Finally put the windmill up . And as for all others. A big high just settled in for the next week before there will be any wind. It is at 5 ft for testing. The pole goes down to the second floor landing of the attic. I will post photo's of the assembly for raising it to 19 ft off the roof in about a week as soon as I finish it. Will be using a boat winch and cable to raise it straight up.
Congratulations Tom, It looks great! I can't wait to see the close up pictures of your rig. Thanks for sharing. BeachBum
I had to change the pulley configuration. Also it is a better picture of the mount. On the old one the pulleys started to drag on the wood.
Tom, your whole set up looks great. I should take a lesson from you on the finished professional look. are you the first in your area to put up solar wind ? what is the total lift of your pulley system ? the batteries you told me about, wow did you ever get a good deal.. no more worries on venting ! the copper strips connecting your batteries. what size are they, how much do they cost and where from ? on your panel box, the two gauges I am assuming they are amps and Volts,,, would you ever consider building a box to sell to others,,, like me ? I would love to have those gauges wired in.
Murray, There are a few in my area. Only one has solar and wind. They brought the system from Colorado when they moved here. They have had the system for awhile. I have no Idea on current capacity of copper buss bars. I made them from flattening out 3/4 inch soft copper like you find at the hardware store. Then cutting to size. The crank is a boat winch rated 600lbs. The pulleys are garage door spring pulleys on 3/8inch eyes and are not rated. They are bolted thru (2 ) 2x6 and (1 ) 4x4 post between the studs. The first 2x6 spans 4 studs in the wall. The cables are 1/8 inch. The whole mast assemble in under 300 lbs. As for the vent system. I am working on it and will post pictures when done. Gauges are volts and amps. Don't have the amp hooked up but do have the voltage hooked up. The push button is to light up the light and display voltage. I'm going to hook up the amp gauge to light up when it is charging. It will be easier at night to know whether if it is charging or not. As for the box. Not really into building one again. I received that one for free and spent the last 4 months scrounging parts from local sources and from the internet. Like the main fuse at the bottom of the box. Spent a day looking around and found a surplus audio place that had the one I was looking for. The 80 amp fuse goes from $ .79 all the way to $14.99 for a fuse. So buyer beware and shop around and around. They didn't have much else for sale but they did have what I wanted. Tom
Tom, I really like your lift system. The whole job is first class. I also wanted to thank you for the no voltage loss switch for solar panels.I am waiting for the 150 watt N channel mosfets to finish it up. Great job! Mark99
I also wanted everyone to know that the (2) clamps for the mast I got from a truck shop for $22.00. I had them bend (2) 3 inch ID by 12 inch long u-bolts for me to go all the way thru the wood to hold it. The clamp itself for the mast is 2.5 schedule 80 cut in half longways. One half is welded to the clamp. The other half has 2 angle iron welded to the pipe to square it up to mount to the wall.
Tom, That is a pretty clever tower pulley system you have deployed. I want to throw up a couple wind turbine test towers this fall/winter that we will need to raise and lower often. I will have to think about stealing some of your ideas.
Tom, Now that you've had your "periscope" style tower up for some time, are you happy with the final results? Would you do anything different? How stable is the setup; any vibrations? Do you have any pictures of the roof penetration? Your system is probably the most impressive and well thought out I've seen. Is there anything that keeps the tower locked in the up position, other then the boat winch? Thanks, BeachBum
BeachBum, I have been happy with it so far. The automotive voltage meter was not any good. I just replaced it and went to a 30 amp meter. I am waiting to hear about the difference between the 3 and 5 blade setup. I might change that later. The mount is the 2 u-bolts that go thru the wall and I can also bolt down the bottom to the floor plate under it. You can make it out in one of the pictures I posted. So far no vibrations at all. It is almost right above my bed it the attic. Where I went thru the roof it is almost at the peak. I had to cut the roof seal into a D shape . I left a piece of the plastic at the top to slide under the ridge vent on the roof. I used silicone sealer to hold it down and used 4 screws to hold it in place.
Tom, I posted a short report on the 3 blade vrs the 5 blade awhile ago for light to medium and finally heavy winds. Bottom line for me was : if you were already using a 3 blade 35 inch blades, I would not bother to change to the 5. murray
Murray, Thanks for the info on the blades. My biggest concern was that in wind at 14 mph I was showing less than 5 amps current going to the battery. The old voltage meter never got above 12.25 volts in 2 months. So I changed the voltage meter and the amp meter from a 60 amp to a 30 amp.Now it is showing 12.5 volts and still not showing 5 amps. This was after last night when my daughter called me and were on the phone while she was outside relaying info on the speed of the blades. Of course till this week the PMA seemed not to turn till 10 mph or more. Seems to have loosened up in the past few days. While the blades were a total blur it still was showing less than 5 amps. So long story short.......Do not trust mechanical automotive gauges. Later when I have more money and can buy a Doc Watson or some other digital brand. I will report back with more info. TomT
Tom, real interesting post. I wonder why your blades would not start turning until 10 mph or more ! You should have been making real good power by then. I would suggest talking directly to Josh about your turbine. The 500 is capable of starting to turn in 2 - 3 mph wind and cut in around 5 - 7 (for 12 V.) and that would be brand new and firs time on the tower, no break in period required ! I know what you mean on trusting guages. I had four different multi meters and each one would give a different reading as much as 1 V difference. I finally kept two and recycled the others. If I use the Windy controller set for 14 V as my exact guide, my best voltmeter reads approx. 13.60 V when my controller transfers power to the dumpload & I am using a battery charger to do this. The best my 500 has ever done on its own is a reading of 13.50, but then those batteries do not hold that charge when amps are reduced, they drop down and settle at a lower reading. The resting Volt of my bank is around 12.6 V So far it has never been able to set the controller over the 14 V on its own. I know the size and condition of my batteries must be a factor to take into consideration of what my Volt result are or what the 500 is capable of producing but what I am seeing is that I might need more than a 500 to push into this battery bank. Might try hooking up the 750 to it just to see the results. I am really looking forward to my digital clamp meter to check my incoming amps to my battery bank from my 500.
Murray, As I was saying the mechanical gauges are not too good. They show 12.5 volts and the multi-meter shows 14 volts. I also shorted the relay out the other day for 10 mins to see how much the batteries would lose. Not much at all.
Well had a bit of a surprise the other night. It was real windy out and woke up to howling in the attic.... Sounded like my bearings were drying out and making all kinds of noise. Could hear it real well downstairs. Did some checking today when we had some wind. I found out while I was playing with the winch system I didn't take all the tension off. So with the wires tight as a banjo it works just like harp and amplifies sound from the wind turbine extremely well. Won't let that happen again.
New generator is up. Spent 6 hrs up there and in the attic. Painted my tower while I was up there. Also put up the wind speed indicator. Now time for testing as soon as there is some wind.
Love it Tom, The ability to bring down your tower is essential if mounted to your home. I live in an area that sees above average winds, and some of the storms that roll through here can easily shred wind turbines, and possibly do damage to the home its mounted to. You will sleep better at night knowing you have a back-up plan. Installerdude
