first flight (at night!)

[youmanskids]

Just finished final assembly of my 10 foot homebrew wind power machine and couldn't wait till morning to put it up!  My 60 foot tower is still waiting on warmer weather so I can pour the anchors and raise it up to clean wind... but as I said, i couldnt wait.  so I put up an 8 foot test tower so i could see it fly.  but alas, no wind tonight-- it was 18 mph yesterday!

It is built straight out of Dan and Dan's book (only mod is that I used a salvaged VW front end bearing- I'd recc you stay with the trailer axle bearing as per the book) Its wound for 24 volts with 1x2x1/2 inch neodynium mags (74 lbs pull) on 12 inch plates, all potted and painted.  A thing of beauty!

The batteries I got 2nd hand from a solar setup.  They had 2 yrs service and then in storage for 8 yrs--? we'll see how they do.  I only paid $50 each for the Rolls 6 volt 350 Ahr batteries,  12 total for 3 banks of 4 batts = 24v at 1050 Ahrs.  way more than I need now, but hope to add a larger turbine and PV cells someday.  Test discharges x 3 showed almost 100% of predicted capacity (50% discarge cycle test, dont plan on doing this in real use, only 20-30% discharge)

I bought a cheap 3kw modified sine inverter from china for $400, and made my rectifier set up with 2 35A full wave bridge rectifiers per phase (6 total), a cut off/short ciucuit switch and amp meter....by the book (great book BTW). my dump load is manual for now, but a C60 charge/dump controller, a 24v water heater element and amp counter are on the way.  I still need a low voltage cut off circuit to protect the batteries (inverter will take them down to 21.5v under load = 70% discharge)

As I said before, the book is excellent and this forum is priceless for tons of information.  Tremendous help to me to make this project work with only minor difficulties.  It is great to have a proven template to follow for sucess.  Now that I have a little experience, I'll be able to help others do the same and more!

Ill try to get some pics up, but my file size wont allow it, need to reformat them first.

Thanks again to all you guys...very fun!!  hoping for above average winds,  Roger.

hope this inspires and encourages others!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7SDWwPNa1I

hoping for above average winds, Roger.

youmanskids - keep everything together, I moved your link and text! DanG

[DanB]

You probably know this but...

Just be really careful.  The 8' test tower bit sounds pretty scary - hopefully it's strong, hopefully there are no dogs to run through it and hopefully you won't get too close to it when it's running.  I've known folks to get hurt badly playing with wind turbines on short stands like that.

[bob golding]

those batteries like to be deep discharged. if it were me, unless you get a lot of wind, i would split the bank into 2 so you are charging i set of batteries while discharging the other set. i have a similar set up and it does take a long time to charge my 800 amp hours of battery bank and i am in a high wind area. just dont leave them discharged for too long. good luck with it sounds like you might have got a bargain there.

bob golding

[youmanskids]

That is and excellent idea, I think that would work better for my relativly low output turbine.   thanks!

[youmanskids]

Thanks for the warning, I'll be careful.  the 60 foot tower should be up in a few weeks. Roger

[youmanskids]

thanks for fixing/combinig the diary entries.

I got some more video of my 10 footer on the short (but safe) test tower. enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0DzPbQg1To8

Roger