I wanted to make some changes to the eolienne (wind turbine) design by Gwlad55. If you want to duplicate my effort, you will print a combination of his parts and my modified components.

I substituted an eight mm diameter carbon fiber tube for the aluminum tube called out by Gwlad55. I cross drilled the spacers between the bearings of both the horizontal and vertical shafts using a 2mm drill bit. Then in inserted a 14mm long piece of 1.75mm filament and secured it with a drop of cyanoacrylate adhesive. I heated the blade of a screwdriver and mushroomed both ends of the filament much like you would peen over the end of a metal rivet. When I pressed in the bearings, I added a few drops of adhesive. Now the bearings and shafts are secured in the main body and won’t fall out.
I wanted to remove and reinstall the blades for easy transport.

The original design had no means to secure the hub assembly to the horizontal shaft. Using Fusion 360 I split the blade hub into two parts. The nose is now a removable spinner with a captive nut. I used the 7mm bolt and nut familiar to all who use eSUN filament spools, but a standard 7mm bolt and nut should work. When printing this part, print it nose up and pause the print at layer 50 (if you’re printing at 0.2mm resolution), drop the nut into the cavity, and resume the print. Check your slicer to be sure pausing at layer 50 is appropriate for you. Too early and the print nozzle with hit the nut; too late and the nut cavity will be covered over preventing you from positioning the nut. I used support for this part to be sure the thin edge printed well, but it was very easy to remove.

I cut the head off the eSUN 7mm bolt, inserted it into the horizontal shaft, and secured it with cyanoacrylate adhesive. Now the blade hub assembly can be installed and held in place by tightening down the spinner. Removal is the opposite.

I added a counter bore to the aft face of the blade hub. Print an additional short spacer and secure it to the hub assembly with a drop of adhesive. This forms a boss which will prevent the hub from rubbing the body by insuring that the hub assembly only contacts the bearing inner race.

I wanted longer blades, so I scaled them 150% in the span direction only. I also wanted to print them horizontally for better strength. I used Cura to orient the blade to the horizontal position and then I twisted the blade pitch so that it was leading edge down. I used a light 10% support and by adjusting the orientation I was able to limit the support to a 4mm wide strip along the entire leading edge. Finally, I arranged the blade diagonally across my build plate for printing. The support was easy to remove and two minutes of sanding and polishing gave me a very nice leading edge.

In order to balance the weight of the longer blades and to make the wind turbine more sensitive to changes in wind direction, I extended the tail boom and printed the tail feathers in a slightly different shape.

I printed a mounting base with a built in Arca-Swiss photographic tripod mount so I could quickly mount the wind turbine to my existing tripod and then remove it for easy transport. It looked good, but I quickly realized my stupid mistake as soon as I saw that the blades interfered with my tripod. The solution was easy. I simply used a piece of carbon fiber tube with an eight mm ID to extend the height of the wind turbine so that the blades would no longer hit the tripod. It works, but it isn’t very elegant. I’ll probably leave it as is, but you might want to design, draw, and print a base more suited to your individual mounting scheme. I am including the STL file anyway.

TEVO

Black Widow

No

Yes

0.2mm

Various

Support for blades and spinner only.