http://www.windchasers.ca/

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!



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!
EARTHSHIP 101
Earthship started, only two years to go.

The fun has begun!

More pics on earthship page (Breaking ground)


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!

Jake, get your hands off our new blades!

Jake looking sheepish after getting caught! Nice try!




We did it! We finally have our building permit to start working on our earthship! As of September, the building inspectors of Norfolk county put their seal of approval on our plans and we will be leveling ground on our farm soon.

Watch for our new "Earthship" page, coming soon that will be an ongoing chronicle of our adventure!



They're Here!
Hugh Piggott's 2009 wind turbine plans, Imperial edition.


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.

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Marty finally put up his turbine a week ago! Looks like he's a big fan of the Red Baron, aka, Snoopy! Looks great Marty!

For more on Marty's turbine, check out his story on our "Turbine Adventure's" page.



Everyone here at Wind Chasers was terribly shocked to hear that fellow wind turbine builder and good friend, Ray Patterson, passed away this past May.

Though we had only known Ray for about three years, he had become a regular fixture here every Saturday. Everyone here will miss Ray's stories and his willingness to help anyone who needed an extra hand.

We have added a section to our Turbine Adventures page as a tribute to Ray's time spent here with the gang.

Ray didn't get a chance to finish his turbine adventure, but he certainly added to everyone else's adventure!




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 !
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.






Saturday Fun!
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!

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!

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!




Valley Heights Secondary School
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!

Here are a few pictures of the test.

For more on this story, check out the "Turbine Adventures" page.



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!

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!!
This is Craig's newest project. Each coil has 413 turns of # 21 wire. He is hoping that it will make 240 volts at 110 rpm's. This will be a grid tie turbine. He will be pouring the stator soon and hopefully will be posting a lot more new pictures very soon! We have been so busy here that we forget to take new pictures!



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!



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!


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 !

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.






Here's a group photo of the University of Western Ontario's future tech teachers posing by the Axial Flux turbine which was built as their project for the year.



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.

New!

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!

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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!)

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 ten foot diameter, homebuilt axial flux turbine designed by Hugh Piggott. This turbine was put up last summer after running the eight foot axial flux for a year, which had replaced our original turbine which was a brakedrum turbine, also designed by Hugh Piggott. The eight foot turbine was a great machine and made lots of power for us. The ten foot machine has been also been an excellent machine. We are currently putting the finishing touches on the twelve foot model and are hoping to have it up and running very soon!

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 twenty 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.





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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