Geni Instilation

[Trivo]

Hi all from Trivo (Grant) & Wpowokal(Allan) at Wokolup Western Australia, Allan's property, with our first joint posting of the installation and erection of my 5k motor conversion. As an addict to the board I had to try my luck at a conversion but living in the city there was no place to put it so Allan came to the rescue. He had a tower with an old mill on it so we replaced it with the new one and recorded it with pics so with out hesitation we will continue.



This is the original mill

this is the other mill allan has up



lowering old mill

allan on the winch every one should have one of these 5 min to lower it

motor with pully attached

blade plate mount ready to be fitted

positioning the PVC blades

Mounting blades to pully

Me holding the PVC blades i made

Allan puting on the new head gear

Motor on tower

Blades on

Checking checking checking and allan noticed the blades were a bit close to the tower so we put extensions on it



then up she goes

>

This is the easiest tower to put up and down highly recomend it and of cours the 15km wind died soon as the tower was raised

First report from allan "Well moderate west winds have arrived, cut in around 4-5m/s, 10mph, have

seen it up to 10 A, tower shakes a bit.

The wind is gusting so no substained readings yet, the 10 amps seems to be

around 6m/s "

Second report" Wind did not last long, cut in seems to be 3.6-3.7 m/s, 8 mph, 12kph. Still have not seen it past 10 amps. However I would describe that wind as a gentle breeze, so looks good."

Well we will keep you all posted as the info comes and our next instilation of my Duel rotor on Allan's 60' tower

Grant & Allan

[wdyasq]

Thanks,

Can you tell us a bit about the conversion and if it coggs?

Ron

[Trivo]

Ron

Here is a quick rundown on the conversion



name plate









as you can see the rotor has 4 feilds of 3mags per field 12mm x 12mm x 100mm and they are encased in resin there is a bit of cogging but nowhere near a F&P and it starts up well with the 2.8 mtr PVC blades all we need now is the wind

Grant

[wdyasq]

Looks good - thanks for the information

Ron

[drdongle]

The "other machine" that was up looks interesting, the tail is in what looks to me ( mistakenly?) in a fully furled position.

Was that tower purpose built as a tip over?

I have never seen a winch like the one you were using, it Mfg. in Australia?

[Experimental]

    FANTASTIC, and I espically like your hinged tower, it makes life so much easier -- espically when experimenting !!!

    Very nice guys, looking foreward to more performance reports -- Bill H......

[wpowokal]

Dr D, The tower was converted to tilt over, was the origional supplied with the generator we took down. Some 50-60 years old.

Yes the tail did fall into the fully furled position as it was lowered, this unit was rated at 750 watts @ 32Volts, I used it at 24volts and have seen 2Kw in strong winds. Dunlite used the exact same generator on their "later" 3 blade varibable pitch units, rated at 1 Kw.

The winch is simply a "Tiefor" or known in US as something different, simply pulls in or releases the cable, very controlled, this one was made in Tiwan, I believe the origional design was French.

allan down under

[Jon Miller]

That is some major installation!!! the vibration you talk about i gess is coming from the blades?  did you do a static balance on them befor installation??  Do they trak each other well??  These as i found to my cost :S stop most vibrations!!!  I am very imprest with the size of those blades, did they take long to build?   All in all a very nice set up !!!

Jon M

www.otherpower.co.uk

[Trivo]

Jon

the blades were balanced as best we could by balancing the centre on a cone while the blades sit horizontally. they cant be done on the motor as with the slight clogging it wont turn that freely, will check it all next weekend when I go back down to Allan's

The blades took about 4 hours to cut, plain & sand and ages to paint but very easy.

Trivo

[hiker]

looks great TRIVO :

 those pvc blades look kinda long--for even more blade clearense-try putting some wedges[whashers] underneath the front mounting bolts..might help to keep your blades from hitting the tower in a strong wind..those pvc blades like to bend way back in a strong wind...looks  like one killer dynamo.......................................

ps:that vibration may be comming from having all the weight so far extended from the tower--so it may be a good idea to angle it back somewhat..just my thoughts..

[wpowokal]

Hiker, I think you may be right about the vibration, just watching it the last few days.

We should have slightly stronger winds come Thursday so we will be watching the blades.

It requires around 4.7-5 m/s to start spinning but once away that wind is enough for 10 amps @ 24V, so I'm stoked, Grant has done a great job on this one.

Once we have some better stats on this one and time, we will pull it down and put up his duel rotor one. I suspect the blades will be better suited to this one, and we will be able to static ballance, no cogging.

Now how am I going to use all this promised power?

allan down under

[dalibor]

can we get some prints about those blades, please?

i couldn`t find (or miss while reading posts) precise dimensions of them.

may the (wind) "force" be with you...

[wpowokal]

With time Grant will grant your wish.

[dalibor]

thanks a lot.

greetings from belgrade, serbia

[Trivo]

Hi Dalibor

A rundown on the blades from memory. I used a 1.4 mtr piece of pvc pipe 300mm Dia 10mm thick cut it in 4 equal pieces 3 to use 1 incase of problems. Then I made a template of the angle I wanted starting with a piece of paper measure 200mm for the base from the edge this goes it in 300mm then mark the tail @ 90mm and draw a line from the two points this is the basic shape, but because I wanted a higher TSR rating I reduced the angle in sections. The tip to 500mm in is the first 1/3rd of the blade  I took it down about 25 mm at the 500mm point and 20 mm at the 800mm point and then just join up to the 200mm point, this can be varied, Then laid the template on the inside if the pipe and marked it, cut it with a gig saw and the base is done. One point to remember is the lead edge of the blade is the TAPERED edge not the straight edge so don't get it  mixed up as I did on this set. now to plain the angle. The lead edge is 10mm thick so measure back on the outside of the tapered edge 20mm and draw a line now plain it down to that mark but not flat it needs to be rounded, then to the tail edge, measure in 50mm and plain this but a lot flatter then a light sand and it is ready for painting. NOTE do one blade first and use this as the template for the weight they must be the same.I used car engine paint sprays. First a spray with primer undercoat then a few coats of motor engine paint rated 350deg+, this type of paint stays flexible and I put a cote of clear on top to make it durable and shiny all done and it is very simple and quick

I have put a blade profile pic in from Glenns site http://www.thebackshed.com/ hope this is ok. a very good site for a look at

Thanks Glenn

[Frank Lussier]

Hi

Can you give me some info on your tower ie. size of the steel, angle and any other information you think i would need to build a tower like yours.  I've been trying to find a plan and no luck.

thanks

Frank

[Shadow]

Slick looking setup! I too am interested in the tower setup. How tall is the tower? And what is the height of your leverage system? And is the cable run under pulley at the 'V' point? What size cable for winching? Nice job on everything!

[Trivo]

Shadow it is Allan's tower and I am sure with time Allan will avail you with an answer

[dalibor]

if something was useful, this was :-)

i have been reading about plastic pipe blades here on "fieldlines" and have done some tests with small blades, but this is much bigger thing. the material must be stronger when considering this size.

i saw somewhere here in suburbia lots of big but damaged plastic pipes, maybe i could make them useful ( recycled pipes will produce green energy, nice right? )

thanks folks.

p.s   i recommended this site on several Serbian forums, but i don`t know did anyone wanted to check it out. we will see.

[wpowokal]

Shadow, The tower height is 40' (12m), this was the origional tower for the style of wind generator we took down.

These are clasic wind mill towers as used in Australia, the three legs are 8'8" apart at base. Each leg is of 1 3/4" x 3/16" galv angle, form the bottom to top.

The gin pole is 16' long from piviot point to tip. This is relevant to the load (tower and generator weight) that you are lifting.

I do not use a pully for the pull up cable, the cable is fixed to the apex of the gin pole. Provided the angle between your gin pole and tower is about 80 deg you do not need a pully.

That is when the tower is upright the gin pole is still not horozontal. All towers I have be they this one or the single pipe guyed towers reach a point when raising, say 80 deg from horozontal and the will flop to the upright position.

This is the reason you do not need a pully to pull the gin pole to horozontal.

The pull up cable is 10mm, something a little less than 1/2", one should never never skimp on this cable. One must always concider shock loading on this cable, that is any jerking while raising/lowering.

hope this helps

allan down under

[Shadow]

Thanks for the good info. I have a 40 foot tower (3 sided) and a 35 foot(4 sided) I should be able to use the same gin pole on both ? (16feet?). I see you attach support cables in 3 places then they all attach to same point on gin pole? I'll practice on a tower with no wind turbine on to get it right.  Thanks again.

[wpowokal]

Shadow, the 3 cables you refer to are; the main pull up cable that attaches to the top of the tower and the gin pole.

The other apparent two are from the two legs of the tower at midpoint back to the gin pole. This is to support the tower otherwise it would sag in the middle when being pulled up.

allan down under

[jmk]

  The tiefor winch, what is the rateing on it. Can you pull a long length of cable trough it. Where can I get one?