Home micro power station.

Hi ​@Rocksteady

There are a couple of brilliant things going on here. Firstly you turned your skills into a hobby that actually generates some income and you have posted it on here. Have you considered turning it into a blog as you can add more diagrams and pictures than you you can do directly onto a forum post? If you DM ​@Emmanuelle_OVO I'm sure she will direct you a couple of blogs that have worked well. Don't do what I did and launch something to rival War and Peace though. Updates are good as well together with links to reference material is all good. Also, say how you live with the system in practical terms and perhaps what you would have done differently or done more of.

Secondly, you've kept yourself mentally active during this time which is very good for your health. In my retirement I bought an EV and changed my tariff to save money and then found that going green was actually cheaper than my previous ‘gas’ centric lifestyle. That has kept me active and reduced my energy costs by a large amount.

I would very much enjoy reading a blog based on your project and certainly how you started out and how it evolved.

Peter

Hi Peter,

My age and general direction of travel in life means that forums and blogs are all the same to me (what's the difference?). It's all young mans magic to me. Generators, model aircraft & narrow boats are one thing, but this game is slightly above me. We didn't get our first computer till 1999 when I was 48, then we really began learning how to use it when we bought a model aircraft business in 2000, the internet then was screechy dial up costing an arm, leg & left lung to use.

Let me know what a "blog" really is and I might consider it👍

A blog is basically where you can start from a document and then post it as a seperate entity in a different part of the site. You can create, edit, insert diagrams etc off line and then publish it when you feel it's ready. To be honest, it's more work than just posting a message but a message will get lost as latter posts are added.

As a blog it sits in a relevant part of the site and you can post links to it, or other people can easily post a link to it and it can be downloaded as a reference document if you want to read it in parts or keep it for the ideas in it. People can make comments on it so you effectively have you own personal area for your project.

What you have done already is great but a blog might keep your work in a more prominent location.

Peter

Some examples of excellent blog posts by our Community Members 😊:
 

Ah yes. My A New Chaos blogs do go on a bit but if you were to consider a shorter one - essentially just taking what you have already published but adding some more pictures on the practical aspects of making it work you are likely to get a following and a discussion on that.

This is actually no different from about 60 years ago when I was a teenager interested in Amateur Radio and listening in to amateur radio operators (hams) discussing their particular set up, or rig as they used to call them. It's just they had to describe their rig (DIY or bought) over the air to others rather than having a written medium to share the details. There was the Amateur Radio Handbook that came out every year but that was a very limited and slow process. What we have now is a group of enthusiastic people but now focussed on green power (DIY or bought) with an easy and free access to a wide audience.

Well All,

In 2025, our 4 panels totalling 800 watts if the sun was on them all together (which it can’t because two face south and two west) plus the home built wind turbine of about 150 watts in a gale, contributed 31% of our total years usage. Given that we were away a fair bit as usual looking after family needs, I rekon that’s not a bad achievement.

Happy ecosaving to all during 2026👍😃

​@Rocksteady good morning and happy new year!

Thanks so much for the update - that’s absolutely fantastic! I can imagine it must be so satisfying to see your hard work pay off like this 👌👏.

I wonder - do you have any photographs of your turbine / set up that you could share on the Forum? They’ll be of interest to some of our community (myself included), but may also help inspire others who are thinking of taking a similar route.

Cheers!

Hi Ben,

next time I pull the turbine down when we go away to the midlands, I’ll do some close up photo’s of it. I’ll likely do a basic drawing of it showing the internal construction as well. It’s my latest version made up from a modern inverter drive washing machine motor (3 phase permenant magnet type) cobbled together on another bearing arrangement then an old aluminium cooking pot cut down to form the turbine blade hub. The bottom of the cooking pot was cut out to fit over the magnetic rotor, and the cut out was employed as the tail fin (see pic). I would have taken one of the front of it but that wouldn’t have been too good as the camera would be straight at the sun. It’s just a domed front cowl made from another old alluminium pot. The motor is 3 phase and I’ve built a 3 phase bridge rectifier mounted on the back of the turbine to give the DC output for my batteries.

Morning ​@Rocksteady,

Thanks for this - really interesting to see, the turbine looks really smart. Some close up photos would be greatly appreciated when you get the chance. How long did it take you to construct it?

I can’t give a figure on how long as it has all been a hobby project with no times logged as it has been a pick up and put down thing in the workshop as & when the mood takes. However, that all said, if I added up the hours, I would estimate roughly 24 (3 working days). If you looked at it from a time/cost point of view, it’s not worth it, but as a theraputic passtime with savings as a bonus, it’s worth every minute.