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Minor Success
By henjulfox, Section Homebrewed Electricity Posted on Mon Jan 30, 2006 at 01:38:11 PM MST
RE works!

Yesterday's forcast was for high winds and rain. Then at lunch time we heard a loud
bang and the lights went out. A tree came down on the power lines down the street.
I had already wired 2 house circuits (family room and frig) through a generator
transfer switch to the inverter so all I had to do is throw a switch and we have
some power. Batteries were dropping fast until I ran around pulling all the wall
warts. Amazing how much they use. My 2 4' mills were then able to keep up with a large TV and even the frig for an hour. We had all the neibor kids over watching
movies and doing playstation.
Daddy's crazy hobby is now a little less crazy. Thanks all for the knowledge I've
found on this site.
-Henry

Minor Success | 5 comments (5 topical)

Re: Minor Success (3.00 / 0) (#1)
by adelaide on Mon Jan 30, 2006 at 03:39:51 PM MST

Its good to say to people when they ask if you had a power failure and you say I don't know, as running on solar/wind/batteries.

I have 90% of the parts ready for the electric car. It may be good when you hear ,how the price of fuel is now....
well done now you have to make it automatic switching!

Re: Minor Success (3.00 / 0) (#2)
by Jerry on Mon Jan 30, 2006 at 09:31:34 PM MST

Hi Henry. Are those your ECM mills with "Jerry blades" ?

JK TAS Jerry

Airheads Page

Re: Minor Success (3.00 / 0) (#3)
by henjulfox on Tue Jan 31, 2006 at 06:40:08 AM MST

One with Jerry blades, one with a test set. Unfortunatly, with all that good wind the test set I was running was only putting out about 2/3 the power of Jerry blades. Best I've done so far is to match yours.

To make the testing as accurate as possible the 2 turbines are next to each other, perpendicular to the prevailing winds, 1' or so between blade tips. A good gust shifted one of the mounts causing one turbine to lean towards the other, specifically blade-tail contact. Your blades are good but they don't hold up worth a durn when they hit 3/4" plywood at full speed. 1 Blade fine, one damaged but maybe servicable and 1 broken. When I get through my denial period I'll decide to either cut a couple replacements to your specs or continue testing against my set that matched yours.

On a positive note: The loss of power took down my anenometer but I heard the gusts hit 45 MPH, pretty good for us. My blades are not reinforced, just clamped between 2 hubs. I keep expecting to find a blade in the backyard but even un-reinforced they are holding up fine.

-Henry

[ Parent ]

Re: Minor Success (3.00 / 0) (#4)
by henjulfox on Tue Jan 31, 2006 at 07:32:30 PM MST

Guess what happens the day I post that the blades are holding up fine un-reinforced. Yup, snapped one. Sigh...
-Henry

[ Parent ]

Re: Minor Success (3.00 / 0) (#5)
by nothing to lose on Wed Feb 01, 2006 at 05:34:56 AM MST

It's always nice to have power when the grid goes down :)
Things like that are why I don't like the idea of grid tie without batteries myself that some people have talked about being such a good idea. No batteies and you would have been without power same as everyone else in the effected area. Grid tie may be good for those that can use it, but batteries are still needed for time like that.

Glad everything was working well. To bad the mount shifted and you lost blades though.
I geuss that's to be expected when rapid spinning item strike solid non-movable item, something gives somewhere.

Was this the one I have seen that looked sort of like football goal posts? One horizontal bar with 2 uprights on a center post?

"Daddy's crazy hobby is now a little less crazy"

Hmmm, someday maybe I will get that kind of idea across around here. Maybe the wife will see the lights soon. We were discussing the Matrix 5000 I bought and I was explaining I could set it up as a backup system for nearly the entire house if I wanted. Not really what I plan though.
In the middle of the discussion power went off long enough to beep all the Ups's, I told her it was her turn to reset the digital clocks, the discusion toned down after that :)

Sometimes maybe it takes NO LIGHTS for people to "See the light" :)

Well I hope you don't have any serious damage and get it back together ok.
Good luck.
.
nothing to lose

Spelin and tpying are my strong points, not electronics.

Minor Success | 5 comments (5 topical)

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