Project Table of Contents
- What kind of energy should I harvest?
- City ordinance and neighborhood considerations
- Installing the tower base
- Building and securing the tower
- Building and installing the wind turbine
- Selecting the type of turbine
- Choosing AC or DC
- Prototype, aka “Mark 1”
- Building the “Mark 2”
- Video of the finished Mark 2 in action
- First measureable power output (this article)
- Wiring up the electrical connections
- Wiring
- Preventing “reverse flow”
- Regulating and controlling the charge
- Batteries
- Dump Loads
- Afterward…
First Measurable Power Output
At long last, the Backyard Wind Turbine project has shown its first real, tangible results!
Tonight we got some pretty decent winds, with gusts around 30 mph. My son and I grabbed the multimeter and a flashlight so we could show you the results. This video was just after a sustained period of strong winds that got us high 40 to mid-50 volt output. Up to this point I’ve been measuring on my meter’s 20VDC setting, I was continuously “out of range” on this setting and had to bump it up to 200VDC to show you the results.
This video is right after the strong winds, but still getting decent output. I apologize, in advance, for the lighting and quality of the video. I hadn’t planned on jumping out there in the cold, windy night to shoot so we just had an LED flashlight and me trying to record and hold the multimeter at the same time.
Impressive for something I put together myself. It just goes to show you, even in a “poor wind” area like where I live, there is still a substantial amount of power that can be harvested relatively inexpensively.
This weekend I plan on picking up Part 6: Wiring up the electrical connections. Stay tuned!
