It's great, but is that really $30 worth of materials? Maybe for a company doing this on some small scale, but an individual sourcing these parts? Especially bu

It's great, but is that really $30 worth of materials? Maybe for a company doing this on some small scale, but an individual sourcing these parts? Especially building a tower! It feels like the flaps exist to reduce the need for welding or rivets, but then the thing has so many ?bolts? and drilled holes. Also the precision needed is quite high to get it to fit together like that. Personally I would look to remove the curved structures and use straight edges instead. I like the idea of using a bike - I think you could go further and use more bike parts. In the bike you may have useful parts such as: 1. 2 wheels - an extra wheel could give your wind socks more structure. 2. Bike frame - use as the structure to hold it upright. (Not as tall as those towers, but perhaps something that could be mounted on a roof.) 3. Brake cables - use to stabilize the structure. 4. Chain and gears - drive the DC motor. The other thing to really consider is taking that varying DC voltage and doing something with it. I think generally 13V or so would be sensible - you could use it to trickle charge lead batteries and 12V step down circuits are relatively easy to come by. I can't really think of something that could be sourced from other parts though... Technically I think the 12V ash-tray electrical output (between the driver and passenger) is directly connected to the battery - if so they should technically be able to handle automotive voltages which could be as high as 40+V (a battery lead bouncing on top of a battery terminal in conjunction with the battery charger can pulse high voltages throughout the car). Somehow though I doubt some cheap Chinese charger could be relied upon to have such electrical robustness.