Homemade Wind Turbine Generator VAWT Vertical
March 9th, 2010 | 
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Homemade Vertical Wind Turbine mounted behind my wall and isn’t visible from the street. Perfect turbine for HOA areas and in cities that won’t allow mast mounted turbines. This is a wing lift prototype I’m getting some numbers from to create an improved designed. I believe these are the future of wind energy. I also have so other alternative energy concepts on the drawing board I’ll post in the future. This intellectual property belongs to myself. However, please feel free to use this design for non-commercial purposes (your own home turbine). © 2009-2010 imikewillrockyou
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Hello Mike,
I am a …
Hello Mike,
I am a novice and just starting out trying to understand all this and build a wind turbine myself. Do you have plans to share of your turbine. I see you plan to show exactly how you built it, but I would love to get started.
This looks to be a …
This looks to be a stable and efficient design. I run a high rise beachside condo tower, and the wind around and between these buildings is constant and fairly intense. I’d like to build a VAWT that would be safe for people to walk past and that would be of interest to our tourists.
Hi Mike,
Are you …
Hi Mike,
Are you closed to Las Vegas? How can I contact you and perhaps meet you in person? Since I am new to YouTube, I am not sure if I am allowed to post my e-mail address.
Regards,
Andy
They are flat …
They are flat bottom wing surfaces. So they do have an airfoil that creates wing lift as the air flows in and back out of the turbine.
Did you bow the …
Did you bow the inside blades ? Or are they flat ?
It only spins …
It only spins clockwise. When it gets moving very fast the video camera can’t keep up and creates the illusion that it spins backwards.
great looking …
great looking turbine… keep up the good work…I just subscribed…….looking forward to the hopefully detailed pdf.
Hello Mike,
I´ve …
Hello Mike,
I´ve got one question, Why is your turbine spnning sometimes clockwise and sometimes re-clockwise ? Isn`t this a mistake ?
It is running the ” …
It is running the “wind blue” low wind alternator. It spins it a little over 300 rpm in a 20 mph wind in my recent tests, which is very good. Starts turning at about 8 mph. I’m going to post a video on exactly how to build this turbine soon. The wings are a fiberglass material. I’ve found that keeping these light makes a huge difference in performance. But there is more to it than even that. The exact spacing and angle has and huge effect and so-forth. I’ll post a PDF of parts and dimensions.
Too bad, I would …
Too bad, I would like to look closer. Is your turbine and cage fiberglass? Also, I notice the generator is vertical, did you replace the lower bearing or is it designed to be run in that position? Where did you get the generator? Sorry for so many questions, but your design is very clean and is close to what I have been contimplating for some time now, except a different method. What is your output to input ratio? I am anticipating 2 to 1 or better with my testing so far.
No those are Nevada …
No those are Nevada mountains. But this desert is so massive it starts to look the same starting in CA to NV to AZ to……well you know it’s easy to get lost out here.
Not patented but …
Not patented but still my design. Under U.S. Patent law a patent does not override whoever is “first to invent”. And It’s mine. But this is really just another Darrieus/Savonius combo turbine variant. But it has a few things that are uniquely my invention so I do claim that.
However, I’m releasing this little turbine to the public for non-commercial uses such as building your own turbine. I’ll be posting some videos on how to build this soon so stay tuned.
Best, Mike
Very clean design. …
Very clean design. Looks like the Tortalita mountains in the background. Are you in Tucson by any chance?
Interesting… is …
Interesting… is it patented?
Yes it’s a lift/ …
Yes it’s a lift/drag combo system. I will be posting more info shortly. This little turbine does work surprisingly well. Basically it’s fiberglass flat bottom wing surfaces with the leading edge pointing inwards. The top of the wings are outside. Angeled anywhere between 35 and 45 degrees works. 45 degrees (max drag) works best in low wind and 35 degrees best for high wind. I hope that helps.
All the best with your project. I’ll try to get more info up as soon as I can.
Nice looking …
Nice looking turbine! Is it a Lift and Drag system? Thanks for sharing your video. Are you sharing the plans, and if so, how can I get them? I live in a very windy area and would like to build a system like this
Nice turbine . …
Nice turbine . Thanks for sharing the Information .I subscribed .
I use it to charge …
I use it to charge up some golf cart batteries. I run power tools off of it and use it for back up power for my home. It’s possible to add a grid tie inverter and run your electric meter backward as you help power your neighborhood. Obviously this is a small but capable turbine. I just built a new improved turbine like this. I did video the whole process so I might upload that coming up. But it’s kind of long, 46 video segments! So I might need to make a DVD out of it. Or do a lot of editing.
hi i have a …
hi i have a question, what could you actually power with this? with the watts it puts out? i want to make a few of these for my home
This small turbine …
This small turbine does very well in 20-30 mph wind. However, the size alone does limit what it can do. I’ve considered building a larger alternator. However I’ll likely just gear up a couple standard PMAs with a larger turbine in this design or something very similar. It just works. =)
I have been working …
I have been working on a very similar design. I am getting similar results. Mine starts charging at about 140 rpm or 9mph winds. Spins up and then the alternator drag at cut-in speed limits further speed increases. Most I have seen is 1 amp, but we are getting high winds of 20-30 mph this week.
I have tried gearing. There isn’t enough power in the wind at small scale.
My next step is to double the coil count and place the magnets on the perimeter of the 28″ rotor. Lets compare notes.
The website is …
The website is windbluepower (com). Their low wind PMA reaches 12 Volts at 130 RPM which is nice for a direct drive system like this. It’s about 90 volts X 12 amps at 1000 RPM. So a little over 1000 watts at 1000 RPM.
It’s the wind blue …
It’s the wind blue low wind PMA. And yes you’ll never get 2000 rpm from a turbine this size without very high wind. There just isn’t that much energy in the wind even if you reach 100% efficiency. Once I have a turbine design I’m satisfied with I’ll scale it up and make a geared up turbine. I suppose if you make a turbine large enough you can max the alternator regardless of efficiency to the wind. So maybe cost of production vs. energy produced is the most important calculation.
wow 3.5 lbs! what …
wow 3.5 lbs! what is the wattage rating on your pma. min is rated 1800 watts at 2000 rpm. direct drive is nice but for me to achieve an average of 2000 rpm i have to gear it up. somehow
Using just the …
Using just the alternator bearing in direct drive and a brass bushing at top. Wood and fiberglass construction, wings at slightly less than 45 degrees in drag configuration. Likely not the best configuration for wing turbine but it works. Efficiency appears to be decent in moderate wind. However, it seems to have a built in drag limitation in higher wind. Likely a result of the drag configuration. It looks nice and works. I’ll get more efficiency with a little work. btw 3.5 lb turbine.