How to make wind turbine blades from PVC pipe
PVC Wind Turbine Blades - How To Make Guide
How to make cheap, easy to build, PVC Wind Turbine Blades.
Most Renewable Energy enthusiasts have a good grasp of how to use a
PMDC Motor as a generator to make a DIY Wind Turbine but the
sticking point is usually how to make a set of good wind turbine
blades.
Below we will show you how it is done with cheap, accessible
materials, for little or nothing.
PVC Wind Turbine Blades are becoming more and more common for
homemade wind turbines. The raw material, PVC pipe, is easy to find,
cheap, easy to work with, and performance is more than acceptable
for a small basic wind turbine generator. PVC wind turbine blades
can simply be bolted onto a Permanent Magnet DC Alternator or
suitable Stepper Motor and you already have a basic wind turbine.
Below is an example design of a one piece (two blade) PVC wind
turbine propeller.
This design may be adapted with more turbine blades to fit a 3 blade
or even 5 blade turbine configuration setup.
One of the most difficult parts of making your own wind turbine is
producing turbine blades. Wind turbine blades go through enormous
stresses and must be made to quite exacting tolerances if they are
to balance and not send destructive vibrations through your wind
turbine resulting in a catastrophic failure of your wind turbine.
In strong winds the flexibility of the PVC blades is useful as it
takes some of the energy out of the wind preventing the wind turbine
generator from excessive spinning (Overrun)
and being damaged. Obviously you need to take care to ensure that
the blades cannot bend back far enough to hit the wind turbine mast.
Individual wind turbine blades can be cut out of the pipe using a
jigsaw or hacksaw blade, or a one piece pair of blades can be made.