I've got wind

[Bonnox]

It's quite windy where I live I want to harness this wind, but don't want anything massively obvious and obtrusive, ie some thing big on a pole is gonna be obvious from the road, I wondered if anyone had seen something smaller like the wind gauge machine beaufort scales I think there called, anyway the ones that look like they have 3 cups attached to sticks, they measure the wind speed so surely could be used to generate a small amount of electricity even if it's only 1 light bulb I figure its worth it, plus can work 24 hours a day, has anyone seen anything like this ?

[Skvez]

Power available from the wind is directly proportional to the swept area of the rotor.
The sort of tiny device you mention would be so small it's likely to struggle to light a single LED and you'd probably be better off with a wind-up torch instead.

In order to get good laminar air flow your turbine should be 10m above the nearest object for 100m
Therefore unfortunately all forms of (effective) wind turbine are going to be obvious.

[Scythe13]

I've seen an amazing little system that goes along the ridge of your roof line. Not sure whether it's in full production, or the cost, but it looks like it has potential.

Just done a quick check, Ridgeblade. The website sucks balls, but the product seems to be brilliant.
This isn't the ridgeblade website, but it gives you an idea of how it would look.
http://peakenergy.blogspot.co.uk/2009/10...arket.html

Was thinking about these, but again, it's something for a rainy day fund, or when I have spare time.

[Skvez]

(11 October 2013, 10:07)Scythe13 Wrote: I've seen an amazing little system that goes along the ridge of your roof line.
http://peakenergy.blogspot.co.uk/2009/10...arket.html

I'm not convinced at all.
The article states:

Quote:The blades are about the same length as a medium wind turbine, so you can catch about the same amount of wind.

The Length of the blades isn't the determining factor, the swept area is and so a very small height * a long length of blade does not cover the same are as a rotating long blade.

I've seen smoke tunnel simulations of the wind over a rooftop and it's a mess of eddies, absolutely NOT what you want to feed a turbine.

[Scythe13]

You're probably right Skvez, but something is better than nothing.

[The Ragman]

I'm not sure how much power to want, but I have a few hand held items I like to keep charged (MP3 and media player kindley type knock off loaded with various things for the kids) and have found the pocket solar chargers which can stick to the window to be enough and is very mobile and a wind up radio and torch....but unless you want to run your entire house I don't see the point of the expense or the hassle.

[Bonnox]

Probably not but I wanted to think and consider every option

[Skvez]

(I'd misplaced my wind turbine spreadsheet the other day, got it now)
Lets imagine a tiny discrete little wind turbine with 10cm long blades (20cm diameter).
Using typical efficiencies and the median wind speed of 12mph (which assumes a non-discrete site)
We can expect 0.7W of power from this turbine (that would be 0.06A at 12V or 0.14A at 5V)
Consider that USB can provide 5W (1A at 5V) you see that a tiny wind turbine really isn't much use.
To get the 5W "USB charger" level of power you would need a wind turbine with a blade diameter of a little over half a meter, which isn't subtle.