Wind Generator
A low-investment windplant that's a backyard tinkerer's dream, including make do and make it work, the chain's weak link, a sound investment.
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Marshall Price's ability to find treasures in trash culminated in the construction of this 2-kilowatt wind-powered generator. His $300 investment has reduced his electric bill to about $20 a month.
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From Mother No. 84
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Marshall Price's "Basement-Built"
A low-investment windplant that's a backyard tinkerer's
dream
"Dunkirk Man Builds Windmill at Modest Investment; Cuts His
Utility Bill." That headline, followed by a short article,
ran in the August 1, 1978, edition of western New York's
Dunkirk-Fredonia Evening Observer. Hardly
earth-shattering news, but it did stick in the memory of
MOTHER's editors . . . one of whom paid a visit to Mr.
Price at his home on the shores of Lake Erie.
And what our staffer saw there was yet another example of
commonsense appropriate technology: Mr. Price, a
typewriter repairman by trade and a part-time machinist and
welder, had pieced together—for about $300—a
wind-driven electrical generator . . . one that has
supplied much of his home's electrical needs since Mother's
Day of 1976!
Make Do, and Make It Work
Marshall's story really began after the Price family built
their lakeside residence nearly 18 years ago. The constant
breeze blowing off the water served as an everpresent
reminder that free energy was going begging . . . but it
wasn't until Mr. Price started collecting information on
wind machines, and ran across "a little red book on
homemade energy" (THE MOTHER EARTH NEWS Handbook of
Homemade Power), that he finally found the answer to
the problem that had been keeping him from building his own
plant: the need for information concerning the design and
fabrication of the all-important wooden blades. Once he'd
uncovered that technique, the rest, for the most part, was
a matter of locating junkyard parts and fitting them
together so they'd be compatible with one another and with
the nature of the lakeside breezes.
"One thing about the wind here," he told us, "it's darned
unpredictable. It can be blowing nicely at a steady 18
miles per hour, and then all of a sudden it whips up to 30
knots without so much as a how do you do. On top of that,
it changes direction just as erratically . . . and that can
play the devil with your equipment. A 12' rotor spinning at
200 RPM or so has tremendous inertia, and doesn't take
easily to being reoriented."
It was critical, then, that Marshall Price plan for these
contingencies before beginning the construction of his
plant. He first scrounged a Delco ambulance alternator that
was capable of delivering 147 amps at about 15 volts . . .
which figures out to be over 2,000 watts in a very strong
breeze. After reconditioning this component, the
do-it-yourselfer started working on a governor system
that'd allow his three 6' blades to feather—that is,
pivot on their mounts—when wind speeds got
dangerously high. (When feathered, the blades are less
effective as airfoils, and thus keep the rotor's RPM within
safe limits.)
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