My test tower is about 17' high and kinda nasty mounting, I been using it since last fall/winter steady with a kinda heavy genny setup.
The mounting of the tower, nothing but a couple pieces of plumbers straping and some woodscrews holding it vertical against a trailer house tipout. Tower is about 7 foot higher than trailer roof. No guy wires.
We had some very strong winds recently, nothing bad happened. Only thing I am even worried about here is that if it fell it would break my Jerry blades. No problems so far, and those winds I thought was going to take the trailer roof off! Genny was flying and running fine, no furling.
As for wire twisting up, this is a turbulent setup, trailer and taller trees, lots of wind changes and I see the genny yawing different times when watching it. Sofar I never had to unwind it yet in many months. This one just has the wire hanging down off the genny on the backside of the tower so it does not get caught in the blades, otherwise just hanging loose in mid air and flopping about for about top 7 feet. It has not wound up tight around the tower pipe like I thought it would. Maybe 1 or 2 turns around the pipe sofar at most, and it undoes it itself.
This was just a kinda test setup for ocasional use when I put it there, but I have been using it I geuss since Sept. 2006 like this now steady.
The genny itself is low power, 1/4hp motor conversion, puts out high volts but about 0.30 amps, perfect for charging Ni-cad packs and other high volt low amp banks for me.. nothing to lose
Spelin and tpying are my strong points, not electronics.
Also, what Scale/measurements did you use for your blades, are they a scaled down DanB design or your own?
Thanks and good luck. Ben
yes, the blades are modified some. I impravised- used own judgement,etc. -Since these blades are so short, I had to go with steeper angles for purpose of start-up. I am still in need of learning more about tsr though. But I must be in the ball park, cause these blades are doing terrific. That airfoil shape is AMAZING. Even in a little 10 Mph tiny wind they take off like an airplane propeller. And to think just last fall I was experimenting with flat 1/4" plywood blades on that same motor.(Im emmbarrased now) I could only reach 10v in a hurricane wind! Anyway as I said in the post, 4 blades would've been even better for the winter months. The cold temperatures outside make the grease in the ball bearings alittle thicker, which means alittle more difficult starts -- and with only a 4 ft rotor , 4 blades would start up better on those 10mph cold wind days. Now that we just had two 50 degree F days, the 3-blades starts up even easier now since the grease in the bearings is warmer. On a warmer day it starts up many many times on a common 10mph low wind day.(since the breeze frequently stops and goes)[ Parent ]
