Building a small wind turbine

[grant965]

Hello,
Looking at possibly building a small wind turbine to power either(or both) soil warming cables or LED grow lights.

Just looking for any help at all as to whether it can be achieved.
Budget of between £1-200, not including grow lights etc.

Ideally would like it to be able to power 2/3 of these:
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Hydroponic-Light-Board-Plant-Grow-Lighting-225-LED-Red-Blue-Bulb-Lamp-Panel-14W-/141715052943?hash=item20fee0198f:g:yMIAAOSwLVZVn4aI

and one of these:
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/6-MT-SOIL-WARMING-CABLE-FOR-MAKING-PROPAGATORS-HEATED-BEDS-/380404112416?hash=item5891da1c20:g:DKsAAOSw~OVWzziA

I've done wiring of cars/motorbike electrics but my knowledge is very limited.
Any help appreciated.
Thanks,
Grant
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Current Bike: '02 Suzuki TL1000R

[Pjay]

Any electric motor will generate electricity when rotated with wind, just find one to suit, add a prop, check the output and regulate it as required.
I would imagine that using some big ass capacitors would help plenty.

There should be plenty of resources online to help, so have a good look about for people that have done the same and logged everything.

It really is a simple thing to make and can be made to look quite cool, with a little creativity.

[stinkwheel]

For simple, small scale. I'd be looking at going 12v DC and powering it from a car alternator/s. Added benefit that you can introduce batteries into the equation to store power for when there's no wind.

Pretty much get yourself down to a scrapyard, get a couple of car alternators and radiator fans, attach one to the other and rig it on a pivot of some kind with a vane so it points into the wind. Use it/them to charge up a row of deep discharge leisure batteries (in paralell) and power your gear from that.

You could cheaply and easily bung some solar into the mix too.

It can all be added to. What lets DC down is power loss over distance so keep your wires short and you're good to go.
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[Pete.]

[Pjay]

[dydey90]

I'd go with stinkwheels idea. Gearing and speed limitation are the problem, it can quite easily overspeed and rip its own wings off.
Full sized turbines use an epicyclic (planetary) gearbox, as they spin around 12rpm and need to convert this up to 3000rpm for 50Hz.
I imagine with a smaller unit you won't need it be quite so slow, but you'd still struggle to get it running full speed.
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Past: CBR125,ER6f NINJA 650, ZZR600 Current: VFR750

[chrisw]

[Pjay]

You would also have the problem of over charging the batteries once they are at full charge.
Some way of dumping the generated electricity into a secondary storage, or a complete cut off would be needed.

[dydey90]

Energy storage is one of the biggest challenges facing energy companies right now, with renewable energy generation being so unpredictable.

Last I heard these were the options:
-batteries. These are expensive
-pumped storage
-store compressed air and use it to drive a turbine to convert back to electric
-use the energy to generate hydrogen through electrolysis. This can then be used or sold.
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This post is probably not serious and shouldn't be taken literally.
Past: CBR125,ER6f NINJA 650, ZZR600 Current: VFR750

[el_oso]

just use the money gained selling your plants to pay for the electricity.

or leech off your neighbour's supply
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[Im-a-Ridah]

You, or SWIM, might also want to something about the smell of the items, and the fact that your garage will glow like a second sun when viewed from certain angles, such as that from a police helicopter for example.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRbBu8nkjRk

[bladerunner]

Id look at a fixed magnet type dynamo like the old lucas 40 which you can still get along with a blade reg rectifier and voila your pumping out stable battery charging 12v which you can store in batterys and run a sine wave invertor from to power your home whilst its generating or from the storage when its not.

side benefit is if you short the outputs together its a genny/motor feedback which means it acts as a self generating brake if you do want to stop it turning in high wind.....but I would suggest some sort of disk brake as backup for very windy conditions. a few of the big turbines near me burst into flames at over 100mph winds as they couldnt stop them turning a couple of years ago. The fire brigade turned up,decided no risk to life and not a lot they could do anyhow so watched one burn itself out and spit the blades a few hundred meters downwind whilst having a cuppa for educational purposes
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[Vincent]

It may be worth looking on some of the narrow boat forums as they like wind turbines too
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[-]

Or grown the hash a bit less "off grid".
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[Vincent]