push mower 100 yards."
 
Guess I'll press forward & let ya know what happens! Sick of my tractor battery always running down!

BoB
 
A solar panel would be more practical for charging,except at night. lol

$_35.JPG
 
A solar panel would be more practical for charging,except at night. lol

$_35.JPG

Need a "lunar panel" for that. :D When we lived in the Amazon jungle, I used to wonder if the panel was getting any charge when the moon was really bright, but the charge controller we had didn't show anything at all.
 
pvc blades

A lot of the How To Articles I have seen use pvc pipe to make the blades PVC gets brittle as it ages and I would worry about an aged blade flying off and hurting somone or the damage it would do. A compamy in Holland is building a different type pf alloy blade. it;s shaped like a snail sheel smaler amd ,ore efficient. There a a lot of big wind towers about 20 miles from us on the foothills.

https://techxplore.com/news/2014-05-dutch-company-new-generation-urban-turbines.html

there is an irrigation canal about 1/4 mile down the road that used to have a water wheel to operate a grain milling operation during the summer irrigation season. during the winter they used a steam engine. It's all gone now. The irrigation company is now investigatng new water powered electricty generators
 
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