Hi all
This is my first entry in my diary I hope you all find it of some interest.
Today's project was to install a little 30ft Aluminium tower that was recently given to me by a friend of a friend. The chap who owned it was a radio ham and had his antenna mounted on it. Unfortunately he is now a "silent key "(died) and although I am / was also a radio ham I prefer to play with turbines these days, much more fun. Funny but all my hobbies seem to involve putting large lumps of metal in the air although antennae are no where near as much fun.
The tower is very light weight and is bolted together rather like a large Meccano set, I wonder can you still Meccano or am I just showing my age?. Fortunately the tower arrived in 3 x 10 ft sections that simply bolted together. I was able to lift the whole 30 ft tower on my own with ease so I wouldn't like to put a large turbine on it lol! A very neat ladder is incorporated into the design that makes it real easy to climb. My plan was to install my little Future Energy turbine on it to run lights for the garden, poly tunnel and out houses etc it will be a stand alone system, total height to turbine is 40ft. The trees in the back ground are getting lopped to about half their height very soon.
My main turbine for the house at the moment is a 10ft 48v Hugh Piggott type machine where as the F.E. turbine is only 24v. The F.E. turbine was made redundant when I upgraded to 48v a few months ago, so rather than let it lay idle I thought I would put it back to work.
Details of Future Energy products and specs can be found here
http://www.futurenergy.co.uk/products.html
I only purchased the PMG and blades from them(not cheap for a toy) the yaw and furling system I use is a modified version of Hugh's plans with a 5 inch offset and 4 ft tail it works very well. I used this machine for a couple of years and it has proved itself be reliable but somewhat limited in output. They rate these at 1KW! I would rate it at more like 500w or less although I have seen 1kw in a storm, but I since adjusted it to be fully furled at 750w. I get plenty of wind here as I am located on high ground in Northern Ireland U.K. This little machine will put out 300 - 500w all day long with favourable winds but low wind performance isn't so good. I intend to install my old 24v battery bank of 6 x 700 AH lorry batteries and 24v inverters etc that I used before the 48v upgrade, I will put all this into the shed beside the tower. We used to keep goats and this was their house. I know the lorry batteries are not ideal, but as it is only for garden lights it will have to do for now or at least until I can find another electric forklift to butcher! The remains of the last one is still outside my workshop and I am still find uses for parts from it.
The base plate / hinge for the tower was made from ½ plate 2ft sq welded to 4 x 5ft lengths 2in box section driven full length into the ground, seems very firm but time will tell. I only have 3 temporary rope guys in the pix but these will be changed tomorrow for at least 6 wire rope guys. Unfortunately the pix of the tower being raised didn't work out but it all went very smoothly. My approach to raising the tower is slightly different to the norm as I didn't bother with a gin pole etc I just lift it with my old trusty JCB, it is 37 years old and still going, although only just lol (it is a story all on its own!)
So that's what I got up to today, it was a glorious day here about 20c with blue skys and a big warm yellow thing in the sky! Can't remember what you call it!
Almost time for the next project!
Russell
