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

Been down this rabbit hole myself, actually. Started experimenting after I spotted three washing machine drums at the local tip — the kind with the direct-drive pancake motors already attached. Couldn't leave them behind.

The permanent magnet motors from modern direct-drive machines are genuinely brilliant for this application. They generate usable voltage at surprisingly low RPM, which matters enormously if you're in a location without consistently strong wind. My setup on the island isn't always blessed with gales, so low cut-in speed is everything.

A few things I learned the hard way:

• Rewinding the stators gives you far better results than using them as-is — time consuming but worth it
• The cogging on unmodified motors is a real problem for low-wind starts
• Rectifying the three-phase output into DC for charging a Victron MPPT (set to wind rather than solar input) worked better than I expected
• Proper furling tail design is non-negotiable — I ignored this initially and deeply regretted it during a November storm

The mechanical side is honestly where most people come unstuck. Getting the blade pitch, swept area, and motor characteristics matched properly takes some iteration. I'm on my third set of carved wooden blades.

Running mine as emergency backup primarily, though it complements the solar nicely through the darker months when the wind picks up.

Curious whether anyone's experimented with the older belt-driven motors rather than direct-drive? They seem less common at the tip these days but I've heard the windings can be more forgiving to work with.

@IslandOffGrid oh mate yes — done exactly this for the garden office setup. Those LG DD motors are chef's kiss for low-wind cut-in if you rewind them properly.

Few things nobody mentions:

• Rectification matters loads — I bodged a 3-phase bridge rectifier first time and lost half my output
• The rotor balance will haunt you at speed, took me ages to sort
• Stator resin potting is non-negotiable in UK weather, learned that the hard way

Mine pushes decent output from about 3m/s which is basically always here. Feeds straight into a Victron SmartSolar as a wind input (unconventional but works).

Tip the drum itself works as blade hub btw — already balanced from factory. Someone clever worked that out, wasn't me.

What blades are you running?

@IslandOffGrid ran this exact experiment on the narrowboat last winter — rewound an LG DD motor, slapped some carved pine blades on it, and discovered that "low cut-in speed" is relative when you're moored in a canal cutting with zero wind fetch whatsoever.

Key thing nobody mentions: the stator teeth cause cogging resistance that absolutely murders startup torque unless you do an air-gap rewind or use a filar winding technique. Took me three attempts to get it spinning consistently below 4mph.

Dumping into a Victron SmartShunt via a 3-phase bridge rectifier into my Fogstar lithium bank — the logging data is genuinely satisfying once it's working.

Worth checking the motor plate for pole count before you commit to a blade diameter calculation — I learned that the hard way with a completely embarrassing set of undersized blades.

Really glad this thread exists — I've been lurking on this topic for ages! @IslandOffGrid those direct-drive drums are genuinely brilliant finds. One thing worth mentioning that I haven't seen covered yet: the three-phase AC output from these motors needs proper rectification before it'll play nicely with your battery bank. A simple three-phase bridge rectifier does the job, but don't skip a dump load controller — I learned that the hard way when my Pylontechs got a nasty voltage spike during a gusty evening. Also worth checking the stator resistance with a multimeter before you commit hours of carving to a set of blades; some older units have developed shorted windings sitting damp in a skip. @ExPostie86 curious what blade length you ended up with on the narrowboat — I'm wondering whether there's a sweet spot before the motor's cogging torque becomes a real cut-in problem.

@IslandOffGrid this is uncanny timing — I literally pulled a Hotpoint DD motor out of a skip two weeks ago with exactly this in mind for the cabin plot.

My concern going in was the cogging torque killing performance in light winds, but after skimming some rewinding guides I think the trick is going more poles rather than fewer. Still testing.

One thing nobody's mentioned yet: rectification. These motors put out three-phase AC at wildly variable frequencies, so a proper bridge rectifier before it touches your Victron is non-negotiable. Learned that lesson the embarrassing way with a small Renogy charge controller that didn't survive the experiment.

Anyone mapped actual cut-in wind speeds after rewinding? That's my current blind spot — I've got an anemometer running but not enough data yet to draw conclusions.

@IslandOffGrid the stator lamination quality on those pancake motors is genuinely decent for a freebie — the main issue I kept running into when I rewound a Samsung DD unit was matching the new winding configuration to a sensible cut-in speed for low-wind sites. Star configuration nearly always wins over delta for anything below about 4m/s average.

Worth noting: whatever rectifier bridge you cobble together, shove a proper dump load controller between it and your batteries. I learned this the hard way — never trust an improvised turbine with unregulated DC going anywhere near a LiFePO4 bank. Running a Victron BMV-712 downstream helped me catch a voltage spike that would've cooked two of my Fogstar cells stone dead.

One practical note — bearing preload on these motors was designed for a horizontal drum, not a vertical shaft. Expect to address that fairly early.