Here are the photos of the finished turbine. The LED's brightness directly relates to the speed of the wind. It makes a beautiful dimming, brightening, dimming, sort of breathing pattern when in use. I originally wanted to make a bigger more extravagant diffuser than the little bird, but it was so cute, and it works very well for its purpose.
Materials : PVC, an old 2x4, old case fan, laser cut acrylic, a couple diodes and capacitor, rice paper, 1" and 1.25" electrical conduit tubing.
The steel tubing attached to the wood mount slides inside this much longer one so the turbine can freely pivot to always stay in the wind. Laser cut a small square of acrylic to serve as a tail/guide.
Little bird diffuser cut out of some extra rice paper I had in my studio. Neatly covers a 10mm LED connected to the motor.
The turbine only generates 2 volts at max speed so it powers exactly one 10mm LED. I do love the rather simple form. Beautiful, but so little energy for the labor! I tried to get some footage of it in action, but of course as soon as you build a wind generator you will be faced with a series of days devoid of any breeze. Right now I only have two finished, but ideally I could make dozens and stake them in series on a hill. Especially in the dark all you will see are the birds fading in and out of existence with the whirring of the fans.
1 comment:
That's really cool! You should post pictures/video once you've set up all your turbines on the hill.
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