# Homemade Wind Powered Generator



## hfwarner3 (Feb 19, 2008)

I have been looking at the homemade wind powered generator in Make magazine (link) for over a year now but have not made one yet because everyone keeps telling me Georgia does not have enough wind (except maybe at the gold dome).

Has anyone built their own windmill? Any advice?


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## ace admirer (Oct 5, 2005)

i'm sure i'll be told i'm wrong....but you have to have energy density to make useable energy....the laws of thermodynamics yet again....if the average winds in your are less than around 14 mph, its hard to get it to pay off. then you have the problems with high winds, lightning, ice. i have a hard time keeping up a tv antenna. i could put up pictures of various mills but they only work in some areas not in all. wonder what happened to the nasa mill that was up on tater hill near boone north carolina....

yes i have made a few. the first had a 12 foot diameter three blade gearbox design in about 1977, the last i made was the brake rotor type with direct drive (much better design) a couple years ago..the plans when in the homepower magizine.


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## hfwarner3 (Feb 19, 2008)

I had the exact conversation with a guy at work. The average winds for our area are about 12 mph but that does not really tell the story. We usually have 20+ mph winds or light winds (less than 10 mph) with little in the middle. Also, the split is about 25% days with usable winds and 75% too slow. Still, for $100-150 bucks each, you could build one when you have some extra money to help on those stormy days when solar will give you nothing but the winds will be good.


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## texican (Oct 4, 2003)

To paraphrase a saying, 'you have lies, d**n lies, and statistics'.... I wouldn't worry about any averages. It depends on your individual site. The wind rarely blows at my current home. 100 yards away, overlooking my lake, it blows over 50% of the time during the day.


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## hfwarner3 (Feb 19, 2008)

Ain't that the truth. I can take reading here at my house, but we are about 1 hour away from where we want to homestead, so that doesn't help. 

Terrain also makes a huge difference. My in-laws house has a fair amount of wind because they are on the side of a hill in a valley that channels the wind.


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## Jim-mi (May 15, 2002)

Consider to that if you do make up a turbine you have Got to get it way up in the real wind. . . .100 feet would be good.

What you feel on your face doesn't mean squat.
The real energy is up up and away (couldn't resist that).

You also gotta know that most every wind map I'm aware of, shows the whole southeast (of the USA) to be a very low wind area.

I would never want to discourage anybody from *wind power* . . . .just a couple things to throw at you before you put something up and are disapointed.


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## WisJim (Jan 14, 2004)

I do a lot of tours of our wind and solar electric systems, and I have ended up putting an anemometer (to show actual wind speed) on a 20 foot tower near our house, so that I can show folks what the actual windspeed is when they are looking at our system. Lots of times they will say that their place is real windy, "just like it is here right now" and then I point out that this is only a 5 or 6 mph wind measured 20 feet higher up, not really windy at all. My wind generator is a couple of hundred feet further up the hill and about 40 feet up above anything within a quarter of a mile, and sees a lot more wind that the "windy" area by the house. You have to get up above the ground and vegetation related turbulence to be able to effectively use a wind generator.


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