Solar Power DIY Backup Options, Home Wind Power DIY
One thing about Home Wind Power is that a DIYer can build and experiment from the ground up. This is not quite so with solar power, where manufacture of good solar cells is beyond the capabilities of most back-yarders.
Three things you need to remember with wind turbines of any sort.
Robustness
Wind can be a very powerful force and is very unpredictable. You need to ensure that while weight of some components have to be considered for efficient working, you must ensure that you have designed for the worst possible wind, and/or have the ability to quickly disable and/or secure and/or lower it.
Alternator Design
First timers often try to base a wind generator around a car alternator. Usually the results are less than what they expect. Car alternators are designed to run at higher speeds. The powered required to energise the field windings also take power that could be charging the batteries. The alternator needs to be of a permanent magnet time and should be custom designed for the wind speeds, and rotation speed of the turbine blades or rotor. The rotation sped of the turbine depends on type of the turbine and shape of the blades.
Charge Regulator
Depending on the output of the turbine, you need to consider how you are going to prevent overcharging. Often this can be handled with addition of a relay and dummy load to some of the more sophisticated solar controllers that can switch on a load via a relay (remember the spike clamping diode) when the voltage reaches a set value. Failing this, a simple electronic circuit that can switch a dummy load could be simple built and employed. The dummy load could be a coil of resistance wire, or perhaps couple of halogen lights. You don’t usually want to just disconnect the turbine from the charging since that will allow the turbine to spin faster in a large wind, where keeping the load connected will provide a means of speed limiting on the wind turbine.
Hope this gets you thinking and inspired to look further.
