AC And DC Motors Reviews

This is actually a very lengthy and complicated question to answer, but for now I'll give you the basics - there are a lot of nuances here that I'm skipping over, but those will be covered in future tutorials.

Step 1: Acquire or buy all the parts on eBay or from your local hardware store - DC power motor, metal sheets, PVC pipe, hub, tower, deep-cycle battery, charge controller, dump load, AC inverter, and enough nuts and bolts to connect three blades to your tower.

Step 2: Cut your PVC pipe into a 3 ft. length, and then cut the pipe into quarters - 3 of these will be blades, and one is a spare. You then need to shape these so that one side narrows into a 2" tip. The blades themselves should be about 6 feet in length - you can go smaller, but try to make each one at least 4 feet or they will not spin easily.

Step 3: Drill holes on the "non-narrow" side of your blade so that their positions match up with your hub.

Step 4: Weld or bolt a coupling to the center of your hub, and then attach the 3 blades to the hub, and the hub to the motor shaft - small steel bars about a foot long and 2" wide work best for this.

Step 5: Balance the blades and hub by numbering the blades and spinning them to make sure that the same one does not land at the bottom each time - if it does, then you need to shave some metal off your connecting steel bars.

Step 6: Slide the DC motor shaft into the hole in the middle of your hub (or drill it if it's not there yet) - make sure the hub is secure.

Step 7: Measure the height of your tail shaft and drill a hole through the top (smaller) part of your tower, right above where the top of the tail shaft would go.

Step 8: Now cut the actual tail shaft from your metal, and make it about 3 to 4 feet long - and fix it to the tower with a flat bracket.

Step 9: Now, make sure your hub and the blades are attached to your tower, and wire the remaining parts together - you should connect the DC motor to the charge controller, then connect that to the battery and the battery to the AC inverter, which goes into your utility box. The gauge of wire you'll need is depends on the materials you used - you should call an electrician to make sure you're using the right one if you're not confident.

As I said, this just scratches the surface in terms of DIY wind turbines - but now you should at least have a basic idea of how to make a simple turbine to power your home and meet all your energy needs.

This type of wind turbine should produce at least 300 - 500 Watts of power, assuming your average wind speed is at least 10-20mph or higher.