200 Watt Homebuilt Wind Turbine
Recently, I've become pretty interested in figuring out ways to reduce my energy costs (and energy footprint). I'm not a radical environmentalist or anything, but it doesn't hurt to know that you can still watch The Colbert Report when the world's oil dries up and all of the rich people move to Mars. So, I did some research and some playing around. Eventually, I had this finished wind turbine that can produce enough electricity for me to use my laptop, lights, or TV anytime and anywhere I want for free! They are pretty easy to build using relatively common parts (a DC permanent magnet motor, a diode, and some PVC pipe), and I'll show you how to do it.