I have been sharing my view on wind power and such with friends and family and I have come to an interesting conclusion. My brother stated it the best and said that I am spreading an infection. My brother says that he is hooked… he doesn’t have the time to do anything about it but his mind is going strong with ideas and input for me. He will call and give me his ideas about what would be a good blade design or ask me questions about this output or that.
I have to laugh because my brother and my father have a much better background for working with electricity and wiring to get a wind turbine up and running. My dad has the training as an electrician and a mechanic, he has been into ham radios his entire life and has built radios from kits and has built his own home from the ground up.
My brother is a computer repairman and works with electricity and such. He has a wonderful outbuilding shop that would make a great staging area. I like to kid him and tell him that a wind turbine would be a great Father/Son project and even a better 3-generation event for my dad, my brother and his kids. His reply is that everything he reads about the magnets he would have to use would end up with someone in the family having less fingers than they started with. It doesn’t matter than I asked him how much money he would need to make a working wind turbine.
I am still working towards a working windmill/wind turbine that will give me enough power to at least give me light. My first attempt does produce power but it is currently not in a usable level. I think the windmill looks great and the tail makes it track and follow the wind so at least on that level it is a success.
My drive and enthusiasm is still in place and very much burning like the embers in a fire. I just need to keep working on getting the right fuel to get a fire going. I am finding some very interesting things on the internet and am may be getting close to purchasing some of the main components but wrapping coils and making a stator and setting magnets and making a rotor or two still seem intimidating.
One of the websites that probably gets me the most excited is Large 17’ Homebrew Wind Turbine. There are a lot of other sites but this one seems to capture the ultimate goal. It may be a little ambitious but what are dream for other than to stretch and try to reach them.
