Well, folks, the "Project From Hell" is completed.
For those who may not know what it is I am talking about You should check out my Diary from March of 2004:
http://www.fieldlines.com/story/2004/3/3/23120/58334
In deference to those with limited bandwidth I posted some photos over here:
http://www.anotherpower.com/gallery/album50
At the end of 2004 DanB was kind enough to give me a DanBilt [#20 he said]. I am happy to announce that, with the help of many, I have managed to see this project thru to completion in slightly less than 3 years time.
We now have 2 windplants here on the farm. A 2 meter Zubbly conversion at 30 feet and a 10 foot DanBilt at 60 feet. Both feeding 450 AH of Trojan 105's providing 24 VDC for the Outback 2524 we purchased last year. As a supplement to the 300 watts of solar we have had for several years they will be appreciated a lot.
Rebuilding that tower turned out to be a lot more work than expected. It became a bit of an international effort, with hands on help from several folks and discussion / brainstorming from folks on 3 continents.
I hesitate to list those who helped because I do not want to miss someone and appear unthankful.
The bottom line is we got into this project and after I got the first couple sections up I had some health problems and was restricted to terra firma by doctors so I was not supposed to climb anything higher than a step ladder. 60 foot stepladders seem rare so I was too stubborn to give up and too proud to ask for help. Some folks decided to help, unasked and I gladly accepted since they just showed up and said "What needs to be done?". That was JacquesM and Wolvenar.
Diary on that over here:
http://www.fieldlines.com/story/2004/9/27/14465/4589
Here is a partial listing of those who actually helped with hands on things here at the farm.
JacquesM was here on several occasions doing welding, construction and high steel work.
Johannes [friend of JacquesM] was here crawling around on steel and doing assembly on the tower.
Wolvenar also lent a hand during construction helping with initial grunt work, etc.
RonB stopped by with JacquesM I forget what he was doing but knowing Ron it was helpful, entertaining or both.
DanG stopped by for a weekend and helped get the catwalk supports installed.
I decided to build it in place from ground up rather than tilt it up after construction. In retrospect, I would tilt it up after rebuilding it on the ground. Hind sight is good.
After the last time JacquesM was here the tower was mostly complete only requiring a catwalk to be bolted on and some tweaks to the bracing.
Many others assisted with moral support, engineering advice and ideas. That list would include but not be limited to: DanB, Brucedownunder, wpowokal [Allan], BobN [R.I.P.], Zubbly, Whiskey, Pickster, ibedonc, and most of the regular posters on this useful site as well as many of the IRC folks. There is just no way I can remember everyone so if I forgot you, please understand it is simply memory issues and not intentional.
Several local folks, including my wife helped as ground support in the final stages of assembly after I got the OK to climb. I bought a good quality climbing harness so I could feel safe working at height. Other than hoisting the head to the top the install of the mill itself was not very difficult. standing on the catwalk the axle of the head is at chest height and makes assembly of tail and prop to the head quite easy to do.
I have also been involved with ibedonc developing some embedded Linux devices for the RE systems we both use. What that means is we are developing devices that use the USB port on either computers or other devices to control and monitor the system.
Currently we are using a Lynksys "Slug" which is a network storage device meant to act as a fileserver for a network. We have installed Linux on them and Don has found ways to utilize the power of Linux and the USB port to provide a very low power consumption system for controlling an RE system. We both had need for solar array tracking so the first device in this line of devices is a tracker that positions the array based on time. Mine has been running flawlessly for a couple weeks as a tracker. This device could also be used to control other devices based on input from other planned devices. It simply takes 24 VDC in and controls the output so you can drive it from the Slug and output different polarities on the output. With a bit of electrickery this could be used to control other devices like relays, etc based on complex algorithms that are processed by the Slug. In the future we hope to bring other devices like voltmeters and ammeters that also interface with the Slug to provide input on a system's performance. Since it is network ready you could control it from anywhere you can access the network it is on. Low enough power that it can be powered over the network cable with no problem.
Well, thats an update on what I have been doing since I quit editing the board. It was a good vacation from that duty but with winter here I may get back into helping on the board, depending on how DanB feels about that.
Anyway, a BIG Thanks to all who were involved in this project and I apologize if I missed thanking anyone.
Cheers.
TomW
