I’m wanting to put up a node on a pole, but my yard is absolutely chocked full of trees, and so solar is just not possible here. Has anyone tried to see if they could power a mesh node with the wind? I’m thinking perhaps the wind could charge a 5V battery, which would then keep the mesh node running.
Edit: From what I can tell, they do make ones capable of charging USB devices, but only if you are on like a bicycle or in a moving vehicle. And they’re just made of plastic, so they wouldn’t be durable for outdoor use for prolonged amounts of time.
Actual legitimate wind turbines cost like $100 and would generate something like a kilowatt worth of power, which is way too much.
Edit 2: I’m definitely not the kind of person to be designing this because I don’t have the skills or the patience or the capabilities to do so. But it might be something interesting for somebody else to pick up.


The permiculture forums have some diy guides on savonious wind turbines, I’ll see if I can find some good ones. Feeding that into an off-the-shelf battery bank might be the challenging part.