Andy the metal work instructors dog 'Mr. Bigs' hung out during most of the workshop.
They used a big plywood disk to hold all the coils in place while they made connections for the 12' diameter machine.
The stator for the 10' machine is ready for casting.
The lumber for the blades on the 12' machine wasn't wide enough so they had to laminate some extra on there. This got done on the second day. All the wood for the blades was very hard and fairly difficult to carve. Getting the blades done on time was tricky but it happened. Lots of work.
Finished metal work for the 10' machine. George gets very picky that everything look nice - so while the students did all the welding, if it didn't look good he made them do lots of grinding and in some cases start over. The end product was very nice.
For the 12' machine they bolted square pieces of metal to the hub and flame cut the 16" disks. They came out real nice.
Casting the stator and magnet rotors for the 10' machine. We brought our own plastic molds for this.
DanF and George hanging out in the shop towards the end of the day.
Here's the stator for (ready for casting) for the 6' machine. See what I mean about the magnets and the coils being sideways... I expect this might spur some discussion here. Bottom line is - it worked fine and it seemed to be a good match for the 6' blades.
The stator for the 12' machine ready for casting.
We had them cast the magnet rotors upside down again for the 10' machine - they came out nice. This 10' machine uses the 2" dia x 1/2" thick round magnets and it's wound for 48V with 105 turns of 15 gage wire per coil.
Carol assembling the alternator for the 10' machine. Carol is the main PV Soloar instructor for SEI in Colorado- it was a pleasure to meet her.
On Wednesday night Bill Beatty came over to give a talk - explaining exactly what is electricity.. so your grandmother could understand it. He's lots of fun and has one of my favorite websites in the world: http://amasci.com/
Every single night we had music - it usally started at 9PM or so and went till 1 or 2 AM. (keep in mind that we had to go back to the workshop every morning after that you can imagine that we were a bit tired at the end of the week).
Kelly from Whidbey Sun and Wind plays a mean harmonica - he was with us most nights. He designs and installs renewable energy systems in that area. Check out his site! http://www.whidbeysunwind.com/
The stator for the 12' machine came out very nicely. Pictured above it's being assembled to the steel frame.
The 10' machine finished up and ready for a bit of testing. Behind it is Robert from ARE (Abundant Renewable Energy). He came by on Thursday night to talk about the challenges involved with wind turbine efficiency - very interesting talk. His company is currently building very heavy duty - very efficient wind turbines near Portland Oregon. I believe he's probably making the nicest machines in the US right now - his website is definitely worth a look: http://www.abundantre.com/
A finished blade for the 12' machine. Well... I had planned on breaking this up into two parts. I should've sorted pictures better and kept it shorter but too late now. I'll finish the story in part 3.
