Anyone else using old washing machine motors for a DIY wind turbine or is it just me?

Spent a Saturday afternoon wiring up a salvaged Hotpoint drum motor to a bit of scaffold pole and now my shepherd's hut either makes electricity or sounds like it's auditioning for a horror film — genuinely cannot tell which is winning.

The permanent magnet motors are the ones worth hunting for, obviously — your standard induction motors are basically just expensive wind-brakes at that point. Charity shops and Facebook Marketplace are drowning in dead washing machines if you know what to look for, and most people will hand them over for a tenner just to avoid a tip run.

Current setup feeds into a cheap Victron SmartShunt so I can at least measure my disappointment in real time. Rectifier bridge, dump load resistor (glamorously zip-tied to a bit of angle iron), and a Fogstar lithium bank that deserves far better than this chaos.

Few things I'm genuinely curious about from anyone who's done this properly:

• What blade pitch are you running?
• Anyone tried 3D printing PVC pipe blades or just going full Blue Peter with carved wood?
• Is your turbine actually spinning in UK wind or just sitting there looking smug on calm days?

Mine produces meaningful power roughly when it's nearly blowing the hut into the next field, which feels like a design flaw. Pretty sure a proper 400W Renogy unit would've been cheaper by the time I factor in the plasters and the replacement multimeter I dropped off a ladder.

Worth it though. Probably. Definitely. Someone talk me out of buying another motor.

@OffGridHamish the horror film noise is almost certainly the bearings protesting about radial loads they were never designed for — washing machine motors are built for rotational loads only, not the lateral stress a blade assembly introduces. Worth packing the housing with marine grease and checking shaft runout before it grenades itself.

The rewinding potential on those motors is genuinely interesting though. A 3-phase star-to-delta rewind can turn a fairly mediocre salvage into a decent low-wind permanent magnet alternator. Done something similar with an old Zanussi motor on a test rig — got around 14V at surprisingly modest RPM once I'd swapped the rotor windings for neodymium strips.

Run output through a Victron SmartShunt so you can actually log what it's producing across different wind conditions — proper data will tell you whether the noise is worth tolerating.

@OffGridHamish done exactly this on the narrowboat, mate. Indesit motor off Facebook Marketplace for a fiver.

Few things nobody tells you:

• Rectifier — you need a proper 3-phase bridge rectifier, don't bodge it with whatever's in the parts bin
• Those motors are wound for higher RPM than you'll realistically get from a DIY blade setup, so your cut-in speed will be disappointingly high unless you rewind or gear it
• Dump load is non-negotiable — overvoltage will torch your Victron faster than you can say "warranty void"

@VivaroWanderer is right about the bearings but honestly mine settled down after a few weeks. The real enemy is the prop balance. Even slightly off and you'll shake the whole mount loose eventually.

Worth it though. Free energy from wind feels deeply satisfying in a way solar just doesn't.

@OffGridHamish this is exactly the kind of rabbit hole I've been eyeing up. Quick question though — what are you getting out of it in terms of actual voltage and current at useful wind speeds? I'm wondering whether it's worth the faff versus just grabbing another Renogy panel.

Also, does the three-phase AC output need rectifying before it hits your battery bank, or are you running it straight into something that handles that? I've got a Victron SmartSolar that obviously won't take wind input directly, so trying to work out what the charge controller situation looks like for a setup like this.

Mainly asking because I'd love to supplement my solar during winter when the sun disappears for weeks and I've got a proper exposed site — wind isn't exactly in short supply here.

@OffGridHamish love this, been down exactly the same rabbit hole. One thing worth knowing — those drum motors are permanent magnet on the newer ones but older brushed motors are pretty useless for this unless you're rewinding them, which is a whole other Saturday.

@RogerJackson to answer your likely question about output — realistically expect modest DC voltage at low RPM but the sweet spot depends heavily on your blade pitch and diameter. Most people find they need a bridge rectifier and a decent charge controller that'll handle the variable input, not just a basic PWM solar one.

@VivaroWanderer is dead right about the bearings. I added a thrust bearing salvaged from a scrapped angle grinder between the motor and the mount — made a noticeable difference to the noise and probably lifespan too.