For those that do not know, I recently visited my parents, during which time we planned on building a small cheap wind turbine entirely from junk and cheap parts. We managed to accomplish this task, not as well as I would have hoped, but it got done.

We used ABS pipe cut into 3 blades, a plastic bucket bottom for the hub, ABS pipe and reduction couplers for the body and bearing mounts. two ABEC 3 skateboard bearings to hold steady the shaft (a large bolt) and connected the shaft to a gearbox / motor removed from a hand crank flashlight that we got for a couple bucks. The unit can charge a cellphone, play FM radio, run 3 high intensity white LED's, a siren, or possibly 2 NiMH AA batteries with slight modifications. After we put it up it ran near continuously for the entire duration of our trip, save for a few dead wind times.

I made a few major mistakes in the design that I can't imagine how I missed them. For one I put the bearings directly beside each other rather then spacing them apart along the main shaft, this causes a pull downwards and fails to keep the shaft perfectly straight, given time and resources I would have completely disregarded this idea. Secondly I used a reduction coupler that was larger then the bearings, rather then a smaller one that would have required grinding out the inside threads to fit the bearings snug, a mistake I won't make again.

All in all I am still quite proud of the overall unit, and it has definitely given me hope for the future. It should be noted my parents do not have power where they live, a recently purchased (after my visit) generator and now this turbine combined with the car battery charged during trips to town, has been their only power sources. All we had to work with as far as power tools is a drill, which ran off a 800Watt canadian tire inverter, no other tools would run properly.

Here are the pics:

[i]Here is the tower we used, it was salvaged from the local dump and is regularly a garden ornament. It contains a nice bearing in the top that helps horizontal rotation. We added another bearing inside a piece of wood a slight bit under the first bearing and through both put a small copper tube that acted as the vertical shaft. Works great!

Close up of the turbine on the ground.

Here you can see better the reduction couplers and the shaft, we held the bearings in place with 3 screws, this was a last minute and running out of time decision and is NOT recommended for serious designs.

My father and I cutting the 2x2's that will be added to the tower to make it taller.

The tower standing tall and proud.

My father and I mounting guy wires and pegs into the ground for stability and so the damn thing doesn't just fly away.

There we go!

Spinning Nicely!

We watch in awe.

Close up of turbine.

My son and I standing by the turbine.

P.S. TRAC'D stands for Tony-Ron-Ashley-Christina-Demetrius, my name, fathers name, wifes name, mothers name, and sons name, respectively.