I dont get why you guys dont just pick up old tv towers.they are very easy to come by now adays and are very stable....Unless you are scared to wear a harness and hang up there :lol:
For me its about permits and the kids around here. If I had the cash and more than 6 ft for a yard I would put up a 60-70 ft with tram system. Installed one for a guy and I like them alot. I am not afraid of heights. Anyone that is should stay on the ground. They are a hazard if they go up. I have been up on shaky 70 ft tower with no guy wires. I didn't use a harness to pull it down. Had to keep close to tower. If you leaned back it would lean over out close to 10 ft from the base. Good thing there was NO wind and lots of trees nearby. I wanted to install guy wires on the way up but no one had any extra cable. All we had was a few wrenches and a gin pole. Found a few pieces of wood for a jack to get sections apart.
Bluejay, Since this about my system now. I put it here. Up late last night. Saw 7 amps once. Seems to be that I have very little turbulence. Because I can hear when the wind changes direction and the turbine turns. Happened 3 time last night. It drops to near 0 amps and runs back up to where it left off in about 2 seconds. I was watching the trees earlier. I seem to be only getting part of the wind gusts. So my big problem is being toooooo low. 70ft trees,50ft from house from SW,W,NW. Which is prevailing wind side. So if they are right and wind comes down at a 10-15 degree angle my height should be 60ft off the ground. And I am at 45ft. So the best I can do for everyone till spring is let everyone know if when the leaves fall how much of an improvement I see.
Tom, The winter winds improve my out put a great deal. Not only do the leaves fall from the trees but the wind changes direction. It also seems to be less turbulance. It works out well for me because as the sun fades the wind picks up the slack.I hope you have strong winds and would like to thank you for all your useful information! Mark
Winter Winds Its a fact according to the operations manager of Pincher Creek Alberta, Canada biggest wind farm. He stated in a recent interview that those living in a colder climate will have better results with their turbines as cold air carries more potential energy than warm air. So Beachbum might have the warm salty air, shorts and tee shirt for winter but some of us will have the snow banks and more amps. good night murray
Update.......... That weather channel weather station is not so great a deal. The wind speed that it displays is an average over about 10 seconds. NOT...I repeat NOT....An instantaneous reading. Also I am still getting noise from cogging. But is a lot lower and not objectionable anymore with the new generator. I will buy some audio car body noise retarding foam pad and wrap around the pipe as soon as I can. Will report on any noise reduction.
Got first decent wind today. They were talking 50-70 mph with gusts to 90 mph possible. As usual by the time it got here only 20-30 mph wind and usually 14-18 mph. Since 75% of leaves are gone from the trees the generator has been running almost non stop for 2 days. It runs at 2-3.5 amps most of the time and has a hard time even in 18-20 mph getting to 10 amps. Sent for the upgrade to a 5 blade wind grabber set. Will post more when I put it up.
I got those winds you were hoping for..I know I need deeper and around 2000lbs of concrete for sure..900 lbs worth including the blocks here..
ah I am sorry to see that Bluejay with all the hard work you have been putting into it. I would not be so concerned with base weight as long as it is stabilized. I would recommend guy wires due to the top weight and mass of your turbine with the gear box and all. Even with out the gear box i would still suggest guy wires and a double set for anything 30 ft and over for pole mount or the latice type towers. murray
Oh crap. Sorry that happenend blue jay! That sucks. Is the turbine OK? Just to let you know, my Dad is a licenesed architect and he did the calculations for the 400 Watt solar tracker that you saw in the video. The 6x6 wooden post needs about 750 pounds of concrete to be able to safely handle 45-50 mph wind. And this is for a 6 in x 6 in wooden post that is only five feet above the ground, with a tracker on it of course. But, like Murray said, guy wires will stablize the tremendous wind loading forces that your tower/turbine absorb in high winds.
Sorry tom for hijacking your thread.. Everything is fine except for the blades. I have spares here as I was ready to start the next one..I have paid 600 for 3 50+trees to be dropped..should of waited another week :lol: .. I see I need very deep and heavy holes.Thats all..I will never have to go above 30 ft now to have clean wind...I will have so much weight at the bottom that the damn things will have to snap over! I am running out of nice weather and have 3 turbines that can be flying so the tower installs will begin this weekend.. I have one 4 foot hole dug and I belled the bottom so its like a footing.I also am working on a above ground mold for looks and function... The bummer,I never got to see if there is a big difference on the 24v high end of production..It never wound out like the 12 volt but still put out 25-50 in average wind.. I have noticed that when the GT is close(14v start) to the battery voltage and you let the battery run at full and dump into the grid it has more output. When I was running anything in a partial battery charge(22v) the batteries seemed to absorb some and only trickeled out to the grid. I wish I could hook directly to grid ties..I bet you could hook to the 22-60 with no problem but how to manage a dump when the grid goes down?
Another day of wind and the turbine is experiencing some sort of shuddering. I am going from 0 mph to 25 mph and back to 0 mph in 5 to 10 seconds. I shut it down for now cause it sounds pretty bad at times. Especially when it happens in 5 seconds. Can not hear it outside but I can in my bedroom. Was up a few times in the middle of the night checking on it. As it woke me up.
While I had those 35 inch blades down over the weekend to see if they were balanced and they were not. This is what I used to balance them and now the turbine runs with almost no noise. It used to make a shuddering sound around 1amp all the time so when it went up and down thru this range it was loud. I used the spin balancer first making sure that no blade stops on the bottom. Then moved it over to the lawn mower blade balance to double check it. Hub and blades not what I used. Just to show how to put the hub and blades for balancing. They were not off a lot .....
Hey Tom, good to hear you are getting good amps now. Your set up shows how you checked the balance of the blades but what did you do to the blades to alter the balance ? The mur
I ground off the ends just a little. It was only about 1/8 inch total. Even though the blades and hub are cut with a laser. Metal thickness,alignment of bolt holes,thickness of washers and such will make enough of a difference to cause vibration. I can not hear the vibration outside. Just inside. If it was mounted on a pole outside would never had heard or known about it.
I bought a digital hanging scale as to be able to make sure all the blades are within a gram of each other. :geek:
Ok, now this is interesting cause very soon I must balance the 12 ft blades I am making. I agree that trying to match the weight is very important but I am thinking the balance might still be out due to where each blade is carrying their weight ! I would think the critical part still comes back to balance while on the hub ? Not so sure if I would tune my blades by making one shorter than the other. In my mind you may have balanced the blades in weight but do you run the risk of then altering the amount of wind grab by changing the amount of blade surface ? I don,t know if it is that critical , so I am asking the rest of you ! Could this be resolved by adding more weight at the hub area and leave the blade surface intact ? Glad these comments came up cause I will have to deal with it soon. Murray
I personal wouldnt touch the tips but would look to tweek as close to the hub as possible..I am doing fiberglass so removing alittle or adding extra washers at the bolt site makes more sense than altering the tip...Tom prolly wont see any problems from it but I am with you murry and tweek at the hub or as close to it as possible..
