That's a good point about a crosshead being suitable for an electricity conduit. i wasn't sure that you were going to use crossheads, considering they add a lot of complexity and unreliability to a gasoline engine.
My father has a share in a windfarm. the turbines are in the megawatt range. I am irish and in the eu so our economic situation is not as bad as the uk. the country does buy a lot of nuclear power from the uk through an interconnector.
I've often thought of building a battery bank from electric car cells and using it to power the farm from 5pm to 7pm when energy is most expensive. My health doesn't allow big projects currently, i lack energy.
I worked on a dairy farm once where they had constructed a generator from a car engine. they had fitted a belt pulley inside the gearbox and used it to drive an over the counter generator. I think if i wanted inexpensive power used auto parts would be the way to go, as they are almost free when they age out of service.
I think it's important to be realistic and realise that hobby engines will never give good service in industrial use.
My neighbour is a carpenter and may have built a wind turbine based on the otherpower.com plan. Lately i've been wondering if it were possible to build such an epoxy type axial generator without expensive magnets by emulating the brushless alternator design. that is to say, use two rings of enamelled wire on the stator instead of the current one. pass a field current into one ring, and draw the output power from another ring. the rotor would have two rings also, but with diodes.
