Marianne
Super Self-Sufficient
- Joined
- Feb 6, 2011
- Messages
- 3,269
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- Location
- rural Abilene, KS, 67410 USA
What ideas have you had or heard about DIY projects with wind? Maybe this could be the place that you could post all your weird, whacky, will-it-work ideas. Anything goes here, and the simplier, the better.
Hubby threw out this idea earlier when I was on the solar thread - it's for charging a battery for later use:
What if -- you lived in a windy area, could you hook up a big wind turbine type roof vent or squirrel cage fan to use as a trickle charger? Weld a rod to it, put a coupler on the end of the alternator shaft (to the rod of the roof vent). Then hook up the alternator to the battery? Then you'd have a wind powered trickle charger. In theory. Might have to play around with a pulley system so it'd be easier to get the speed up on the alternator - like a larger pulley on the 'wind turbine' and a smaller one on the alternator. I think you need about 750 RPM (?) on the alternator to get it to act like a trickle charger.
Could you use it to power LED lights in your shop or outbuilding? Power the heated dog water dish? You know, simple things at first, and maybe build from there.
Hubby threw out this idea earlier when I was on the solar thread - it's for charging a battery for later use:
What if -- you lived in a windy area, could you hook up a big wind turbine type roof vent or squirrel cage fan to use as a trickle charger? Weld a rod to it, put a coupler on the end of the alternator shaft (to the rod of the roof vent). Then hook up the alternator to the battery? Then you'd have a wind powered trickle charger. In theory. Might have to play around with a pulley system so it'd be easier to get the speed up on the alternator - like a larger pulley on the 'wind turbine' and a smaller one on the alternator. I think you need about 750 RPM (?) on the alternator to get it to act like a trickle charger.
Could you use it to power LED lights in your shop or outbuilding? Power the heated dog water dish? You know, simple things at first, and maybe build from there.