DIY Homebuilt Wind Generator Power | Excessive Wind Speeds
DIY homebuilt wind generators have a lot of advantages in cost and therefore are easier for a backyard mechanical type to get into residential windpower. Some of the drawbacks to building your own, however, are trial and error type learning experiences. One such experience could be that you will learn all about overspeeding caused by excessive amounts of wind. High winds can literaly tear your unit apart in short order. This means every system should have some method to slow the blades down and protect the mechanism from harm.
One method used is to place a load on the system by using up power with an electric heater or whatnot. This makes the system work harder and resistance will keep it from spinning as fast. Still, this can burn out your alternator and leave the system wide open to overspeeding out of control. More protection thn this may be necessary.
A better design feature is to have some method of the blades automatically turning out of the wind if speeds become too high or the load on the unit is too small for the electricity being generated. You can’t keep an eye on everthing in person 24 hours a day, so it is the best bet to build in some sort of failsafe to protect it. This would be installed right on the wind generator tower.
On huge commercial wind farm generators, a computer senses the wind speeds and using an electric motor, turns the entire mechanism slightly to the side. Smaller systems such as a do it yourself homebuilt wind generator usually are equiped with an offset rotor and tail stabilizer, which will turn to one side if blown on hard enough. Others are spring loaded, and tip backwards if the wind is strong enough. These ones return to the ready position as soon as the pressure abates, due to a weight mounted in front.