I need a bigger tail offered by windy nation so I can choose and buy a little larger tail to turn all this weight and I havent seen it furl yet..I might have to remove the 5 lbs on the tail that is perfect for the 8ft blades on the 500w's..I will be selling adapters for the 750's in the future if you want to step up to better and bigger blades than windy offers but you better have strong towers!
Well normally I would not plug anything for profit on a forum but I feel with all the posted destruction and money lost for all of you to learn from I will post a link..Leamy gave me the idea so I will be shipping him a unit free.If I would of used his same equipment then he would of got more but his 15 amp unit would not stand up to the size of blades and wind I get here and could possibly start a fire.That concerned me for others would need a industrial contractor rated for over 30amps,this unit has a 40 amp rating.They are not cheap either! I had 25 mph winds and let the turbine hit 144 volts and tested the switch,Nice loud crack and blue spark but the turbine stopped within 10 seconds http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=110792626616
30 mph steady with 50 gusts yesterday..I had to lock it down to a bank of 22-60s as my 1800 w bank of 50-100v gts is not enough and the gusts were pushing over 100vs.. Luckily my grandmother offered to buy another 1200w grid tie and soo I should be able to not worry about the volts ramping...I did stand and let it run for a few minutes and it was hovering in the 80v range and putting out over 1100 watts steady... played with the grid brake and it works good,does get hot if you click it over multiple times in a row.. After christmas I will need to buy more load resistors as I do not have enough for all the turbines yet. I have to build a bigger tail as it wont turn it while it furls,,blades didnt slow at all Windy still wont address the request to sell just the tail units as they get bent and the hole gets real sloppy. They dont want to start offering bigger and better parts for the more advance home turbines then someone else will and they can just stick with entry level turbines...
Bluejay, Our mounting frame, inlcuding the tail, is not designed to handle a 2000 Watt 50 lbs generator head. Nor is it optimized or designed to handle 12 foot blades. Well it work? Maybe, but we have not done any kind of testing to validate or verify this. We have not heard of one customer having a bent tail or sloppy holes on the tail when the Windtura Mount is used as intended with our Windtura 750 Generator Head and our Three WindGrabber Blades. We want to offer bigger parts for large wind turbines and we are in the process of doing this. This kind of research and development takes years before the products are optimized and fit for commericial production. Also, believe it or not, it takes tens of thousand of dollars to develop something like this. The tooling fees alone for the Complete Windtura 750 Mount are over $10K. We do not release products for sale to our customers until we are confident we have a solid design that will survive its expected service.
True but I am doing the testing for you,,the frames are solid but even the tails on the 500's are getting sloppy.I want to be able to buy replacement tails only and it would be nice to be able to buy a tail end that is 6 inches wider.... I am trying to help you guys too as I do not want to be on the sale side just designing what works here.. I have high end winds alot and always post for you guys so work with me.. My next turbine will be a 1kw 48v model and I will have to weld a tray also. The tails are to small to turn all the counter weight I need.. I suppose I could talk to my local shops but why not let you guys offer more and also have free advertising of your products??
You could do what I did for mine. I went online and got a 1/4 inch thick piece of pipe then found a bronze bushing to press inside it to fit down over the rod on mine. Since doing that I have checked it and it is not egging out like the last one. Even with that really heavy tail on it. Had those slamming gust to 40 mph last night and all survived OK. Had me scared for quite a few hours.
The three bolts that hold the tail to the vane need to be tightenend down. If this is done, then the round steel tube securely compresses onto the aluminum tail. This will prevent anything from coming loose and making sloppy holes. The problem with making a larger tail is that we will have to have about ~150 tails laser cut to get decent pricing. What are we going to do the with the other 149 tails You could buy a 4 ft x 4 ft x 0.25 inch sheet of UHMW plastic and cut two tails from that. UHMW is UV and moisture resistant and it is cheap. You might even be able to get away with 3/16 or 1/8 inch if you support it properly with braces. And it is plastic so it is easy to work with.
Windy--its not the bolt holes..the tail pivot point is getting egg shaped from being beat to hell in the wind Offer a large tail for larger output turbines and the standard for the 500/750... Plastic will never work here..lost a 3x3 foot of shingles last night..When I say I get crazy winds I AM NOT JOKING..
That is why I beefed my pivot up. That thin wall tube was oblong in only a few months on my setup. - I had to put a bracket over the top to keep it from bending the plate. The tube on the pivot is 1/4 inch wall and the bushing runs the full length of the tube.
Yea I have had a few times of going up there and finding the tail is only half on and needs to be pulled back onto the post..I also would like to experiment with tail weights and maybe on one pushing the limits to see thresholds for the 8ft blade spans.. The other day they were in constant furl for over a hour and were only putting out 50ws... I wont experiment with the 10.6 ft blades anytime soon. Tom please check your inbox for a ?
That is why I rigged mine up with double nuts and thread locker. So it had no way to come off. Had to back the nuts off a little cause it does need some up and down movement or it will bind.
I would like to clear the air about something..I have the utmost respect for Leamy and all he has brought to this forum . I never meant to belittle or discredit his work.Leamy is not in a "optimum wind area " with over 40-50mph winds a few times a year.I have seen that from all his posts. All his knowledge is sound based and the only reason I brought up the concern of his style shut down switch is safety..Its not money motivated or a personal attack in any way. It is a fact and also in Windys videos that the old 500 and the 750 model can produce 30-40 amps under extreme conditions.. The style contractor he uses is sitting next to me and with the side attachment that is only rated for 15 amps is what all your power from your turbine would flow thru during a grid down senario.Pushing 30 amps thru a 15 amp switch means what??? What if someone in a high wind area uses his setup and has the extreme happen.. I never meant to hurt anyone's pride or feelings,,,just making sure safety is our top concern. Off all my nerve racking tests and my train rolling sounding winds a few times a year I have put reaserch and respect for that power at the top of my list.. Hell i dont care if I sell a single unit to be honest,it works for what I need and just want that safety available to others.
A observation of testing..if the wind comes in fast or the turbine is took offline then turned back on.it will hit 50 volts but ramp to over a hundred befor the grid ties caps fill and start feeding. Around 70 volts you can hear the turbine slicing the air from spinning so fast... If I had a 35v start to about 80v would be a perfect match for this gen.. no idea how to slow this turbine down to let the gt's lock on unless I have a 80ish battery bank and I dont want to do that unless its a must.????
Mine went over volt only three time yesterday. That I know of I was there most of the day to see how the new blade setup would do. I caught it once and both grid ties did not pick up for a few seconds at battery tie voltage with the dump load ingauged. Wind went from 5 mph to 30 mph in 2 secs.
Well I got the other 1200w so with the 600,,, I will have 3000w grid ties in parallel..this is split evenly between 2 circuits to the panel... I have been thinking about it all day too I need to figure out what size tail I should have with the 10.6 blades and the optimum weight for it. I see both those aspects as important..Anymore weight you can add past the fulcrum point is a plus for less friction and tracking the wind.
got all 3 50-110v gt's hooked up last night and we had some decent gusts.It seemed to never ramp over 60 volts and kicked in early also..the 2 500's were kicking out 200w combined so it was only 12-15mph gust as a rough estimate..Oh I so need a new wind anemeter..back to broke right now though... Windy can you give me the formula for what the proper size tail should be for the blade span of 10.6ft. I know there was a formula but I cant find it.
I can't find my book which lists recommended Tail Surface Areas. I will keep looking. My best guess is around 4 ft. x 2 ft. I will post when/if I can find my book.
Does this help? "As for the area of the tail vane, it can be determined by a simple equation: D(squared) / 40 = Area of the Tail Vane (where D is the diameter in your unit of choice). This equation is given by Hugh Piggot who has many years of small wind turbine experience."
