How To: Make a Windmill

Resource from: The Colony

Watching The Colony the other day, I was really impressed with the Windmill design. The idea is that in an Apocalyptic setting a windmill would be the perfect solution to the problem of limited energy resources. A windmill attached to an alternator can provide an endless supply of renewable energy. The design in The Colony is used to power the bulbs throughout the house, and I'm guessing it can create enough electricity to power my bedroom.

Step 1: The Rotor
The Colonists built the rotor using a tire, boards from a fence, and copper pipes. They bent the two pipes into semi-circles and welded them together. Then, they attached that to the middle of the boards to hold them in place. The ends of the boards pointing inward were then attached to a tire. In the drawing above, you can see two circles attached to the boards. The outer circle is the pipes and the inner circle is the tire.

Step 2: The Alternator

The Colonists used a car alternator which was from the same car as the batteries they needed the windmill to charge. They got it spinning using two gears and two chains from a pair of bikes they found. In the above image, the big circle would be the gear attached to the tire. The green bike chain connects it to a smaller gear, and another green bike chain connects that gear to the red alternator. The windmill turns anywhere from tens to hundreds of times a minute, but a sufficient amount of energy will only be generated if the alternator is spinning at thousands of times a minute. So, the Colonists "geared up" the windmill by connecting the first gear to a smaller gear. That way, one turn of the larger gear turns the smaller gear several times. That allows one turn of the windmill to be enough to charge the alternator sufficiently.

Step 3: The Fin
In order for the windmill to work, it must be facing the wind at all times. If you look at the comic at the top of this article, you'll notice a little fin behind the rotor. When the wind blows, it moves that fin in the same direction. The fin moves the rotor so that it faces the wind. This ensures that the rotor is always spinning when the wind is blowing. The Colonists used a tail fin from a broken plane, but wood or sturdy cardboard cut into the form of a fin work just as good.

Step 4: Final Setup
Once the fin was done, the Colonist's cut a hole in the second floor of the building they were living in, then another one in the roof. They then put a flagpole through the holes up to the roof. They attached that to the rotor then the rotor to the alternator. Then everyone rejoiced, they had a 100% natural renewable energy source!