Why not suspend a Genny?

[nweeks]

Late last night I had an idea: Why not erect two towers/poles/big trees, each with a decent pulley at the top.

String a strong rope through the pulleys, tape your power cable at regular intervals along the rope.

Then, attach chains to the rope, and suspend your generator on the bottom of the chain.

It will only twist so far, before the chain shortens, and tries to untwist it self.

It can furl out of the wind automatically - no pivots, bearings, etc.

Seems simple...and most likely I'm the 1millionth person to think of it..

Please...be gentle.. :-)

Nige.

[nweeks]

Two quick pictures to explain what I'm on about.

(Please forgive my use of digital crayons...)

Two poles, a rope in between, red chains, and three genny's

Genny furling up and back out of the wind.

(The smudge is the transparent front pole...)

Maintenance would be a dream - simply untie the remainder of the rope from the foot of the pole/tower/tree, and lower the gennies to the ground.

[veewee77]

I would think you would want something rigid between the genny and the suspension cable because the genny will flop around violently in a gusty wind and would likely get the blades into the chain if that was used.

You might want to hang them on two poles in a "V" formation to keep the genny from swinging side-to-side.

DS

[whatsnext]

What prevents the genny, which might be slightly out of balance, from flopping around like crazy when the wind really blows. In your first drawing it looks like the blades might strike each other onless they all move in concert.

John.........

[nweeks]

Don't take those diagrams literally - they're not to scale! ;-)

Distance between gennies - at maximum swing towards each other, they are still sufficiently far apart to avoid blade contact.

[nweeks]

Hmm. I had counted on the wind being uniform and predictable...famous last words...

It might be necessary to add a 'fin' to keep the chain anchor point above

the swing of the blades.

Also mount the fin back far enough to avoid being hit if the blades flexes under pressure.

This could also act as the tail to steer it into the wind...might need to continue over the generator part itself to get any leverage against the blades.

(More crayon drawings...Hooray!)

[LEXX]

I see what you're trying to do, get a better tower to genny ratio.  Why not erect two towers with a rigid pole in between them, maybe I-beam, and have three or four or however many gennys on the I-beam.  To raise and lower it you could have a crank on each one (or connected) that would raise or lower the I-beam.  I think I might try that with two small gennys and a fairly short tower, thanks for the idea Nige.

                                  B               B            

                                  B               B        

                                  B               B

                                  H               H

                               B P B          B P B

                             B   P   B      B   P   B

                  T       B     P     B  B     P     B        T

                  T              P               P              T  

                  T              P               P              T    

                  TIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT

                  T                                              T

                  T                                              T

                  T                                              T

                  T                                              T

                  T                                              T

B=blade  H=hub   P=pole  T=tower   I=I-beam

doesn't look very good but you get my meaning I'm sure, has anyone tried this??

LEXX

[nweeks]

There's a fair bit of engineering in this, compared to swinging a rope between two big trees...

I'm thinking of ultimate low-tech solutions, but I think your idea would win awards! Imagine a field full of generators winching themselves up into the most powerful wind stream...

Nige.

[LEXX]

Now you're talking automated winches, you said low tech! lol  I think that if you kept your materials easily attainable (cheap) and all the same alloy (easy to weld) this wouldn't be too hard nor expensive to build.  If you swing a rope between two big trees you're not going to get much wind anyways, even if it did work for wind direction sensitivity, furling, etc.

LEXX

[tecker]

    Guy them to the ground straight down maybe.

[Norm]

   Why not suspend a downwind genny from a large box kite?  Don't laugh I think it's already being done. (you might need a ground wire...(lightening?))

                  ( :>) Norm

(No such thing as a dumb question?)

Coupon at a 'fast food'

Buy one get one free....

Did you want both?

...was the question posed

to us...

 

[nothing to lose]

"(No such thing as a dumb question?)

Coupon at a 'fast food'

Buy one get one free....

Did you want both?

...was the question posed

to us..."

Ya, I like that, or when I order an Icecream cone, do I want fries with that??

Who ever said no such thing as a dumb question never heard of fast food chains!!

OK, I don't think I much care for the suspended genny idea myself. I thik one thing about a genny is it should be somewhat rigid to get the most from the wind. I mean if it's flopping around, swinging here and there, then I think it would not be grabbing as much power as boldly and rigdily facing the wind mounted to a solid tower. It should pivot or turn out of the really large gails to prevent damage, but it should hold steady for normal winds is my thought. Just seams it would be far too hard to suspend one or more from cables, ropes, or chains and make it solid.

Now if your wanting to get the most from each tower is the reason for this thought??

 I am thinking of a 4 genny to 1 tower design myself. I have not thought much about the actuall design yet but basically it's a four engine airplane mounted to a tower!

 Each engine is actually a smaller genny of course, so you have 4 gennies on one tower. Maybe something like the garbogens would be good for this. I was planning to post a idea anyway.

.