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Bummer
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By DanB, Section Wind
Posted on Sat Apr 12th, 2008 at 06:19:43 PM MST
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One way to make expensive firewood!
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I received this in my inbox a couple weeks ago (posted with permission):
My friend Pete was standing on the porch at about 6:00 on Saturday night, I was in the kitchen cooking dinner. 'Hey Tim, you better come out here'. His jaw was dropped. He had just watched the tower come down in real-time. He was especially bummed, because he was taking a picture of the wind turbine at the time, but just gaped open-mouthed, and didn't react in time to take some shots...
It was a mild evening, with maybe an 8-10 knot wind out of the East (the direction of the gin-pole). I went and inspected, and I guess all that happened was the damned strap that was holding the gin-pole down to the pulley loosened up and the tower just pivoted over. All guy-wire anchors are fine, and it just boils down to this idiot named Tim who never cinched down a wire cable to hold down the gin-pole. I did check that strap about 6 weeks ago, and it was as tight as ever.........damn!
I finished dinner, with an attitude of "oh well, these things happen, we can fix it" and that lasted awhile, and then I started to get really bummed. I drank the rest of the Flor de Cana, and managed to get to sleep. All Sunday I felt weird and really bummed out. I feel better now.
It appears that the alternator is fine. The alternator came off of the end of the tower when it came down, and the tail assembly came off of its pivot. two of the 3 blades are pretty trashed, but one of them is ok. It landed in soft dirt. The tail is broken, but all metal parts seem fine. The pivot of the tower took a little hit, but I think its pretty easily fixable, perhaps even ok, although I would like your expert advice. Where the gin-pole goes into the pivot, it is no longer a circle, but a little bit of an oval.
Anyway, that's my story. Its a sad one, but one I can learn from. If you see Scotty, let him know I need two new blades and ask him if he would like the good one that is left for a template. I sure miss that turbine, didn't realize how attached I was to it until it was gone.
your friend,
Tim
The webpage about the 17' turbine which mostly features this project is here: http://otherpower.com/new17page1.shtml
Amazingly there was no damage to the machine save two smashed blades and a broken tail.
It's amazing to me that the tower is in basically perfect shape. It's undamaged and still perfectly straight. I can't believe the gin pole didn't come down!
The offending anchor that should've been shored up before the bull dozer was ever removed from the cable we use to pull the tower up.
Expensive firewood. |
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Bummer | 7 comments (7 topical, 0 editorial)
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Bummer | 7 comments (7 topical, 0 editorial)
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