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Welcome to Wind Chasers.
This site has been constructed to give people information about
home built wind turbines, energy conservation and more. The turbine we are currently running ,is
a twelve foot diameter, homebuilt axial
flux turbine designed by
Hugh Piggott. This turbine was put up three summers ago, after running the ten foot
axial flux for a year. This has been a fabulous turbine! It makes way more power
than we need. We use the extra power to heat our domestic hot water.
Since installing our first turbine in January, 2004, we have been very
busy. Our home has become somewhat of a landmark in the area. We have had people
from all over southern Ontario coming by to see the turbine. Most of these
people have been very interested in building a turbine of their own. This made
us think that we should have people come to the house to build turbines in a
workshop setting with other people. This idea was very well received by everyone
since most were somewhat leery about doing this on their own without any help.
Since we first opened our home to helping people build their own
wind turbines in 2005, we have assisted in the building of approximately forty
turbines. Not all of them are up and running yet, but hopefully they will be
soon! New people are coming here every month to start on their adventure in the
crazy, and very addictive, art of wind turbine building.
The following pages have lots of information about turbine
construction, designing a home power system to suit your needs and lots of
things you can do to dramatically reduce your energy consumption in your home
without having to go to extreme measures or spending huge amounts of money.
We have decided that we need to devote more time this year to building
our house. We are retiring in less than two years and we need to have the
house livable by that time. We will not be having our regular Saturday
sessions or any of our one day workshops for the next couple of years. We
will still be available to help people by e-mail or over the phone or by a
visit to our workshop by appointment only. If you would like to come by,
please phone us in advance so that you won't be disappointed! Our phone
number is 519-842-7255. We are hoping that once we retire and we are in
our new location, that we will be able to have more workshops, more
frequently.
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In December, we added a new member to our Wind Chaser
family! Morgan is a wonderful little girl who we hope will have some
beautiful babies for us someday. The picture on the left is in our
backyard with our little turbine and the other one is on our farm in front
of the BIG GUY! |
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We recently had a visit from Peter and his wife and two of
Peter's shop students who are building a wind turbine in their class.
Peter was one of the students who came to build a wind turbine with the
group from The University of Western Ontario a couple of years ago. He now
has a class of his own and is passing on the turbine passion!
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On November 15th, we had a group of student's from the
University of Waterloo engineering department come to visit our earthship.
It was a great visit and there was a lot of enthusiasm from the students.
Our dogs, Gus and Abby were very popular with the students as well as you
can see in the group photo, just before Gus gives Sarah a big sloppy kiss! |
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Earthship started, only two years to go.
The fun has begun!
More pics on earthship page (Breaking
ground) |
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We have had a bunch of new people start their turbine
projects here lately. Everyone is very enthusiastic about wind energy! The
wave is getting bigger!
Here's Wayne and Ginny and Al and Paul working on their turbines.
Everything looks great so far! |
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Jake, get your hands off our new blades!
Jake looking sheepish after getting caught! Nice try! |
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They're Here!
| Hugh Piggott's 2009 wind turbine plans, Imperial edition. |
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We now have available Hugh Piggott's latest axial flux turbine
plans. The new 2009 edition "Wind Turbine Recipe book" is a 65 page manual with
step by step instructions on building an axial flux alternator, including
blade carving and metal works. Included are plans to build a 2', 3', 4',
5', 6', and a 7' version. There is truly a turbine size for everyone! All
measurements in the new plans are in Imperial. (inches and feet)
The
plans are available at $28.00 Canadian each which includes shipping to
anywhere in Canada.
For more information, please check out our products page.
Contact us
Product page
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Electric
Car Video
Turbine
Video
Check out the video page for more videos!
| On June 26, a thunderstorm came through and after, we
got a great shot of a perfect rainbow beside the turbine. The
picture really doesn't do it justice. It was beautiful ! |
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On Saturday, June 14th, we had a visit from Dr. Peter and he
sent us a bunch of new pictures that he took while he was here.
Left, standing around discussing items of great importance before
getting started!
Right, Rob and Joanne stop working long enough for Peter to take their
picture.
Thanks for the great pictures Dr. Peter! You can check out the rest on page
# 2 of our "Saturdays" page. |
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Spring has finally arrived at Windchasers! Left, Tim takes
advantage of the great weather to work on one of his blades in the
sunshine!
Clayton, behind Tim, finally came out of winter hibernation to join us
to continue working on his blades while Pam tries to hide behind Mike's
jeep! |
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| Craig and Pippa are putting the finishing touches on Pippa's
turbine while Mike makes witty remarks about how they're not doing it
right. Thanks for your input Mike! |
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Above, Tim and Pam work on a new turbine, (a good one), for
their castle. Check out their story on our "Turbine Adventures"
page. Looks like it's going pretty good so far guys!
Yes, our yard turns into a parking lot every Saturday, even in the
winter.
Ray shares his years and years and years of expertise with Pippa! I
think she's ignoring him! |
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Valley Heights
Secondary School |
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Several months ago, Larry Wiebe, a shop teacher at Valley
Heights Secondary School, contacted us about building a wind turbine. He
turned it into a project for his grade twelve shop class.
Last Thursday, January 10, 2008, he and some of the students took the
turbine for a road test! |
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Here are a few pictures of the test.
For more on this story, check out the "Turbine Adventures"
page. |
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Chris, Steve and of course, Mike # 1, are caught in the act
absconding with wire from our shop!
Actually, Chris is taking some wire home so that he can make his coils
up there so that Mike doesn't make off with them! |
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Congratulations Clayton for entering the 21st century!
Clayton has finally joined the internet age so now he can check out our
web site and see himself online! Way to go!! |
On August 17th, we put up our new 12 footer. It's a fabulous machine!
It makes a lot of power and it begins making power at a very low wind
speed. For a change, as soon as we put this one up, the wind picked up and
got stronger as the day went on, so we were able to give it a good test
the very first day. We are very impressed!
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| The top picture is of the turbine furling. We actually got to see it
furl on the first day! That has got to be a first!
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| Normally, we put a strip of red LED lights along the tail so that we can
see at night when we look out the window whether or not it is making
power. This time, we decided to put blue lights on it instead of red. They
are much brighter when they are lit up than the red one's were. This is a
night shot of the lights. Pretty cool ! |
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Here's some pictures of our new 12 footer before we put it
up. Very nice! For more pictures, of this turbine, check out the
"Turbine Adventures" page.
We have put a stop switch on this new turbine just to give it a try. We
have added a picture of this to the :Turbine Adventures" page if you
want to see what it looks like.
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In January, we had the chance to have a really nice visit with
Chris Brady (top photo). Chris had the privilege of spending some time with Hugh
Piggott (bottom photo) while he was working in Scotland last fall. When Chris
returned home to Ontario, he contacted us and he and his Mom came to see us.
Chris sent us some great pictures from Hugh's shop and some really beautiful
pictures from around the Scoraig Peninsula where Hugh lives. Check out Chris'
story on the "Turbine Adventures" page.
News!
Check out our new page "News" for news and information
about happenings and upcoming events such as workshops.
Due to a great deal of interest from people who are unable to
attend our weekly get-togethers here, we have decided to offer one day workshops
here for people who live too far away to come here on a regular basis. For more
information, check out our "News" page.
Todd brought an adapter plate that he rigged up so that we
could use the drill to spin our five footer on the test tower to measure the DC
voltage. Mike holds the meter while Craig gives it a spin. Lot's of power!
Check out the "Saturday's" page to see a really big
turbine that Ben is working on!
     
     
Since the turbine gang is getting quite large now, and it's
nearly impossible to get everyone here at the same time to get a group picture,
we decided to put thumbnails on of everyone instead. Our little group has now
grown to about thirteen regulars and several others who just pop in occasionally
to visit or to get a little help with something.
(Check out our new
section featuring turbine adventures from other people and places!)
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If
you are having problems locating the magnet discs for your turbine, we can
get them for you.
These disks have been laser cut and
have the holes for the hub and bolts already cut out.
The discs are 12" o.d. x 5/16"
thick.
The 12" discs are available at $30.00 each Canadian
plus shipping. We also have 14" discs available at
$40.00 each Canadian plus shipping. For more information, click on the products page
below.
Contact us.
Product page
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