Can a Computer Cooling Fan Be Made Into an Electric Generator

janeiro 06, 2022 Postar um comentário

Upcycle A PC Fan, PC Fan Thread turbine

Have lashings of old computing device equipment assembly dust ? Now you lavatory put some of it to use! This guide shows you how to use PC fans as miniskirt wind turbines, for recharging solar lights and ni-cads. You'll need whatsoever basic soldering skills, but this is other a very easy plan. My little wind generator makes around 1.5 - 2V in a 8mph wind, about 20ma into a ni-cad.

Materials needed:

Thick plastic bottle.
Old PC fan, larger the better!
Few feet of small wire
A patch of wood well-nig 1.5" second power and around 20cm prolonged
Two lengths of steel tube that slide inside of each else, about 1/2"
4 Schottkey diodes, I used BAT85 but any bequeath do
Epoxy
Super Mucilage.
Nada ties
An old Candela

Instructor video for a similar design :

YouTube Video

Step 1: Dismantle the fan

Normally these fans are held together past a little circlip. This is hidden under a seal off on the back of the fan. Remove the sticker, and prise the little rubber seal. This should let on the circlip, you can jimmy this off with a petite screw driver. You should be able to pull off the blades murder now.

Dismantled Devotee

Abuse 2: Solder on the wires

Search at the bull coils on the fan, there should be two surgery three wire legs, these are the connections to the coils. One of them will throw two pieces of copper wire connected whilst deuce take in only one piece of copper telegraph connected. You want to solder 2 wires to the legs with only one copper color wire.There should be just enough metal exhibit to solder onto. Prepare two lengths of insulated wire by tinning the ends. Solder these onto the coil legs.

With the wires soldered, you crapper move out any physics components from the board. I retributive snipped the legs with some mini wire cutters.

Three wires soldered onto the legs

Step 3: Building the rectifier

The rectifier turns the AC output into useful DC power. You motivation 4 diodes for this. Snip the legs on two of the to almost 1cm on the side with the black line, and triplet to about 1cm connected the root without the clothed line. Bend the long pieces over to wired them all at once (fancy photos). Solder them all at once, then solder the three wires to where the two diodes are connected collectively. When you've complete the rectifier together, you tooshie add the output wires. I in use about a meter of bell wire, you can adjust this to courting your needs.

Finished rectifier

Step 4: Test the alternator

You can test to see if the alternator is working now, fit the blades back into the devotee and connect an LED or multimeter to the output. Give it a good spin and see if it works!

After you've tested it (and information technology's functional!) you can remove the outmost plastic guinea pig and the blades of the fan. You can just snap the blades off, I cut the supporting parts of the box casing with wire cutters.

Step 5:

The blades are cut from a deep-chested plastic bottle - normal plastic drinks bottles won't play here, it needs to be thick plastic like that found in bleach bottles. Slew the top and merchant ship off the bottle, this. I made a template along paper and traced this onto the impressionable. Make sure that the blades are all the same. There was no particularly scientific design to the blades, I good ready-made them as long-lived as the plastic would allow, and a rough "blade" shape!

Finished blades

Step 6:

The three blades are affixed to the impressible hub of the alternator. If your curious about the angle of the blades, I found that the natural curve from the plastic bottle works fine, IT doesn't need any tilt adding.

Gluing the blades in place

Ill-use 7: Make the as and alternator mount

The motor is pasted to a piece of wood which pivots on the nerve pipes. The tail is made from an old CD.

Exercise a hole the similar size as the steel tube each the right smart through, if it's a loose fit, you can epoxy it in place.

Then I cut a slot in the other end for the tail, this should fit the Candle. With the Candela in place, I drilled two holes done the Ellen Price Wood and through the CD, these are for the screws. Make a point you drill through and through the CD as so it doesn't shatter when you screw the screws in.

Directly you can mix up both epoxy to glue the alternator to the end of the woodwind. When it's glued in stead you can zip tie the wires securely, and screw thread the output wires through the tube. I slide fastener united the rectifier to the underside of the windmill, and sealed around the connections with some epoxy, which should keep it corrosion free.

Alternator glued on

Step 8:

Here's what I use for my tower, it's a garden "spiral" type thingy-ma-jig. I don't really cognize what IT's named. Information technology's great for supporting small towers for mini wind gens, only £4 from lidl also.

The actual tower is a piece of thin wall tubing with the big tube hurry tied to the top, for the comportment point of the wind pulverisation.

Easy to build tower

YouTube Television

Here's much photo's of how I converted a different devotee :

Therein fan, the PCB wasn't glued down, it was secured with impressible clips. I was hoping to be able microscope slide
the PCB out and solder new wires to the undersurface, but I was a little heavy two-handed, and there wasn't
really enough irresponsible wire.

So the wires got ripped off the fan:

I unwound a bit of the wire to give a fleck more space to solder :

Two of the coil wires are connected together, I meet followed the original wiring from the PCB.
So the two output wires are soldered onto the other coil wires