In article ,
Gunner wrote:

Im pretty sure all those 110vt DC tread mill motors Ive got..aint
going to work very well unfortunatley...getting one up to 3600 rpm in
the variable winds I have here..often gusty dust devil winds in the
summer time..slight breeze to 70mph winter storms.

Advantage (aside from you already have them) - you don't need to get
them up to 3600 rpm - they are DC, you want DC, and since you don't need
110V DC (I'm guessing based on the inverter you are looking at 12, or
perhaps 24V max for the battery). The variable speed is a problem for
ANY type of wind generator (Hmm, go whack one of those little cars with
a CVT?). If you want efficient you futz with a converter that will make
more amps at the voltage you happen to be getting from the generator, if
not you ignore that.

Otherpower has tips for making generators from Volvo brake disks (and
magnets).

One downside the the VAWT's you mention is that the classic lift version
is not self-starting. Some variations that have been worked on over time
are, by various means. Experientially, the reason that most of the ones
you see now are horizontal axis is that those generally live longer, or
at least have as implemented up to now.

I can't find the site right now, but there are some nice pictures of
elegant, counterbalanced, hydraulic tilting, self-supporting towers
welded up from drill casing or similar tube out there somewhere - same
guy also was doing some ambitious machining for the prop units (HAWT).
Big advantage there is not having to climb the tower to futz with the
turbine - just bring it down to you.

Here is one commercial (which seems to be better thought out than some
others I've seen) VAWT of the self-starting Savonius flavor (drag, not
lift) - there are plenty of MUCH lower-tech versions of that flavor
easily found by searching.

http://www.windside.com/

This place is "redesigning" so they don't have much (better than the
last time I tried to look them up, when they apparently hadn't paid the
net bill and were gone), and has a combined rotor - lift and drag
(Darrius/Savonius), seen in the rightmost picture.

http://www.aerotecture.com/

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