I would however NOT want to see political comments, they're like opinons, everyone's got one :-()

Only other think would be to keep them strictly in the R/O area.

IMHO, YMMV

Also, if the national current events' look-at-me Political types are discouraged then what about the family who successfully challenged their local ordinances to fly their five-meter turbine or got their city-hall or local shopping center to install PV panels and include photos to share the layouts and such?

I agree with TomW with just those two reservations.

I guess it might be a matter how much 'Y' of the DIY has to be in the thread.

For example, a news report on a commercial wind farm probably doesn't fit here, but what about use of an off-the-shelf turbine (or PV panel) in a home-brew system?

Do we have to refine the silicon and copper ourselves for it to be really DIY?  Dunno.

At that level none of what I have done is DIY.

Rgds

I can't really give any details (because trying to patent it), but can you guys please give me the info I need right now anyway?

Is this kind of post okay?    

Narrowing the focus on this forum wouldn't hurt, but a "DIY only" policy would have a few side-effects that must be considered:

a) Lower Google search ranking
     Reducing the number of posts with recognizable, commercial, "searchable" names means that Fieldlines falls behind other sites that collect more keywords.  Bow to the almighty "G".

b) Disgruntled members
       It's a shame every time a member (whether they're new or not) get their postings zapped.  Right or wrong, the person is discouraged.  If they go away, then the eyeball count goes down.  See part a).

c) Community
       The information is usually what attacts people to the site.  Whatever sense of community you get out of it is one of the things that helps them stay.  Well, I'm speaking for myself, there.  At some point you have to acknowledge that the variety of members' interests will include just about everything else under the sun (even politics, where the sun doesn't shine).

d) Cute dog pictures
       If it's 100% DIY, then the pictures of the family dogs have to go.  Plainly unacceptable!

Evolution of the site in the past couple of years has been very positive.  All the time it's been a democratic process, so by listening and considering the feedback you will see the answer.

While there are folks assembling their own PV panels, I don't know of any who are growing their own silicon crystals. Nor do I know of many building batteries from scratch. But we talk about these things too.

While I agree that this is and should remain a DIY forum, falling into dogmatic positions is rarely a positive move. I like seeing mentions of folks who sell DIY parts, plans and such but I don't want to see overt commercial advertising on the forum. I don't think it's all that fine a line and has been handled well so far. The google ads are OK with me as long as they are on topic (DIY Energy stuff) and relegated to a small space, as they are now.

Most of the time, EVERYTHING can't be DIY.
Many times it is good to hear many opinions on the pro's and con's and the limitations on many, many, "Commercial" RE-products. (Mills, batteries, controllers, panels, etc)

I think the discussion RE-group forum has went in the right direction and has improved and is VERY useful for all.

-Just my 'Hay penny'.  

Regarding commercial stuff - if it's available to the Average Man, then by all means let us know. Always good to see what's about. A lot of good designs can be copied at home......

Politics? Keep politics out of it. A lot of boards I visit have been ruined due to posts about why some political party is doing something that the poster agrees/disagrees about, and a lot of heated useless debate usually ensues. Add to the fact that not being American, I don't give a damn about politics there, even if you do. Please remember it's the World Wide Web - god knows I've had enough media coverage of the US election circus to last me several lifetimes. General catch-all "Politicians are bastards!" statements are fine I guess.

Not fond of the political stuff as it is a tar pit that the more you struggle with it the more mired down you become. Dealing with zoning laws etc is something DIY has to deal with and it is more red tape than political.

Do it yourself is a blend of homemade and commercial parts. If someone has a system they bought and had installed would not the output and problems encountered be of interest to someone trying to build and put up one on their own?

One of the big problems here and on other forums I have visited is that all too often the seniors forget that they were freshmen once (if we dig up our beginning posts you will see what I mean) and that a new group of freshmen starts every year. It is not a book we are writing but a class we are teaching. That class will always have more freshmen than seniors so it will always have the OT questions and posts about things already explored in depth. I had thought that was part of why there was a newbie area made for the questions that have been asked and answered over and over. Get them hooked, let them grow and then we squash them with the news that homemade energy is not free and almost always more expensive than grid.

We need folks like TowW to help keep us on track and newbies that bring open minds. It is a balancing act at best.

Short answer to original question "Sometimes".

If a company actually builds an efficient genny that works good in lower winds and is not expensive like we are all trying to make, don't you think that we would suddenly see how silly it would be to build something that copies the performance of the commercial genny but costs more.

What about an Ametek motor genny, is that DIY, just slapping a prop and tail on there and putting it up on a long stick.

A few weeks ago I posted a web site address concerning a Chinese company that is in the RE business. In fact I posted twice because the first disappeared so quickly that I thought I had made an error in posting. The second disappeared equally quickly and then I realized that someone who edits or controls this site was peremptorily deleting the posts. In my introduction text I made it as clear as daylight that I was encouraging visitors and users of this site to look at a rather interesting tower/mast design that incorporated photo voltaic panels and a wind turbine, the commercial aspect of that website was on no interest to me.

Later we saw on this site a beer company advertisement containing someone's wind turbine picture and that was allowed to remain on the site and attracted quite a few comments. The article had nothing to do with DIY renewable energy and was designed to sell beer which is good.

Now we have gotwind2 doing a similar thing to myself and so far he has got away with it - Bergey 1Kw versus Chinese variants?? and he quite rightly advises that interested readers will have to navigate to the site in question. Gotwind2 is just trying to be helpful, as I was.

Lower down we have a submission  entitled What happened to the magnets which is answered by DanB who replies:- We ran out!  We should have more in a couple days with a bit of luck... This is commercial.

Is a post by Hugh Piggot commercial?

There is a great deal of goodwill on this excellent site and times are changing fast in terms of what manufacturers are beginning to make available to the RE market. How can we know what new developments are taking place if reference to them is suppressed?

What seems to be happening now is that there are various arbiters controlling posts on this web site and none of us punters know what the rules are.

Who is Kurt and who is TomW? I don't know! I don't even know which country they are in but it's either Canada or the USA.

Can we have more comments please.

All interesting stuff. Mostly what I was hoping to hear, wide range of opinions. I also knew their would be some saber rattling and complaints on "what happened to my post".

As of right now the poll [extremely unscientific tho it may be] shows over 76% either voted "YES" or "Sometimes".

In my youth, I was a pretty fair debater. I can generally think up supporting arguments for any side of most any subject. Today I simply want to address the question posed.

This isn't about me Or Kurt. Kurt is the evil one you know. ;=]

The whole point was to see how folks felt on the subject. Now I will have to digest whats been said and integrate it into our evil plan.

I may counter point some of the points made after a few days but it sure seems to me that the average user does not mind such postings.

Thanks for the responses, folks. It helps us decide how to proceed. The board is an ever changing and growing entity.

I just would hate to see Fieldlines become the SlashDot of RE interests where the common guy and his efforts get swallowed whole by a mass of diatribe and links to what ends up being a steaming pile of high tech manure.

It just seems much more germane to the purpose of the board to have posts about someone in a hardscrabble situation lighting a few LEDs for reading at night with a TDM turbine and a car battery than a 25 terawatt wind farm in Bigmoney, Virginia thats "planned" for 2050 etc. I could go on but I am not here to convince others of anything.

Bottom line is a big thanks to all who commented and voted. Will of the people and all that.

Tom

   i read and enjoy. its my interest.
   but if the magazine started  doing a story on ships oil tankers or fishing
    trawlers and  the like.

   well i would no longer bye the magizine  
   most of this re on this site is hobby based.

 its good the dans and hugh piggot  do things to help us make a better
  wind gen.
   if it wasent for them i would still be wondering how to make a wind gen.

 were all different. sum of us can make blades.
  sum can make stators .  machine steel rotors.
   but at the end of the day were all trying to make electric power.

 its diy power.  or you could say the otherpower.

   so the big guys who make big wind gens and wind farms.
    well there only part of the grid.  thay charge the same for power made by wind as thay do for a oil fired power station.

   its just just sumthing to make profit. in other words it commercial.

 if you live of grid and make your own electric from a bergey . good luck to you.
  you might not have the time or skills to make a diy turbine.
   i read a link put on here by wiredwrong . it was about bergey.
   i enjoyed it so much. thanks for the link wiredwrong.

A great design idea we may copy,

OR

advocacy (maybe this should be a section, if anyone can nail down a satisfactory definition).

An interesting phenomenon of the internet of late, is open source hardware. One person, or a group of people, design and prototype something. They freely publish the design for others to copy. Often they will make available either bare pcb's, complete kit of parts, or built up units for those soldering-iron challenged. Ghurds controller falls into this last category. In no way should people like Ghurd be tarred with the "Commercial" brush; or in any way discouraged.

I cant count the number of times that a new comer has posted an interest in fabricating thier own solar modules only to be told that they are wasting thier time and that they would be much better off buying COMMERCIAL solar panels.

Ive also read some very questionable statistics posted about the efficiency of module components that are readily available to the general public. What gets me is this information is perpetuated by individuals who have either never attempted to fabricate a solar panel or if they have, the method of fabrication is gauranteed to produce a module that will almost certainly expose the solar cells and wiring to elements that WILL cause the module to fail.

I have curtailed my postings about the modules that I fabricate, (according to industry standards), because of the negative feedback that is almost certain to show up from respected members of this forum.

The cost of machinery and equipment necessary to fabricate a DIY Wind Turbine from scratch is probably more than the cost of the equipment needed to fabricate a laminated solar panel. I purchased my laminator from an auction for $199.00 because nobody else bid on it. Of course there are other expenses but the same goes for Turbine or Alternator fabrication.

I think they can complement eachother in some aspects.