At the end of March I made some wooden blades. I've finished these over the last couple of weeks, applying a few coatsof paint and thought that this weekend was a good time to put them on.
Actually, I started to do this on Thursday, and in preparation I lowered the tower and took the genny of and into the shed (around 30 mins). I quickly realised that putting on the new blades wasn't going to be an easy job as swapping the PVC ones had been to date.
The idea was to fit the new set so that the hole in the plate you see here
would fit over the black hub you can see here...
Unfortunately, the hub wasn't long enough (or the blades too thick, depending on your point of veiw) for this to happen, and I REALLY felt that the hole in the metal plate should go over that hub.
To acheive this I've had to completely strip down and remodel the whole thing so that the rotors sit back further on the hub.
Of course, having done this, the stator had to go back as well, and the bolts which hold the stator were shortened. The clearences in other places then altered and other things had to be moved around.
Putting it back together then got me in a muddle, I couldn't have beleived there were so many bits, did I REALLY make all this? Gosh! And I'd forgotten the sequence too, the bit that has to go THERE first so that you can reach this bit HERE. On Friday night having nearly put the second rotor on without the aid of the jacking device, (the most serious of around my 4th mistake of the evening) I called it a night in the interests of safety.
Next day, things went a bit more smoothly and it gradually all went together and the blades were fitted and balanced up. I sealed all the joints where wood met metal with silicone sealent to stop the water getting into unpainted or cut parts. The turbine plus blades were taken back to the tower and up it went.
It's not as close to the tree as it looks, it clear those branches by a good teen feet. I'm not generating loads of power but then it's not very windy yet, but I like to kid myself that it IS spinning better than before and certainly seems to be reaching cut in sooner. If you've read this far, thanks for sticking with it.
Cheers
