We spent most of the day yesterday building the tower.
Lots of good help showed up. Pictured above Ward tightens a coupler. We used a hi-lift jack to hold the end of the tubing so everything was nice and straight when we tightened things up. Once each coupler was tightened and the new section of tubing was straight we tack welded the couplers to the tubing on each side.
Another picture of the assembly process. The guy wires on each side worked out to be within a couple inches of each other - the anchors are very level with the pivot and the distances from pivot to the side anchors is within an inch of each other.
Once it was all put together and we figured the length on each cable/assembled all the guy wires we tested the winch. It had no problem raising the tower but it couldn't raise all these people. We did put over 600 pounds on the end though and nothing sagged or moved so Im optimistic that it'll be OK with the machine on there.
It did raise Adam OK. I think perhaps it would have raised two folks but it was close and the motor had a hard time. With on person... easy. I may need a bigger sprocket on the winch - or... a bigger motor - or.. (if Im lucky) simply better wiring. The winch motor is a long ways from my inverter and the wire is small. I have a feeling that it'd work much better if I had good power to it.
Up she goes! The guy wires are very slack when it's down (the tower pivot is about 6" behind the guy wire anchors).
I had the easy job sitting by the winch. The cable spooled up on it perfectly - I was a bit concerned about that. When raising it the first time I had someone on each side guy wire making sure nothing was getting too tight.
It took about 7 min for the winch to pull it up - nice and slow, no bouncing or vibration - all in all it was very uneventful!
There it is raised up. We spent a couple hours getting the tension right on the cables and getting the tower adjusted. It went as well as we could've hoped for - nothing sagged at all, it seemed very rigid. I think it'll work fine with a bit of improvement on the winch. Next step - lower it again, build the very top part that will fit the machine - and assemble the wind turbine on there. The blades are finished - but I don't have them yet so no pictures of those today...
At the end of the day we had a barbecue and folks made a new fire pit near the tower/had a bit of camp fire!
