Inexpensive Mini Turbine

Knowing a teacher or two and with Momma Cat's bean counting problem, we thought we better come up with an extremely inexpensive turbine. This way the bean counter and teacher in all of us can be happy :-)

Why build one of these mini turbines? Well they are inexpensive ;-) There is the wow factor. There is the educational benefits. The greatest benefit though is getting someone interested in green energy. Just look how easy it is to generate power. Yeah it is a very small amount of power but to most people electricity is not something easily understood. Get people interested in this easy to build, inexpensive turbine and perhaps they will be inspired to learn more. Have to light a match to get a fire.

These are so easy to make we had Cool Cat (8 year old) build it. That's his hand in the video. Couldn't get him to keep his hands off it lol. We hope that you enjoy this instructable and please check out our other instructables at - https://www.instructables.com/member/Cats+Science+Club/ and don't forget to follow us!

Cat's Science Club

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What you will need are easily found at a hardware store.

Okay, we know what some of you are thinking, why a solar path light? Well we had bought around 20 at a dollar store. There are some cool instructables on here that show what can be done with the solar panels. We just need the tube off it. So take the tube off and save the rest of the solar light for your next instructable.

Materials

Electrical Tape

Motor- Pull out of old VCR or DVD player or buy off e-bay

Solar Path Light - Just need the pole off it.

Red LED

Wood or Plastic - To make the tail. We used a shim but you could use just about anything.

3/4" PVC Pipe Fitting Tee

3/4 to 1/2 Bushings (2)

Hot Glue

Super Glue

Wire

Drill - Not Shown

Blades - Not Shown - Your own design or use ours

Cost

Your cost maybe different depending on what materials you have available. We had things like the glue, wire, shim (many other things will work), wire, and electrical tape ($2). The red LED is under $.10 (Amazon or eBay). The motor can be free if you find an old VCR or DVD. The bushings cost $.37 each and so did the 3/4" PVC Tee (PVC parts less than $1.20). Solar path light from dollar store, only a $1, but you could try some thinner PVC or strong tube that will fit through the PVC Tee. We spent under $5 for all the parts we didn't have. The cheapest turbine we could find on Amazon was just over $11 but the mini turbines go up in price to $60 plus.

We don't need the light fixture from the solar light but we need the tube that the light sets on. Take the tube off and save the solar light for another instructable. We will use the tube for our pole. The spike that comes with the tube is great for setting the pole in the grass or in a house plant. Fat Cat even had it stuck in a soda pop can. But be careful with the sharp side of the spike. Try to always have the spike safely in the tube or in the ground.

Place the 3/4" to 1/2 " bushings into the 3/4" PVC Tee. Make sure to only put them into the openings that are across from one another.

Okay, most of us didn't know what a bushing was. Good thing that a friendly hardware sales person asked us what we were looking for and pointed these out to us. The bushings narrow the opening to the PVC Tee and makes a great fit for our pole.

So why not just get 1/2 PVC Tee? Well our motor will not fit into 1/2 :-( but it does fit the 3/4 pretty good :-)

The solar light's tube needs to be modified slightly so the turbine will swivel on it and face the wind. We added electrical tape until the PVC Tee would set on the tube with out falling but not so much the PVC Tee couldn't move.

The 3/4" Tee is just a tiny bit to big for our motor. To fix this we had to add electrical tape around the motor. Now we have a great fit.

Time to add the tail. Many different materials could be used on this and most of them will work. Simply glue the tail of your choice onto the PVC Tee and let dry.

Mark where the hole will be for the motor, wire, LED connection and drill to the size of your LED bulb.

Connect your wires to the motor and fish through the hole.

Do not actually solder your LED. Simply wrap the wires around the legs of the LED. Long leg positive and short leg negative. When spinning the motor one way the LED will light up but turning it the other way it wont. Make sure the blades that you put on are spinning the motor in the correct direction. If not, simply switch the legs of the LED. Make sure to test before gluing the LED in place.

Straighten out the LED and glue into place. We show a LED holder to show another possibility for mounting the light into your hole.

Add your blades to the motor. We took two propeller blades, crossed them, and glued them together. Blades could be made from plastic bottle (a good quality one) or wood. Cutting blades from a plastic McDonald's cup, gluing them to a plastic pop lid, poking a small hole in the lid, and placing that on your turbine works well too.

This is our first truly inexpensive design. We had it out on the beach for a week. The picture shows some rust caused by the ocean water that was splashing up on it all week long. Not that bad.

This is an even easier turbine build. No wiring and no drilling needed! Just connect the LED right to the motor.

We used 1/2" PVC Tee which is to small for our motor and that is why the motor is on the outside.