Hi,
I'm thinking of getting my toes wet with some wind power generation.
Unfortunately I live in Centurion (Pretoria) so the average wind speed is not great, but every late afternoon when the big thunderstorms roll in I see some huge gusts of wind so I'm really thinking there must be some power to tap from there.
Looking at the price of building a DIY generator (magnets, windings, etc) I assume its cheaper to just buy a permanent magnet motor as generator, especially is you want it up and running quickly?
I tried contacting treadmill agents, as I know you can get some decent sized motors (1.5+hp) in the R1500 range. But as soon as I mention I just want to buy the motor and I do not require a service technician sent out communications suddenly dries up. Sigh.
The other thing I was looking at is maybe something like a quad bike winch? Something like this:
http://www.bidorbuy.co.za/item/15811766 ... 00_DC.html
Would that work? I assume winches works at pretty low rpm. If I can't buy the motor seperately I'll just buy the whole thing.
Any other ideas for motor sources?