After a few days of fairly low winds yesterday evening we were treated to a good old north wester. Wind speeds up to 50 mph ! Finally a chance to see if the feathering works as intended and, surprise surprise, it held up.
It was pretty scary to watch, especially up close. The machine would rev up to about 300 RPM, change pitch by 20 degrees, propel itself forward while dropping to about 150 RPM and start up again after resetting. Sometimes the winds were so high that this sequence would repeat itself 20 times per minute !
So, after a few hundred feathering cycles the storm died down, and by the next morning it was dead calm. No parts went awol so I guess we can chalk this up as a success of sorts.
After spending two hours to clean out a spot for the tractor and get it started we lowered the tower.
We had lost a bearing retainer bolt the last time around (I figured out why, operator error, the wrench butting in to an invisible nut is not the same as tightening the bolt...) so we first fixed that, this time making sure that the bolt was in fact tight, and some of the good stuff was added for luck (locktite blue).
Then we inspected the whole machine for wear and breaks, but nothing seemed out of order.
After colour coding all the wires and rewiring it for series-star we put it back up again, of course absolutely no wind the rest of the day.
That sounds easier than it really was btw, it was -20 celsius and rewiring in that little box is hell with gloves on, and the cold made it hell without...
