Home > Lego Steam Engines > Electricity generating turbine

Lego turbine generator lighting an LED

Here is the first electricity generating LEGO engine that I know of. One day I was playing Lego with my 5-year old son when the inspiration hit. Why not use the LEGO motor as a generator?

So here it is. It even acts like a real steam turbine! Without the LED clipped onto the LEGO motor's conductive buttons, the turbine will speed way up to somewhere around 4000 rpm, judging by the sound. With the LED, the speed is limited by the forward voltage and amperage drawn by the LED.

Running the turbine generator on compressed air

The LED shines much brighter when running on 90 psi of compressed air, obviously.

The Lego turbine gear reduction

Because of the high speed of the turbine, I felt that a gear reduction was necessary to provide torque for the generator. The LEGO motor itself is actually geared down (or, up if you're running it as a generator), not like the earlier motors that were direct drive.

Air inlet is a Lego jet engine

The air inlet is a jet engine from a space LEGO set. The small end is towards the turbine wheel.

Air nozzle aligned with rubber lego tire

The turbine is a lego tire, the tread being the vanes that catch the air blast to make it spin. The air nozzle is positioned tangentially to the edge of the tire.