Small heads up for anyone making these: BROWN soil pipe is prone to deteriorating when exposed to UV light, so if you have to use brown soil pipe, I would suggest painting it or using some kind of UV inhibitor Modern black, grey or white soil pipe, on the other hand, is UV resistant 😉

Great video! I worked with small wind generators for a number of years. I noticed a stress point, on the way the blades are mounted to the plastic fan blades, over time the original blades will stress crack and fail. If you ad a blade brace to tie in all four blades on the front side of the blades, you will eliminate much of the stress on the original fan and give your windmill more longevity! Ed

2 minutes into it and i knew i could spend an entire 48 hours with you in a shop and it would feel like 4 hours went by. Curiosity, tools, knowledge. Like kids in a toy store. Awesome.

That was actually pretty awesome. I never considered the fact that there are HUNDREDS of inexpensive but robust, long-lived DC motors that can just as easily become stout little generators just hanging out at the Pull-A-Part. And some of them are even kind of big, larger units for cooling larger pickups and SUVs.

I'm female, older, still working, and am limited in both financial resources and time. I watch a LOT of UKposts vids on how to make projects simply, inexpensively, and that save me time. Your vids are always spot on and simple. So they are my first go to when I am looking for a solution. I love your shop! I agree with another comment, you need a companion video on how to mount this, and I would add, your simple windmill needs a tail so it can turn with the wind, as well as an easy to use breaking mechanism for when there's too much wind. Would be interested in a vid on these things too. Thanks for your videos! I'm a huge fan, excuse the pun!

My grandpa had a wind generator this size on his barn. Put a fan on a Model T generator so he could listen to his radio. The farm didn't have electricity. It put out 12 volts at 2 amps on a windy day. He made his own batteries too.

An improvement to this would be a dome shape on the end, so you can take advantage of the coanda effect to push some more wind to the widest parts of the blades. Also if you had rounded the ends out so they fit around the middle circle part + the dome on the end this would take the most advantage of coanda effect I think

Years ago I was teaching in a remote school on a small island in the North Pacific. One of my students built a wind turbine much like this one, except he used a car alternator to generate the power and whittled 4-foot blades out of 2x4s. He mounted it on a 20-foot pole outside the school shop, and when word got round (tiny school) that he was ready to raise it we all turned out to watch. The best description I can give is "terrifying". That 8' span instantly took the sea wind and the thing just started wamp-wamp-wamping like it would eat the world. Chris finally managed to stop the blades by turning them out of the wind (which meant he had to get up on a ladder right behind those freakin' whirling broadswords and push on the vane), but the concept was well-proven. I don't remember how much electricity he banked in the battery during that maiden run, but all who witnessed it undoubtedly remain impressed by the sheer power he'd harnessed.

One of the things that I like about your videos is the fact that you flat out enjoy what you do! Most of your videos seem to convey that without seeming acted out or scripted. Good show!

Robert....thank you so very.very much for taking the time and sharing this build.....would never in a thousand years have thought of using a fan mother to make a wind turbine....so happy.....now I know how it’s done....thank you so much...Dave 👍

The simplicity exhibited here is fantastic! Thank you for sharing!

That was brilliant! Loved the simplicity of the build and the excellence of the presenter. Thank you 😊

Genuine Happiness when laughing,, You are true to YourSelf as to us,, Take Care Sir

Im so happy to have found your channel, it’s truly a hidden gem. I love your content and your enthusiasm towards your work.

Thank you Robert! I'm definitely going to use this with my off-grid home.

Make like 10 of them using a Rose blade, various sizes down to a Rose Bud, and mount it on a windward wall. Paint them the color of flowers with different color patterns or different pinwheel patterns and colors. If it is too windy sometimes, add shrouds mounted separately that can automatically pop up in high winds and redirect some of the wind. Shape and paint the pop-up shrouds like giant leaves. The blades will still turn but shrouds will protect it from blowing apart. Just use a simple lever that has tension to hold shrouds down at low winds and high winds pry them up. Once wind goes down the shrouds go back in place. You can even design the shrouds to look like pedals that close and cover up the blade assembly.

Maybe next video could be how to deal with the power it generates and the storage system; if you can.

My son and I are learning arduino together, this windmill would be perfect for building and testing many things, like charge controller, wind speed indicator, as well as wireless communications to tell us when certain things are happening with the controller or generator etc. I have a number of automotive cooling fans, so I really enjoyed the video and the knowledge shared.

It was satisfying to see such a simple build working so well!

I'm looking for ideas on self sustaining DIY things people can build at home and for there communities. Decided I wanted to make a wind turbine and this is the first video I clicked on. Just great! Really enjoyed it. Simple, Effective, Thank You!

Great video, thanks Robert. Would be great to see new video of the energy produced, perhaps measure the voltage over a specific load. Seems to me that the fan is build for high rpm so would expect it to be small amount of energy generated in moderate wind.

I expect the large blades to fatigue the original blades at the hub in a few hours of use. You also need to balance the prop to reduce induced vibration.

I've made this style blade before for a school project... a little smaller but it works fantastic! Inspiring!

Love your channel, mate. Recently subscribed so looking forward to looking through your videos. Thank you!

Amazing. most importantly your genuine smile makes others happy. thank you so much Sir.

I would love to see a comparison of this vs a wind generator built on an alternator. watts, voltage, etc.

Each of your videos puts me back in shop class as a young man eagerly listening to the teacher give us lessons on mechanical fixes in daily life.

Nice concept, compliments! One mention, tough: the tips of the blades are perpendicular to the fan axis and if I'm right, those regions are not generating torque, instead are generating drag, isn't it? Maybe a bit more inclination on the blades would increase the efficiency and also help withstand better a roughly wind? What do you think? Thanks for the knowledge! Appreciated!

Rob, I love the idea, simple but very effective. May I recommend using grey soil pipe, the brown is for in ground use only as it does not like UV light, hence, it will fade and eventually crack if used outdoors. The grey will do the same job and can withstand the UV light. Keep up the great ideas.

That’s quite some wind! The box in the background adds to the effect.

Marking the tubing with the cross on a bit of paper was genius, I'm enjoying watching your wind generator playlist on a lazy Sunday, very inspirational.

I have a few sheds and chicken coup that I heat and light now and then. Solar does the trick but this is so much cheaper and I have an almost constant breeze here. This will be for my patio and outdoor lights. Love this.

I did this almost exact same thing when i was younger. using a car fan motor. i used different blades though, yours are way bigger and work better.

Very cool stuff, just curious what sort of wattage you got or what the current was at 20v? Keep up the good work 😃

Been going through all your videos from oldest to newest. this is the tech that got me interested in doing so and this is the video that motivated me to fix my youtube to allow me to join a channel for the first time. And now I'm a member :)

Robert Murray-Smith thank you so much for your time and bringing this to us all. In these strange times, we're living in, this may be very useful data indeed. Flourish and Prosper.

just brilliant..it really spun up, this is absolutely a project I'm going to experiment with.

You just got to work on a pivot , a slip ring and a vain to direct it into the wind along with the relevant diodes and such to make it usable to store energy in a battery . Go on do part two please.

What I love about this video is a real man making a real product. Most wouldn't even be able to hold that thing in the wind and if they did they'd probably lose their head. Cool video man

Mr. Murray-Smith, I like the way you think! Very handy! You get much faster rotation than I was expecting. I may in fact have to do this myself to power an LED light on my separate garage. All good wishes!

I would love to see a follow up video. I know that results would depend on the motor, wind speed etc. but I think it would still be very interesting. Thanks for sharing.

Great video as usual. How many of those would it take to run a small refrigerator? A ballpark figure would be plenty good if it's not asking too much.

Absolutely Excellent! Finnaly something straight forward that is cost effective. I appreciate this content so much!

That's great! Now I'm looking at my ceiling fan that I'm about to replace and I'm thinking of turning that into a wind generator. Man, I'd love to hang out with you in your shop and just brainstorm and put stuff together. Thanks for putting this video together. Very informative and inspirational! Cheers!

oh man I love your passion and those brilliant projects too!

Be sure to coat the white plastic portion to protect it from the elements. It will also aid it from stress cracking.

Thank you so much for this! I'm about to start a small research project focusing on small-scale wind turbines using common, available parts and your videos are so wonderfully helpful. Cheers!

Hello Robert, Great video. Very informative. I have just one question: Could someone use the motor from a ceiling fan?

Thanks for the video. Nice to hear you got up to 20 volts. What watts or amps did you get from it?

And yes i absolutely loved the video, & I'd a never thought of using an ol car cooling fan motor, brilliant

Great diy video! If I can suggest doing the wind test with a load, then a more useful power output number would be useful. The voltage by itself doesn't mean much without a load. Great idea on using pipe sections for windmill blades.

I love your videos. Never too long and always simply explained. Thanks for talking the time make these

Congrats from Argentina Robert. Your videos are great, full of intetesting stuff.

You looked like you were having fun! Thank you for posting 🙏💖

I've used a drawer with the face edge corner to mark a straight line. For this you could clamp a 4' stick on the bench and put the tube against it to draw the straight line. Great video.

thank you. I am going to build one this week for my off grid home. I have a parts vehicle with the fan already off! super exciting!

Love it Robert, exactly what I was looking for.

I love your energy you are like my electronics teacher back in highschool haha

Good presentation. I would like to suggest a modification of your design; do you think if you attached the hub to something that looked like a barrel which has vertical blades you wouldn’t have be concerned about wind direction or movable generator wire connections?

An exercise wheel for a pet? You got my wheels turning. Thanks for sharing !

Robert, I wonder how it might work with a vertical drum style turbine? That would offer an omnidirectional presentation towards the wind without the need of slip rings or re-centring springs, wind vane and the need for counter weights and more critical levelling.... which would work well on a sailing boat... thoughts?

OMG, that was amazing. Thanks for the how-to!

When you were out here and the wind was blowing stuff across the ground, it looked like a normal September spring(or March Autumn) day here in southern Tasmania! 🤣 We haven’t had too much of that in the last few years though. Things are changing…

Love all your videos by the way. Wouldn't a pointed tip end on the blades be the most efficient?

Great video! I would love to see what kind of water generation you could make out of an old washing machine, I've thought about that a bit and it seems like there's a lot of free power in those parts with a little bit of a stream or creek.

That's brilliant, I was thinking use a car alternator. But the fan motor is so simple.👍

I'm only into this video by about 2 minutes and I already like the way this chap explains things

Great video - Would using a car alternator be any good since power generation is it's function after all? Thanks

I wish I had friends like this.

It would be interesting, to see how many short-circuit amps the generator could have produced, by setting the meter to amps, and connecting that across the terminals of the fan motor.(That would give some idea of the available torque of the new blades)

Fabulous video. Simple and it does the job. I am sticking that in the mental tool box for when I get some time to fool around. Now to regulate the voltage. Thanks

Hey. Love your smile. No smartass youtuber here. Keep it up. Hoping for an second episode of this DIY project. Cheers

Great vid Robert! Thank you for sharing! And you get a thumbs up simply for reminding me of Anthony Hopkins.

that was great, it made me smile watching you in the carpark laughing at your own handy work, something i would do, whilst the kids are inside saying "what is he doing now, embarrassing" LOL keep up the good work

Awesome job Robert, I am sure many will benefit from your show. God bless you.

Hello Robert, nice video ! how many amps could this thing draw ? Thanks.

I love the way you hide what you're doing and dont explain what you're doing. Best mystery story ever.

Great video as always Robert! I remember reading somewhere that motors from Exercise Treadmills make excellent wind generators.

Ok, I get it now. It is a wind powered generator. I clicked on expected a machine that generated wind. I was very keen to learn how a wind generator differed from a fan. In the end, not so much. It would be quite easy for me to spend a lot of time in your shop. Great stuff!

BREAKING NEWS: Man dies in freak accident involving soil pipe travelling at 70 miles per hour! Keep up the great work Robert. It would be interesting to quantify the difference that installation height makes to the efficiency of a wind turbine and that's an experiment I plan to undertake in the near future.

20 volts at how many amps though. You need the amp measurements to calculate watts. The a dc to ac converter to step up the voltage at the expense of amps.

At about 2:25 what you are marking the lines along the length of the pipe, a extremely easy way to do that is to use a piece of angle iron or aluminum, lay the angle on the pipe so both open edges touch and scribe the line, perfectly straight. Size of the angle doesn’t matter, 1”x1” or 3/4”x2” they all work.

Thanks for the video. So any fan can be used to reverse the generation of electricity? Even a house fan ? Thanks

Dear Robert, Great video as always :). Quick question: as an avid fan of your work I would love to assist. I already support you through your membership program, but is there more I or others who feel the same can do to further aid you?

Thanks so much for this, as soon as the lockdown ends I’m off to a car scrapyard for one of those motors! Be nice to see an equally simple way of connecting gene up to Batteries, and perhaps, from Batteries to 240Vac appliances. A voltage regulator or charge controller etc for gene to Battery bank, and a simple inverter etc, from bats to appliance sockets?

having seen washing machine motors used i wondered about using the drum fixing vertical blades and driving motor that way!

Jolly Good Job Man! We live in a Beach Town so have a constant coastal breeze; this will work nicely,.

Enjoyed that. Seems to simple. What sort of amps, watts, if I may inquire?

Great job. Although the speed at the tip probably exceeds the lift, and are thus probably creating drag. That is why blades made from pvc drain pipe are best tapered to a point and a low pitch cut on the leading edge to still create lift and cause less drag.

Great video. Been trying all sorts of motors. split system in house blowers the best Ive found FMDC....So now im off to the wreckers to get some of these and make these with my 17year old students

Two hints for drafting the lines out for cutting the pipe up. Got these from years of making high powered rockets. Wrap a strip of paper a few inches wide around the perimeter of the pipe, the exact width is not important. Wrap it around once tightly and cut it so it just overlaps and tape it, so you have a band around the pipe. Hold the pipe up in a door jamb and trace a straight line across the paper and cut it. Fold the paper exactly in half and crease it. Do it a second time. Wrap the paper back around the pipe and tape it. Now line one of the creases up in a door jamb and draft out that line. Do the same with the other three. This is pretty common for spacing rocket fins. How much power were you able to get out of it? I am guessing under 50W. Not bad if you can get the fan for free.

It seems like cardboard boxes make good wind-catchers too 🙄😂😂 I assume the o/p current is similar to the (optimised) running current whilst in the car... so o/p will be fairly low... 🤔 A vertical model (VAWT) using a 40gal barrel cut in half feeding a geared-up alternator or brushless motor would be non-directional & self-throttling.. I believe the halves need a slight overlap for easier starting.. 😎👍☘🍺

Nice idea. Now, my concern is, that probably the cheapest way to store the power, is using car batteries. But I put four of them in series, when I was 14, to make an arch welding setup. It operated intermittently successfully for perhaps a minute. However, during the high current discharge, the batteries had created very large quantities of hydrogen gas, which I didn't think of. Also, I had severely underestimated how thick the wiring needed to be. (I musn't ever have seen car jumper cables?!) The wires melted and somehow, some small spark was created, igniting the hydrogen gas outside and inside the the car batteries, causing two of of them to violently explode and hurling shattered batteryparts through the air, and presumably also acid. Perhaps luckily, I had my back turned at the explosion. In conclusion, I since then carry great respect and awareness of the dangers associated with car batteries. Indeed any high capacity battery. And I feel hesitant to build a huge powerbank with them. It would have to sit in another shack / building away from my house. And then I would still feel I lived close to a minor bomb.,

I saw some interesting demonstrations of do-it yourself wind turbines made from recycled materials following a design from Hugh Piggott, aiming at a higher but not highest efficiency, with aerofoil section wood blades carved in a simple way that didn't require extreme carpentry skills, a car wheel hub assembly, and homemade generator parts made from coils of reused copper wire and little rare earth magnets from computer hard disc mechanisms set in moulded resin discs. This was by a group of engineers called V3, who did hands on DIY workshops at events like green festivals and Climate Camp demos. Another thing to check out, experimenters in New Zealand have been using very efficient, flat direct-drive low speed brushless motors from a local washing machine company called Fischer & Paykel, to make various experimental generators, and I understand Samsung, LG, and Maytag USA and others are now making the same motor design under license. And another thought, what are the possibilities of flat brushless DC motors (some with nice rare earth magnets) in electric-bike wheels? As these bikes get damaged and thrown away, it's now possible to find the wheels at rubbish tips. A combination of a steel disc brake on the hub, and a stiff wheel rim further out, should assist making a solid robust attachment for turbine blades.

Excellent idea, and great demo! Not sure, but it appears that the "imitation propeller blades" are turning backward - compared to actual aircraft prop blades. (I'm a retired pilot.) That being said, it can be "fixed" and work even better! Good job!!

Question... Is there a DIY voltage regulator/charger we can hook up to this for then connecting to a battery array?

Nice, what was the windspeed out that day? You know, my luck, as soon as I made one and got it up, the wind would stop blowing for 10 years.....

Hey great video ! I wonder how much the potential rpm's would be reduced when under a load ? Like a light bulb ? I think it would work great to trickle charge a battery . Enjoy your videos !

Wonderful explanation and video. Got to try this product.

what amps could it do. in a fast wind . put windmill on a pole and letts see what power you can get out of it .