It's UP !
Or rather, it was up, because we're too chicken to leave it up overnight without a chance to check everything while we can see something :)
This morning we finished all the wiring, mounted the tail and drilled the mounting holes for the blades.
That doesn't sound like a lot of work for a whole day, but the weather wasn't cooperating at all, streaming rain for the better part of the day.
We raised the tower with just the generator on it to see if the weight would
give us troubles, the pipe bent a bit on the way up but other than that no problem at all.
Then we took it down again and mounted the tail, then balanced and mounted the blades.
After it got up there we switched it on for a bit (still not wired to the
rectifiers, so only the AC side of things), and in no wind at all and with the blades set at a ridiculous 25 degree or so attack angle it was still making about 30 volts...
We'll see tomorrow morning what happens when we set things a bit more tight.
Balancing the blades was done only so-so, we'll revisit that when we get back from our trip through the US. Unfortunately RonB has to go home, we'll miss him quite a bit when he's gone. Handy fellow to have around to put it mildly. (and he's one hell of a knife sharpener too).
In spite of the slipshot balancing the machine did not vibrate noticably while it was spinning, I did hear a faint noise that I still want to try to track down before we leave it unattended.
The short circuit switch did not quite work as advertised, I have no idea why it won't stop it faster than it does and I want to do some confidence testing on it to make sure it does in fact work before I leave the machine to spin unattended.
The wind was way too light to test the furling, also by the time we were done it was pitch dark (so no picture of the machine on top of the tower with blades, sorry, I'll make one tomorrow).
We're all dead tired, beat and wet through, we're going to have a farewell dinner for RonB now, and relax a bit !
Pictures follow, the first three were made yesterday:
Governor assembled front view:
Left-Front view:
Chris & Johannes mounting a ground anchor:
The brushes for the sliprings, two wires on each one for each set of coils:
All that wiring has to fit into that little box ?:
It seems it does !:
The machine hanging from the hoist, ready to be moved to the truck:
Easy does it. That thing is heavy:
At the site on the hill. The black tube entering from the right is the tip of the tower:
Connecting the wiring from the alternator to the cable in the tower:
Mounting the tower adaptor onto the tower, the fit is pretty tight and the machine is heavy, this is not as simple as it looks:
It's in, the rim catches the top of the tower:
Now we need to secure the tower adaptor with some bolts through the side:
The machine hanging from the tower, the tractor is holding it up (and that two by four on the right ;), we're going to make a better 'cradle' for it when it's down like that, but at least we can work on it now.
Wiring up the short-circuit switch at the base of the tower:
Ready to raise it for the first time:
Up she goes, still bladeless. We figured if it was going to crash then better without blades:
But it didn't ! It looks really small from the ground looking up, this is zoomed in quite a bit:
Mounting the blades, it's pitch dark by now, we're working by the headlights from the truck. RonB looks so much better when he's soaked:
Ready ! All three blades are mounted and track reasonably well, we're going to hoist it up:
It's up!, if you can see it that means I have upgraded this picture, for now it's pretty dark (if you can actually see it then you have better eyes than I do):
Back down for the night:
And that's how we left it... parked and immobilized.
