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

Been down this rabbit hole for about 18 months now with my van build, though I eventually mounted a small turbine on a pole at my regular wild camp spot rather than the van itself.

The washing machine motor route is genuinely viable but there's a fair bit of sorting involved. Most of these are induction motors, which means they won't generate AC without a capacitor bank and even then the output is pretty grim for rectification. You really want to be hunting for permanent magnet motors — some older Hoover and Zanussi machines used them, and they're the ones worth rescuing from the tip.

Key things I learned the hard way:

• Star vs delta winding matters enormously for cut-in speed
• The cogging effect on unmodified stators is brutal at low wind speeds
• Blade pitch and diameter calculation needs to match your motor's actual resistance and inductance, not some generic formula off YouTube

I'm feeding output through a Victron BlueSolar MPPT with a custom wind dump load (a 100W resistor in a metal box, earthed properly). Works surprisingly well from around 4m/s.

The bigger issue in the UK is planning and permitted development — even on your own land a turbine above a certain swept area needs consent depending on your local authority.

Anyone else actually got one spinning reliably? Curious what blade materials people are using — I've tried PVC pipe sections and carved timber, both have trade-offs worth discussing.

@Lefty28 interesting project. Worth clarifying for anyone reading — washing machine motors are almost universally induction motors, which means they can't self-generate without external excitation. What people are actually rewinding for wind turbines are the stators from older brushed DC machines, or more commonly, permanently-magnetised motors from front-loaders with PM rotor assemblies.

The output will be 3-phase AC regardless, so you'll need a rectifier bridge before it's any use to a Victron MPPT or similar.

I've got a small axial-flux PMA on my shepherd's hut build — wound myself — and the cogging torque issue at low wind speeds is genuinely the hardest problem to solve. Star vs delta winding configuration makes a significant difference to your cut-in speed.

What motor specifically have you got? Knowing the pole count matters enormously before you go any further.

@Lefty28 ooh this is my kind of rabbit hole 😄 I've been tempted to do something similar for the garden office setup — we get proper gusts here and feels like wasted energy!

Quick question though — what are you using for rectification and charge control on the output? That's the bit that always sends me back to Google at 1am lol

Also curious whether you've had any issues with the resin/epoxy work on the blades holding up through a UK winter — I imagine the freeze-thaw cycles aren't kind to amateur glassfibre work

Been watching a few builds where people pair these with a Victron SmartShunt just to monitor what they're actually generating — seemed sensible before committing to a full charge controller setup. Might be worth it to see if the output's even worth bothering with before you go too deep 👀

@SomersetVanLifer makes a crucial point about induction motors — worth expanding on that for anyone who's gone hunting at the tip.

The ones worth salvaging are permanent magnet motors from older front-loaders (pre-2005-ish direct-drive machines particularly). The tell-tale test: spin the shaft by hand and check for resistance/cogging — if it spins freely with nothing, it's induction and useless for this application. If you feel distinct "steps" of magnetic resistance, you've got something workable.

I spent three weekends rewinding a motor that turned out to be induction. Character-building experience, shall we say.

@Lefty28 what's your cut-in wind speed looking like? That's where most DIY axial-flux builds fall over in UK conditions — we're not exactly the Outer Hebrides down south, and anything above 3-4m/s cut-in becomes genuinely useless for eight months of the year.

@KentBoater and @SomersetVanLifer have covered the induction motor issue well, so I won't rehash that. What I'd add for anyone sourcing motors is that front-loader drum motors are generally worth avoiding, but the spin motors from older top-loaders — particularly pre-2000s machines — are more likely to be permanent magnet types worth investigating.

@PanelKate for a garden office setup this could actually work nicely if you're in an exposed spot. The rewinding side of things is where most people come unstuck though — it's genuinely fiddly and time-consuming before you see a single watt.

@Lefty28 curious what rectification setup you landed on? Three-phase bridge rectifier I'd assume, but did you do anything for cut-in wind speed optimisation? That's the bit I've been scratching my head over on a similar project.

Really enjoyed reading through this thread. My narrowboat has a pole-mounted turbine using a permanent magnet motor salvaged from an old Miele — those German machines often have beefier magnets than the budget brands, worth hunting for specifically.

One thing nobody's mentioned yet: rectifier quality matters enormously with DIY builds. I fried two cheap bridge rectifiers before fitting a proper Schottky diode setup. The voltage spikes from an unloaded turbine in gusty conditions are brutal.

Also — if you're feeding into a Victron system like mine, make sure your charge controller can handle the variable input. A dedicated wind MPPT rather than a solar one makes a real difference to yield in the patchy winds we get here in the UK.

@SamWhite's point about siting is probably the most underrated part of the whole project.