Unusual Use of Ceiling Fan Blades. Making Small Electricity Producing Wind Turbine

Hi readers in this Instructable I have come up with some interesting project, With the combination of a 775 dc motor and ceiling fan blade i was able to produce electricity from the winds of my backyard!

I have made a electricity-producing turbine that was made using ceiling fan blades! Yes, you heard it right.

The science behind this working is very simple when you provide power to a ceiling fan it gives out the air by consuming electricity, i reverse engineered this

In my case, the ceiling fan blade moves to the movement of the wind spinning the dc motor shaft producing electricity

You can also store this power on a battery and use later on!

How this produces electricity?

This setup works based on the principles of electromagnetic induction and mechanical energy conversion. Here's a breakdown of the principle behind its working:

Mechanical Energy Conversion

When the wind blows, it causes the ceiling fan blades to spin. The kinetic energy of the moving air is transferred to the blades, causing them to rotate. This mechanical energy is harnessed in the spinning motion of the fan blades.

The 775 DC motor here I'm using is a device that converts electrical energy into mechanical motion (when used as a motor) or mechanical motion into electrical energy (when used as a generator). In this case it as a generator.

Electromagnetic Induction

The DC motor operates based on the principle of electromagnetic induction. Inside the DC motor, there are coils of wire that are wound around an armature (rotating part). When the armature rotates, it cuts through the magnetic field created by the permanent magnets or field coils in the motor. This cutting of magnetic lines of force induces an electrical current in the coils, generating electricity.

Except for the project part, this also demonstrates the fundamental principles of energy conversion and electromagnetic induction.

With this being said let see how you can build this!

Supplies

• Ceiling fan blades
• 775 DC motor
• Couple of screws( i recycled from old fan)
• Screw driver
• LED panel for testing
• Piece of cardboard for marking
• Hexa cutter
• Piece of wood
• Pen for markings
• Super glue
• Charging board, rechargeable batteries and a switch - Optional

Step 1: Circuit

The circuit part is very simple there are 2 options that you can implement on the current project.

The first is connecting the terminals of the DC motor directly to the LED panel, this is kind of like straight to the point!

This means the generated electricity is used up in real-time by the LED, and when the blades stop spinning the production of electricity stops

The other one is interesting, I have used a battery that stores the energy when the blade spins, and with the help of a switch, you can turn the led panel on or off.

Here I will be using a rechargeable battery to store energy and a charging board to regulate the flow of power to the battery via the board from the dc motor.

This is useful when you need the light on the required times, I'm working on this part and will let you know how it went in my future posts

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Step 2: Marking the Centre Points

Since we have 3 blades and the shape of these blades are little different their connecting parts are also different.

So to make the running of these blades smooth without any vibration we need to find the exact center points.

So I marked 4cm dia on a cardboard and cut a circle, I placed the circle below and kept these blades on top.

After some trials, I was able to keep all the 3 blade joining points and later marked the same on the piece of cardboard.

End of this step we have all the points marked, make sure you are not mismarking any points as the role of alignment plays a very important role here.

Step 3: Cutting the Connector

The same marks which was made on a piece of cardboard was traced on a piece of wood.

I used mini hexa blade to cut the extra parts outside the circle.

You can use sandpaper to finish the edges in case if you think your edges did not come out well!

After we have the part ready we need to work on the inside part, that is making the holes on the marked areas.

Make sure to check the size of the screws which you will be using, in my case it was 4mm dia screws and accordingly i made holes

Step 4: Blade Connector

To keep all the blades in one place while not disturbing the mechanism of airflow we need a Hub.

I found that working on wood is way much easier than working with metal, So the choice of material was wood for me.

After the holes are made on the connector part, reinforce the sides by applying a small amount of super glue

Now we can attach the blades, make sure you are linking 2 blade slots followed by adding a screw.

After all 3 screws are aligned tight them using a driver, At this point you will notice all the blades are combined together and ready for the next step

Step 5: Finishing and Testing

To make it simpler I will call the wooden part that we made a hub, this hub has a hole to which we will add the DC Motor shaft.

I have drilled the hole in such a way that the shaft fits perfectly to the hub, you can also add a drop of superglue if you think you need more strength, in my case no glue was required.

Now as we have all the components ready, The only thing pending is adding this setup to a place where the wind blows quite often.

Instead of putting this up on a height place, I attached this to a small table kind of thing that was laying in my backyard.

I used a piece of small rope that was winded across this table, later I kept this table in a place that receives a good airflow.

Within no time the fan blades started to spin and in return, the LED panel started to glow.

Step 6: Working Video

Check out this video that shows even with a low amount of wind speed this fan is able to rotate and produce electricity.

I have attached a small LED panel, to which when the shaft of the dc motor rotates the LED panel glows.

Hope you found this idea useful, Thank you for showing interest.