Although I did not hook up my volt meter when I did these tests I can tell you what it took to spin the thing. Ok since I couldn't get good winds here in Ohio we decided the best thing to do is to mount the turbine to the car and see what it took to turn it. So she drove and I hung out the window holding the turbine with one hand and holding myself in the car with the other. We reached 40 mph and the damn thing didn't move; there was a lot of resistance but the turbine didn't spin even a little. I think the blades being so short with the resistance of the gear box had something to do with this. So I added a beer can scoop on the end of each blade hoping this would create a kind of rocket thrust effect. Each can is at an estimated 30 deg. from parallel. I cut the top and bottom off and then cut them in half. Along each side I bent down 1/4 inch of the can to add to its strength. Miss Michael suggested that the cans not sit flat on the blades but rather rolled in just a little so that it would catch more wind. So after making these changes we went back out and at 15 mph the blades were spinning she hit 20 mph and I hollered for her to stop as I felt a bit worried for my face hitting those blades which wer now spinning good and fast. So we now have a working wind turbine and hope to work out a better design as we progress. Hopefully we can have a working wind farm on our ranch to help with our energy needs when we are done.
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