Micro Wind Turbine

I've finally started to experiment with micro wind power and here is turbine 'Test 1.' It's made from bits of everthing. The blades are from a defunct ceiling fan and the hub is the base of an old desk lamp that stopped working. All the nuts and bolts came from a broken desk fan and I'll be using other parts of that for gearing and drives later on. The motor drove the radiator fan in a Japanese car and will be used in reverse, as a generator. The idea is to generate a useful 12volts to charge a couple of car batteries for emergency lighting use. As we live in a town, siting will also be a big consideration to keep it safe and so it doesn't annoy the neighbours.

The blades are temporary and will be replaced by ones made from sections of 110mm soil pipe, although the angled brackets they will be mounted to are ideal for getting a pitch. I don't see the motor acting as much of a generator without being turned at high speed so I'm looking at using old bicycle parts to introduce some gearing (1:5 or 1:10, something like that).

The big problem so far is a lack of wind to see if it will turn. The kids' little windmill acts as a kind of wind speed indicator!