Home Energy @ Low Cost

**darmoore** · 04-19-2009, 10:18 PM

I have been looking for a long time now, and have not found a lot of help. I have heard the story of making your own generator using a GM alternator. All you have to do is buy permenent magnets, which I have not been able to find, and buy a new stator. Then, with just a piece of PVC pipe I can mount it and make my blades. I know a alternator is going to cost $35. I know that a section of 8 inch PVC is going to cost about $85. The end capes to make it waterproof are almost $40 apiece. Then there is the batteries, then the inverters. Now, you still have to get it up into the wind.
I have the material for a tower. I have the material to make the blades.
I need the scorce for a DC permenent magnet motor-generator.
Where does one find them?
I guess the other question that I would ask is, is it better to go with a small motor with high rpms? Or, would it be better to go with a large motor and large blades that one could run a gear reduction on?
The other question is how does one feed the power back into the electric panel? Do you need a flow control as in oneway? And, do you need a regulator for the amount of flow?

Looking for answers

**rbinck** · 04-20-2009, 10:01 AM

I don't think you need a new stator or electromagnets to use the GM alternator. It will need to get up to the speed it would on an engine though. If you use 12v batteries and inverters you can expect about 800 watts of a/c power from a 90 amp alternator. You will have to look into the gearing, but probably only a fan belt with a 8" pulley on the blades would work with the standard diameter pulley the alternator comes with. That would basically work for the blades operating at 1000 rpm or so. If you need it to run slower, say 500 rpm, then up the pulley size to 16" diameter on the blades. You will need to do some more research on what size blades you need for what would be approximately a 1.5 HP load based on your nominal wind speed.

You can also run more than one alternator if your blades are big enough to deliver more power.

I'd look at some RV dealers for the inverters. They have them in all sizes.

Feeding the power into your breaker box requires equipment that is probably not worth the cost, imo. I would find something to run off of the windmill that you could isolate, myself.

**eniyan4u** · 12-05-2009, 07:19 AM

I think Manual method of making alternators lead to failures or it doesn't work as we expect. There are always lot of possibility of mistakes in making alternators. The best way is to purchase a new one, it will be better and fully efficient.

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