Anyone else using old washing machine motors for a DIY wind turbine?

Converted a Hotpoint drum motor last spring and honestly the only thing spinning faster than the blades is my excitement when it actually works — which, to be fair, is about 40% of the time.

The rewinding is the real faff; those motors aren't wound for low RPM generation so you're either rewinding the stator yourself (YouTube rabbit hole incoming) or slapping a gearbox on it and hoping for the best. I went the rewinding route and singed my eyebrows twice, which I'm counting as a success.

Few things I've learned the hard way:

• Neodymium magnets glued to the rotor help massively with low-wind cut-in
• The original bearings are genuinely decent — don't bin them
• A Victron SmartShunt will tell you exactly how disappointing your output is, in real time, with graphs

Output is modest. We're talking enough to trickle-charge a 12V leisure battery on a breezy day rather than anything heroic. Don't go expecting to run your EV off it — trust me, I tried the maths and it made me sad.

The blade design matters more than the motor tbh. Carved mine from reclaimed oak which sounds romantic until you're sanding at midnight.

Anyone else got a washing machine donor appliance they'd recommend? I've heard Bosch motors are better wound but haven't tested one yet — genuinely curious whether brand makes a difference or if I'm just procrastinating buying a proper Renogy kit.

@KangooBuild a 40% success rate is basically professional standard for DIY wind turbines, respect.

I stuck with solar panels on my shepherd's hut because my Fogstar batteries don't appreciate the emotional rollercoaster of "maybe power, maybe sparks" — but genuinely tempted to try one of these on the cabin just for the chaos.

What are you using to rectify the AC output, or are you living dangerously and feeding it straight into something that definitely cost more than the washing machine did?

@KangooBuild 40% is optimistic for a rewound washing machine motor in my experience. The main killer is the air gap — those motors are designed for a completely different magnetic circuit than a proper axial flux setup, and you're fighting that physics every day.

What I'd actually suggest: look at treadmill motors instead. DC permanent magnet, no rewinding needed, cut-in speed is more forgiving. Found one at a car boot for £15 last year for the shepherd's hut project.

The washing machine route can work but you're essentially building a generator from scratch using a motor housing as a convenient frame. Nothing wrong with that, just be honest about what you're actually doing rather than thinking the original motor is doing much useful work for you.

What blade diameter are you running with it?

@KangooBuild the rewinding rabbit hole is real — I went down it trying to get usable output at low RPM for my static caravan site because the wind here is mostly disappointing rather than actually absent.

One thing nobody mentions: the original stator laminations in those Hotpoint/Indesit motors are optimised for 50Hz operation at mains speeds, so you're fighting the core losses at low frequency. Some people have had better luck stripping and rewinding onto custom stators salvaged from proper PM alternator cores.

Also worth checking — star vs delta wiring on the output makes a significant difference to cut-in speed versus peak output. I briefly ran mine into a Victron MPPT using a rectifier bridge and it... sort of worked? Wouldn't recommend it officially but the charge controller didn't catch fire, which I'm counting as a win.

What blade diameter are you running?

@KangooBuild ha, the 40% figure made me laugh! I had similar results with an old Indesit motor until I sorted the rectification side — a lot of people blame the motor when it's actually dodgy diodes or undersized bridge rectifiers letting them down.

@ExPostie makes a fair point about the air gap though. Worth checking whether you've got a permanent magnet motor to begin with, because some Hotpoint drums use induction motors which are essentially useless for this application without serious modification.

One thing that genuinely helped mine was adding a proper furling tail to keep it from overspeeding in gusty conditions — I was burning out windings before I sorted that. Keeps the whole thing running far more reliably. Anyone else found furling made a bigger difference than they expected?

@KangooBuild the 40% reliability figure doesn't surprise me at all. The deeper issue beyond what @ExPostie touched on is the star/delta winding configuration — most washing machine motors are wound for mains frequency operation, so the phase relationships don't translate cleanly into useful three-phase AC for rectification at turbine RPM ranges.

Before sinking more time into it, I'd genuinely suggest plotting your actual cut-in speed versus what the site wind data suggests you're getting. I did this exercise for my narrowboat setup and realised the turbine was only producing meaningful power maybe 15% of available wind hours — the rest was below cut-in.

Purpose-built PMA cores from somewhere like Scoraig Wind aren't glamorous, but Hugh Piggott's designs exist precisely because washing machine motors are a well-documented dead end for most people.