Wind is right.

[Jerry]

Now and then someone reports about wind damage to there gennies.

Well we had a good storm here most of the day. I think a few gusts of maybe 60 mph.

The last reading I took on the Lakota was 2203.5 watts. at the same time the 2 amp meters on a few of the other gennies on the store roof were reading 60 amps plus each. This was at around 13.5 volts into our 2850 lift truck 12 volt battery. Must have been some where around 280 amps comming in off the roof?

5 minuts latter the store shook, a very laud rumble a big crash and the amp meters went to 0.

Yep you guesd it. A guy cable broke. It must have been as though some giant eggbeeters were turned loose on the roof.

It was a domino effect. After the crashing was over 6 out of the 14 gennies were casulties.

Well I wanted to redo some of the older units anyway but not this soon.

Oh well we all lived through it. Its just one of lifes lessons.

I'll rebuild and it will be bigger and better. I just remember the folks that had to deal with Katrina, so its not so bad?

                   JK TAS Jerry

[TomW]

Jerry;

Glad no one was hurt! I guess you understand the concept of cascade failure now.

Good luck getting it all back online and pumping power. I can just imagine the effect being much like a cuisinart shredding some veggies.

Cheers.

TomW

[pyrocasto]

That's crazy and that stinks. But I guess you've still got 8 gennies, which is better than zero. ;-)

[richhagen]

Yeah, 8 genies and probably full forklift batteries.  I'm just glad that Jerry and everyone (including the little robot) is OK.  Rich

[zubbly]

Hi Jerry!

seems to be a bad year for a few of us. i was raising my new 60 foot tower 2 weeks ago with the 3hp genny and new experimental 10 foot prop. 3/4 of the way up (things just went wrong) it came crashing down. tower mangled on the end, prop is now kindling wood and even the shaft got bent on the genny. total loss.  starting over though.  will post later on about it.

the important thing is nobody got hurt. and that is what counts. anything can be repaired or replaced.

thought my loss was bad, but yours is many times that.

have a few beers, have a few laughs! we all look forward to see what you come up with to replace them all.

tomorrow is another day  :=)

zubbly

[DanB]

Glad it wasnt too bad Jerry...  sounds exciting!

Its been quite windy here too this week.  Last couple days (probably today too) we've had winds gusting to between 60 - 80mph all along the front range and into the foothills.  Everyone up here is quite nicely charged up!

[MelTx]

    Jerry its allways a big letdown when something you have worked so hard on comes crashing down..I have been searching your posts about a week, trying to find a diagram of the way you link all the gennies together.I am trying to make mine do better...If you document your repairs maybe you could include the wireing drawings..

   A little set back, aint no hill for a stepper........

[Experimental]

   Hi Jarry,

    Sorry to hear of your Tower failure -- and hope all goes well getting things fixed !!

    That storm passed thru here as well, and finally got some good readings on that mill you saw -- finally had to shut it down, as the battery i put on it, was fully charged, and had no dump load on it !!

    You take care, and watch for "falling objects" !!   Bill H........

[georgeodjungle]

thats a good reason why a couple lil genneys are better then one big one.

any fuse or brakers kick?

why did the cable fail?

i mean was it a clamp to lose or to tight, anchors, to small cable?

and the other genneys that went down were they cables to or just in the fall zones?

[Jerry]

Hey thanks everybody for all the kind words.

I think a cable on the downwind side broke. There was a littel slack and I could see the mast moving some. This may have weakend that cable then things just got out of control after that.

I've  Picked up a 500ft role of some much heavyer cable.

There are some gennies been up there going on 6 years now. There not very productive. The plan is to remove all the lazy deadbeet gennies and replace with the best upgrades todate.

There are several TDMs, tredmill, Hornet, 403, 2 pole motor conversions and so on.

I'll leave the 403. I like people to see what a pile of #$%^%&^%%t it is. The Lakota stays ( new blades), Hornet gets "Jerry blades, I also want to fly my Fisher-Paykil but my 8ft foam blades are not done yet. The F&P will be 12 volt and down wind to help keep water out.

Odly enough there are no Garbogens on my roof. I think I can cut the genny count down by replaceing most of the oddball group on the roof with 6 Garbogens.

I've started making solid steel armatures and rewing stators for just that project.

I'll be more proud anyway flying 6 Garbogens, 1 Lakota, 1 F&P, 1 very modid Jerry bladed Hornet, a few 8" dual rotor gennies that match my 49" blades.

Thats a group I'll be proud of.

This will take a while. Well one machine at a time.

Thanks again guys.

                          JK TAS Jerry

[Jerry]

Hi Bill.

I sure would have liked to be there watching your prety littel genny flying.

All 7 of the gennies at my house are fine no problems. Been using the home RE system more lately.

It was neet to have the grid go off for several HRs the other night. I turned on a bunch of lights just to make the neighbors envius.

They were in the dark and we were lit up like LasVegas.

I like standing on my front porch and saying. Nana-nana-nana we got power and you don't  LOL. I'm not realy that mean and I'd run them an extention cord any time.

I've redone my servive panel grid or home power switch box with new switches, breakers and labels for all the house circuts I wish to power with RE. My 3500 watt signwave 48 volt inverter is out in my shop about 50ft away from my control system in the basement family room.

I can turn the inverter off & on remotely from the basement as well.

The 24 volt helicopter batteries are doing very well. 24 of them for 528 amphrs at 48 volts. I have several years now on this used group and they are still going strong.

                          JK TAS Jerry

[Jerry]

Hi MelTx.

On the 12 volt system at the store all genny negatives go directly to the battery bank negative. Each genny positve first gose to its own indididual fuse then to a common battery positive terminal.

Even  with the 250 plus amps comming into the 2850 lift truck battery it did not exceed 14 volts. We were averaging about 40 amps all day long.

I don't have an overvoltage problem with that monster battery. I do have that problem on the 48 volt home system however.

I've got 7 gennies feading into that battery bank and I still need to get more batteries or do a dump load there. 58 volts is ok but I've seen 66 volts accross that bank a couple times (not good).

Basicly all + together and all - together from the gennies plus fusing ofcource.

                          JK TAS Jerry

                         

[hvirtane]

It sounds that the storm didn't

ruin your best machines completely.

If you are not going to rebuild

all the worse machines you will

have time for a new range of

still better generators...

- Hannu  

[srnoth]

Amen to that! I'm glad to know that I'm not the only one who feels pround when my house is the only one with lights on, yet no noisy gas gen going. For me though I don't turn on the lights, since power usually goes during the day, but I crank up my sound system so all the neighbours can hear, hehe.

Cheers,

Stephen.

[Jerry]

Hi Hannu.

Now when a build some parts I try to build a few extra.  Last 2 days I've built 4 solid steel rotors with curved NEOs. a couple stator built for 12v.

Hubs for 7 3blade sets, end caps with bearings for 4 motor conversions. 2 comp wood bases.

So the stock pile is building up. If I could just get caught up on sold orders so I could build a few for myself?

OH well busy-busy?

                         JK TAS Jerry

[elvin1949]

Hi Jerry

 Sorry to here about your Gennie's.At least you were lucky enough to not lose all of them [and no one got hurt].

 Look forward to seeing the rebuild.Oh by the way any picture's of the damage.

 Lot's of luck

later

Elvin

[nothing to lose]

 I too am sad to hear of your sudden grief and recent diasaster. Glad all else is fine and no serious damage or injuries to anyone occured.

 We been having pretty decent winds around here, unfortunately I have nothing flying at this time except a little DC motor and it wasn't even spinning in probably 15-20mph winds. Think I mounted the blades a touch off centerm maybe sitting low, a 2 blader. Sometimes the wind catches it right and it spins a little.

Just put it up the other day. Since I haven't been living at this house much I didn't want anything up the wife could have problems with.

Glad you still have a group flying and did not lose them all.