Hi Guys time for the third and final update on the 16 footer.
If you need reminder part one is here http://www.fieldlines.com/story/2009/5/23/135436/243
and part two here http://www.fieldlines.com/story/2009/6/21/22551/6284
It has taken a while but I am happy to report she is up and flying! I started this project around Easter and it seems to have taken forever to get to this point
Part one and two pretty much covered the build of the alternator and chassis so I wont bore you all by repeating it .
So to pick up where I left off, it was time to order some timber for the blades I don't use rare or expensive wood I use regular building timber. I have a good relationship with my local building supplies yard and they go out of their way to supply it with as few knots and as straight grained as possible. The blanks where glued up 4x2s par and where roughed out with a chainsaw freehand and finished with an electric plane and a spoke shave. I did take some pix of the carving but I seem to have lost them.
While waiting for the paint to dry on the blades I dropped the 12 foot machine and gave the tower a fresh coat of agricultural grey oxide paint.
At last it was time to assemble and fit the machine on the tower.
Alternator fitted and assembled
On with the blades and tail
Up she goes
It immediately faced into the breeze and started to generate
With a gentle breeze at about 10-12 mph it is producing about 500 watts
Next day we got our usual 15mph winds with gusts to about 18mph and it is making over 1kw. I have since seen over 2kw at about 25mph with the tail starting to furl. One slight hitch was that the blades were noisy, it sounded like someone swinging a length of hose pipe above their head. The fix was easily found via a google search of this site! I slightly rounded the leading edge tips and this fixed the problem. I was able to do this by climbing the tower rather than lowering it again. While I was up the tower I took a couple of pics of the Northern Ireland countryside
So that's it! Well almost I need to extend the power cables to the tower this will let me extend the tower another 20ft to give a total of 60ft, I also need to refit the upper guys.
Next project is to rebuild the 12 footer, I will do it the same as this one with the land rover stub and bearings and a new 60-70 ft tower so plenty to do.
I will do a further update on performance but so far it is looking good, no sign of stall and the tracking of the wind is within a few degrees, just need to see it furl! but with high winds forecast for this Wednesday we will soon know.
Thanks again to those that have helped with advice and also to our hosts for this fantastic resource.
Russell
