Possible to charge iPhone through other means? I am too cheap to purchase a USB charging connector for my iPhone, so I was wondering if there's a way to create a USB cable at home or use some other USB cable and get the job done safely.

For example will other USBs, assuming the connectors fit, charge, or no? I figure they would since they are just USB 2.0 based and iPhone can't tell the difference from its hardware perspective.

A better way to look at this: any other way to charge an iPhone without an iPhone-specific charger? I heard it's possible to use a wind turbine or dynamometer, but those are not inexpensive. Could those be replicated at home with typical at home tools? For example could I make a crank device that delivers powered-charge through the USB to the iPhone's battery?
Yes it is possible, but consider the consumption and Costs.

How much electricity does it take to power your iPhone for a year? 

The answer: 1 kWh.

This is the amount of electricity you’d need to power ten 100-watt incandescent light-bulbs for an hour. 

Far from anything worth being sheepish over, 1 kwh costs about 12 cents.

To be specific, your iPhone battery holds a charge of 1,440 mAh, or about 5.45 watt hours. If you fully drained and recharged your phone everyday, then over the course of a year you would have to feed it about 2,000 watt hours, or 2kWh = 25 Cents per Year.

As for your iPad, keeping it fed costs just $1.36 a year, according to the Electric Power Research Institute. 

Your average laptop, with its far bigger screen, uses about 72 kWh, costing some $8 a year.

There is your challenge:

Make a power station that has a ROI such to recover the cost using the 25 cents per Year returns.

Answer: if it cost you $20 to make the power station- it will take about 40 Years before you see benefit.