Building a generator to produce your own electricity is a great idea. It will not only help you save cost on your electricity bills but also contribute to saving our environment. Even the US government has been encouraging citizens to ‘go green’ by investing in means to conserve energy and reduce dependence on fossil fuels which pollute the environment. Constructing your own generator is one of the best ways to achieve this.
Building a generator depends on what kind of generator you wish to build. There are essentially 3 types of generator that you can build – a solar generator, a wind turbine generator or a magnetic generator. Each of these functions differently.
Click Here How to Build a Generator
A solar generator produces electricity using solar cells. You can buy them from places like eBay and assemble your own solar panel. To make them produce electricity you need to solder the solar cells together in series. The front of the solar cell is its negative terminal while the back is its positive. Once they are all connected in series, glue them in a matrix arrangement in a shallow wooden box and face it towards the sun. The box should be painted with weather resistant paint and sealed with a sheet of plexiglass. The final thing to do is connect your solar panel to a battery that can store your electricity. But you need to install 2 important electrical items into the circuit – a diode to prevent the battery from discharging electricity back to the solar panel and a voltage regulator to regulate how much charge remains in the battery at all times. To use the electricity generated, you need an inverter to convert it from DC current to AC current (your household appliances use AC).
A wind turbine generator comprises of wind generator blades connected to a motor that produces the electricity. Wind turbine blades and motor can be bought from eBay. It’s quite simple to screw the blades to the hub that is connected to the shaft of the motor. When the blades are blown by the wind, it will spin the shaft of the motor and electricity is generated. In order for this to happen, the motor has to be mounted onto a tower (you can also buy this from eBay or use an old TV tower) at least 15 feet taller than any other object 30 feet or more away from it. It is also connected to a battery for storage.
Finally, to construct a magnetic generator, you need magnets (obviously) that are attached to a hub of a motor (the same motor that you use for the wind turbine generator can be used here). The same pole of the magnets must be facing outwards. For instance if you choose the North pole, all magnets must have their North facing outwards. The generator simply utilizes the natural attraction and repulsion of the poles of magnets to spin the shaft of the motor. For this to take place, you need an outer ring of magnets with the same poles facing inwards (if you had chosen North earlier, choose North again). These like poles will naturally repel each other. To start the generator, give the hub of the motor a slight push to start it spinning. The natural repulsion of the magnets will make this spinning motion continue. That’s why the magnetic generator is called a perpetual motion device. It will keep generating electricity regardless of the weather conditions because of the repulsion of the magnets of same polarities.
Connect your magnetic generator to a battery as above and you can enjoy free electricity.
