My Little Wind Factor Project

[GeeWiz]

My windmill project got a bit side tracked once or twice, but it was the tower that seemed to take forever.

It's been about 2 years now since I started building it.

I've got to thank Hugh and the Dan's for just showing us how easy it is.

It's so much fun to just sit and watch it spin... Free power.. Boy it's going to be fun watching it in the storms this winter. Dam I hope it stays up..

Anyway here are a few pictures of the tower and unit.

Tower up w/blocks for balance:





Same, but with Windmill

Not to crazy a raising:

Here it is Up:

And a Close up of it running:

Partial Assembled, it's pretty much a stait Hugh kit, but I rotated the welded 2" angle iron so the hub fits on it's front, not inside the 'U'

[jmk]

 Congratulations! I was thinking of making a tower like that myself. These wind turbines must stimulate something in the brain. They are so fun to watch, especially if you made it. Even if they didn't produce any power they would still be fun. Its fun to watch them yaw and catch more wind. I just raised mine this summer too. I haven't seen it furl yet but that should be fun too. I am also interested in seeing it in a snow storm so you can see how it affects the air flow. It would be really neat to see some vortices.

[elvin1949]

GeeWiz

 I like the tower

later

elvin

[rpcancun]

Is that a hinged and counter balanced tower?

Pic is small so i cant tell, but i like the idea, if  properly rigged and balanced 1 person could raise and lower the tower without a winch.

[GeeWiz]

It is hindged, and the counter balance is where on the pipe the hindge is bolted. This is somewhat complicated by the threaded connectors but worked out ok. The cinder blocks were up as a counter balance for the backhoe to gently place it at the top of the 20' tower. With windmill up, it's about 50lbs bottom heavy (or there abouts). There is a small boat winch on the cable to raise and lower it.

Tower was bought used, kind of broken up and dented.  It was for an amature radio antenna, but fell in some storm.  It is 3" Galv pipe with threaded connector.  It also has some welded strait iron to prevent the bend.  And yes, I can raise and lower the tower alone. Takes about 10min if the turnbuckles are not stuck.

here is another picture of the hindge.

One other change different from Hughs design was how I keep the windmill on the tower. I used a large 5" washer from a seat belt anchor and some scrap I had around to hold the assemble to the tower. Basically same for the tail (not shown).

This is the most posting I've done all summer, but I'm glad to share it.

I hope I've not made the pictures to large.

I'm already thinking about my next windmill and I can't wait to see the Dan's new thing up front.

thanks again

[ZooT]

I like your little steel "clips?" that keeps the head on the mast....

Is there enough spring to it to allow you to unclip and reclip them if need be?

[RayW]

Great looking turbine, very nicely done.

Can you resize the pictures, I need four monitors to view them.

             RayW

[GeeWiz]

Yes to the question of the clips being flexible.  I kept them long so it would have a bit of flexability.  Been up and down 4 times now without incident.

Re: the pictures.. Dam I'm not sure what happened.  At one point they were fine.  Let me see if I can fix them... sorry...

[GeeWiz]

I'm sorry about these pics.  They are small when I view them in 'your photo uploads', and I thought when I preview them they were rignt.  Now I thought I could edit my post, but I don't seem to see that option.  

Anyone care to tell me what I'm missing ?

thanks

[kurt]

don't know why the pics display so big in internet explorer they display fine in firefox and mozilla and the file size and pixel count are not to large. must just be an IE thing....