Minnie The Minx!

[Timothy Barker]

This is our latest DIY wind turbine design. We took a computer fan kindly donated to us by a guy from the local University then first of all extended the blades with some balsa wood. The balsa wood is simply taped onto the original plastic blades with strong insulation tape. Next up we took a bubble gum tube to act as the body of the device - it was found lying around the street - and inserted two AA batteries inside of it. The wires from the battery unit are then connected to the 12V DC brushless fan motor. Brushless is a good way to go as there's less friction. One needs to connect a diode across one of the connections between the battery and motor though to prevent the battery from attempting to power the motor - we only want the current to flow in one direction: from the motor (now a generator) to the battery.

The motor is attached to the body using a kind of clamp we had lying around - proably the kind of thing you can find in your local DIY store as plumbers may use it? The motor is bolted onto one end of this then the pipe fitting goes around the bubble gum tube. The tail is then lashed onto the body of the tube using string but not before a piece of dowelling is taped to the body - the opposite side to the motor. This dowelling is then inserted into a piece of tube with a washer resting under the body.

We left this device over night and the voltage from the batteries went up from 1.83 V to 2.13 V. Not a lot you may think but at least it proves the design works! We were ecstatic! So now we've added a solar array we had lying around to Minnie the Minx to create our favoured hybrid solution. Something not too dissimilar from the HYMini only DIY! :-))