Green Power Easy Review

Windmill Blades – Buy Pro Or Make Your Own

You have decided to build a DIY windmill. Hopefully you have bought one of the many top guides available to guide you through the process. These certainly give you a greater chance of success . Even if you are pretty DIY wise or mechanically capable you can still get a lot of good groundwork and reduce a lot of experimentation buy reading a professional guide.  Either way it tends to be the windmill blades that cause people the most problems. They look simple but the potential energy created in a mass of fast spinning blades can very easy be released and cause total catastrophe to your windmill.

Basically you have two options with windmill blades

1. Make them yourself – Cheaper but fraught with danger if not done properly.
2. Buy your windmill blades ready made – Less work but can be a lot of money

Lets talk a little about these two alternatives The pros and cons and the practicality.  Making windmill blades takes time and patience and if you value your time it may be that the practical cost (the man hours you put in) actually make this route expensive.  If, on the other hand, you enjoy the challenges of creation and see value in actual cash then you can save a significant amount of money by doing it yourself.  Either way there are advantages and disadvantages.

Buying Your Windmill Blades Ready Made

Lets look at the pro's of purchasing ready made blades. These are pretty self explanatory.

1. Professionally made blades are well balanced
2. You can choose from blade materials that would normally be very hard to work.
3. The design and blade angle will be optimised for performance.

There are also disadvantages to purchasing pre-made windmill blades against DIY construction. Professionally made blades can be very difficult to match to your blades to the chosen generator of your  home made windmill. They can very expensive as well.
Pro machined windmill blades can cost up to $1200.  As always check out Ebay for a bargain. I have seen 4’ - 6’ blades on Ebay for as little as $150. Check the condition though as even a small twist or damage to the blades can be devastating at a few hundred RPM!

Making Your Own Windmill Blades

There are many advantages to buying pro windmill blades but making them yourself has many advantages also

1.The blades can be made for your specific windmill design.
2.They are significantly cheaper reducing the overall cot of your home electric system.
3.You can select the exact requirements in the turbine blades to work in your geography. This is  especially important  in low wind speed areas.
4. And, of course, there is the personal satisfaction you get from creating it yourself.

If you're making your own windmill blades then I strongly recommend you take some time to review  the top three wind power conversion guides. Look at the review here and consider the top choice as they have recently added a great video that covers blade design and creation exactly.

Whatever you decide, ensure you take some time to design your blades well and ensure they are correct for your windmill and wind conditions. Making extra effort and spending a little extra time in this area will save you a lot of heart ache later.

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