Is there any way to produce electricity by setting a box fan outside and letting the wind turn the blades? If I could light a little light bulb with it that would be great.

-- John Zollar (candle@vcn.com), January 05, 2002

Answers

Response to box fan experiment

since a box fan has a motor and not a generator,, no ,, not possible. and neither would it if you replaced the motor with a generator,, those fan blades are made to "push" air,,instad of being pushed. Would take a differant blade design,, unkess of course,,you have sustainable 50 mph winds,, in which case,, you could get it to generate enough for a light bulb

-- stan (sopal@net-port.com), January 05, 2002.

Response to box fan experiment

no. see stan's answer. You would need to attach it to a generator. You could hook it up to one of those bike light generators hooked up to a dc voltage bulb. You might get sufficient spin to make it work, or if you fell competent enough you can make a generator, I won't explain it here ,but you can get the info from the web on it. I haven't had success yet (perhaps I'm not competent enough yet) You could purchase one of those baygen radios with led lights, uses no electricity.

-- jonathan (jonathan_sz@yahoo.com), January 05, 2002.

Response to box fan experiment

In our barn, the people before us built in a metal fan into the outside wall. When the wind is right it spins like crazy, but to be honest I have never paid attention to whether it blows air in or sucks it out. I am certainly no mechanic, but I don't see why it couldn't generate some type of energy. Just my experience.

-- renabeth (renabeth@yahoo.com), January 05, 2002.

A thought: the production of electricity causes considerable drag, which is why something larger than a box fan is needed- bigger impellors. WHile a box fan could potentially produce volts, it would have to have (id say) at least 20 mile per hour winds. Also, in order to produce electricity the generator/ alternator has to be turning FAST, gearing is sometimes used, thus for 1 turn of the prop, you get more than one turn of generator, thus causing even more drag situation, making for longer/ larger prop or it wont turn at all. Eveen those bicycle generators have a fair amount of drag and need to be turning hot and heavy fast. A bicycle frame could be modified to make human powered electric, much easier than a box fan.

-- Kevin in NC (Vantravlrs@aol.com), January 06, 2002.

Actually a D.C. fan would possibly works, as you would need a permanant magnet to produce electricity, without applying a voltage to the winding. Any D.C. motor with a magnet will produce electricity if it is turned, however it does cause considerable drag.

-- Dave in Ohio (dr43147@yahoo.com), January 07, 2002.