Mother nature provides us with countless ways to produce our electricity. The tricky part is harnessing it. Learn how to install solar panels and wind turbines to generate all the electricity you’ll ever need.  Also, check out our energy efficient 110v LED light bulbs.

DIY Wind Power Tutorials:

• GotWind.org is probably your best bet. It’s loaded with useful information to guide you.
• Another fantastic resource to help you is wind power generation.
• To start small, start out with some science fair level projects.
• Ready to move on? Try a dirt simple turbine.
• After that, move up and build your own backyard turbine.
• Canada even published a lengthy article on how to build a turbine.

  

DIY Solar Power Tutorials:

• Build it Solar has plenty of great information to help get you started.
• Before you build, be sure to ask yourself some of these important questions.
• Next, check out this detailed tutorial for an example of the steps you’ll be taking.
• For a far more simple project, learn to generate free heat using pop cans and plexiglass.

If you’re craving even more info, see our DIY Free Electricity section. Need solar panels? We’ve got dirt cheap prices at the HacknMod store. Join the thousands of satisfied DIYers today!

More DIY Free Energy Tutorials:

• How to DIY Solar Panel Installation
• Free Electricity? Yep – Build your own Wind Turbine
• Next Gen Wind Energy you have Never Seen
• Put Wind Powered Wifi on your Roof

Finally you can rest your green conscience by building your own wind powered generator. This DIY wind turbine is easy to build especially since the authors show you how with step-by-step instructions. The wind turbine is unsophisticated in design but efficient as it produces about 84 Watts with 30mph winds. It won’t eliminate your entire electricity bill, but it’ll help you start your journey into the alternative energy movement.  Check out our DIY Free Energy tutorials and more details below.

Most of the parts needed to assemble the make-at-home wind turbine can be salvaged making the total build pretty cheap. The author’s website at Velacreations.com guides you through the nitty-gritty of putting the contraption together.  So go ahead, give this windmill a whirl. Reduce your electric bill and your carbon footprint in one go.

Steven Robert’s Microship project is a “technomadic” (technology nomad, get it?) adventure  traveling the country with his computer laden recumbent bicycle which is now on display in the  computer history museum, situated in Silicon Valley.

The nomadic research laboratory created amphibian pedal, solar, and sailing devices. They created all this with the help of their 160 corporate sponsors, consultants and many volunteers.

One of their most famous works is the microship (pictured above).  The center hull is made of materials like fiberglass structures, canoes of plastic, aluminum, vinyl for using in river running abuse. The mechanism is used in a way that absolute floatation is used in case of flooding. The odyssey canoe hulls are the ideal starting base for this project.

Odyssey Vehicle Specs:

• 42 pounds
• Kevlar ultralight construction
• 18.5 in length
• Flat bottom from bow to stern
• 13.5” center depth
• 35” maximum width
• 32.5” waterline width

The landing gear steering is situated at the beginning of the deck and the two wooden strips are attached to the sides of the hull to make it stiffer. Gunwale belly is the area in the cockpit area which provides horizontal surfaces for armrests and control, support to the equipment console, installing retractable seat, essential fixtures which allows space to sleep and vertical walls support the solar panels.

Horizontal flat section is situated is front of the open cockpit space which is used for equipment console area with computers and communication gears.  Again, check out the microship website for more info.

You’ll also enjoy:

• All of our robotics and circuitry projects.
• Many of the microship projects are solar powered.  Go green and learn how to build your own DIY solar projects.

By simply wrapping a flexible solar panel around standard rechargeable batteries (cheap on ebay) you can create your own solar powered batteries (literally). Simply set them by a window and you’re now creating DIY Green energy to power your electronics.

• Buy Solar Panels and Batteries in our store

“The efficiency would not be that great of course, but having a bunch of batteries lying in the sun for some days could not hurt anyone.” See more of our solar power projects.

“With the first batteries will tricle charge over time, which is not that good for the batteries. A second version, with some electronics and capacitors, could increase charge voltage and reduce charging time while maintaining battery health.” – Be sure to subscribe to HacknMod and receive hacks via RSS feed.