(Title should read "35" Windgrabber blades" ... unable to edit). Here's my Windtura 500 up with Windgrabber blades, homemade furling tail and 3 wire 8ga. Romex. It's mounted on a 2-1/2" Sch 40 Tilt-up pole. Pole is anchored via 2ea 6' long 3"x3" Angle (36" into concrete) Below is the mount and furling mechanism. Also shown is a spring to help relieve stress on the 3 phase down-wire. It's tough to see in this pic but the angles are bolted to the Windtura 500 as well as held by the 3 straps. The furling tail is set on a compound angle bolt so it rights itself when extreme winds subside. The mount has two large U-bolts on the R/H side (not shown) that hold a piece of pipe vertical (Yaw) which pivots on a vertical steel bar axis at the top of the pole. (Please just ignore the hole in the top piece of angle, it's a screwup). Below is another view of the pivot bolt for the furling tail (it's not quite completed in these pics, I added some triangles to make the furl stop more rigid and pushed a steel rod through the stop on the right). I probably should have a junction box in the pic below but I just ran the 3 wire 8ga to a disconnect plug then into the house. Along side the 8ga is the wiring from a couple of small solar panels on the roof. As you can see it's raining here (as usual in WA) so I made sure the wires sloped down and away from connections and from the holes through the wall. I may still add a Junction Box to make it look a bit better and keep the connections out of the weather. Once inside the house, the 3 - 8ga AC wires come in at the top/left of the DC panel and go down to connections at the Stop Switch. From there, they go to the 80A 3 phase Rectifier (purchased from, none other than, WindyNation). I run the DC pos to the positive buss bar and neg through a Watts-Up Meter mounted just above the stop switch then directly to the Negative Buss Bar below. I need to put a nice faceplate over the stop switch box and will print something up and laminate it for a better look (e.g. BRAKE ON/ OFF and Watts/ Volts/ Amps etc.) Here you can also see the Solar wiring comes in through the wall and goes to a small PWM Controller which I've modified to carry a few more amps by changing out the Mosfits. Below the PWM Controller is a 45A Auto Reset Breaker (This is a breaker between the Coleman Charge Controller 'noted below' and the Dump Load) The pic below, shows a Coleman Air 80A Charge Controller which senses battery voltage and diverts battery over-voltage through the (WindyNation) 45A Auto Reset Breaker to the Dump Load. I can also use the Coleman Air to break the Solar Circuit during the dump process if I choose to do so. The small black box right next to the Coleman Controller houses a computer chip that goes up to the IOTA 15A (grid powered) Charger. Eventually, the Iota Charger will cut-in via an Opto Solid State Relay which is in turn controlled by the (WindyNation) Low-Voltage Disconnect (or in this case I'm using the Reconnect circuit) ... The LVD is at the top/right of this pic, Opto SSR sits directly below the LVD. Fuses to protect the LVD and Opto SSR. (The grid powered charger will only cut-in if there is no wind or sun charge and the battery gets down to a low voltage. The LVD is pre-set to ~10VDC but I think I can add a variable resistor to the LVD sensor wire (red wire) to fool the LVD into thinking the battery voltage is lower than it actually is ... I would rather that the grid charger cut-in when the battery bank reaches !11.5VDC) Further testing will confirm or rule this out. At the bottom of this pic you better see the Negative and Positive Buss Bars and between them is a 140A DC Circuit Breaker Below is the Dump Load (2ea 300 Ohm Resistors) - (purchased at WindyNation). I'll add some slots to the cover door and add an exhaust fan that turns on when the Dump Load is active. In the right side of the Dump Load box is where two 4ga battery leads come in through the wall from outside where they run through buried conduit over to my (very humble) Battery Bank. To the right of this box is an Aims 1250W Modified Sine Wave Power Inverter. Below the Dump Load box is the AC Panel with 2ea 15A Breakers that go via conduit under the house to 4ea Auxiliary AC Recepticals. (One in Kitchen behind the Fridge, one in the Living Room where we use our Laptops, one in the Office and one in the Bedroom). My (very humble) 12VDC Battery Bank. (2ea 6 Volt 220Ah Glass Matt in Series) ... more when I can afford them. A view from below the Windtura 500 ... that 3 wire 8ga sure is stiff wire, it'll take a while to straighten out. That's all folks ... I'll keep you posted on further improvements and performance ... if we ever get any wind ... (now that I finally got the system all together). p.s. Here's a previous system with home built 2 phase wind turbine (120VAC motor conversion with starter windings, Neos epoxied to a squared off roter). http://www.fieldlines.com/index.php/topic,127708.0.html
Tried out a set of (5) fiberglass blades but they didn't work nearly as well as the (3 blade) Windgrabber set. I think a 5 blade set of Windgrabbers will work even better than 3 here so my plan is to order the large 5 blade hub and two more Windgrabber blades in the future.
