You live your life every day fully dependent on energy, mainly gas and electricity. But with the constantly rising costs of these energy sources, you might be wondering how you can cut back on these expenses and make your life a little easier. You likely already know about renewable energy and that it is being used around the world. But how do you take advantage of this without spending a fortune? You might want to consider building a windmill, but do you know how to build a wind generator?

That is a good question. Here are some simple steps to help guide you:

- First you need to know where you are going to put it. You need an area with at least a 300 to 400 foot radius of open space and a 30 to 40 foot vertical clearance. There are two types of towers you can choose from, a tilt-up or a freestanding design. Tilt-ups are more widely used in residential areas because they are easier to maintain, since you don’t need to climb them to clean them. However, since free standing towers are taller, they help maximize the output of your wind turbine.

- Next up on your list are the materials you are going to use. You can start with a high voltage, low current DC motor that runs at low rpm’s. This is the heart of the unit that will convert the wind into electrical current.

- Then comes the blades of the wind generator, which can be carved from plastic, wood, sheet metal or you could also use PVC pipes. Note that the longer the blades are, the wider its swept area covered, meaning the more power it can extract from the wind.

- The next step would be about fixing the hub, that which connects the blades onto the motor. One easy way would be to look for a scrap steel disc with which you can drill holes into and attach to a shaft that would connect the blades.

- After this, the tail and the pivot are now to be put together to keep the apparatus turned to the wind. This can be done by using a square tubing, pipe nipple, flange for the pivot and a scrap metal sheet for the tail.

- After setting up your wind generator, one more important step must be covered and that is the battery. Batteries are essential basically because it is where the converted energy is stored. Keep the batteries close to the generator as much as possible to monitor the charging, and look for highly efficient batteries, which are low in maintenance.

Batteries to be used are those for power system applications are called “deep cycle,” which are rated in amp-hours and have indication of its charge-discharge cycles.

In knowing how to build a wind generator it’s best to remember that placing a diode between the battery and the generator is good in order to prevent the energy from being wasted and flowing directly onto the generator itself. Adding a secondary load is helpful as a depot for excess energy produced.

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