Any use for old-fashioned mills

[valterra]

I live in Nebraska, and just about every farmstead or old house has an old-fashioned windmill.  

They are in various states of disrepair.  Many are just a leftover tower.

I am positive that I could walk up to any of these houses and offer to take away the 'garbage' for them, or even coax them with a $20.    My question is, are there useable parts here?  Seems to me that the towers would be strong enough - I mean, they ARE  made FOR windmills.  And  there's gotta be a ready-made bearing assembly for rotating into the wind.  Some of these are in such GOOD shape that I imagine simply removing the old prop assembly and mounting a dual rotor pma with props.

What do you guys think?  I can take & post pictures if you want.

[Titantornado]

Heck yea.  Nothing wrong with them.  I'd be happy to have one for just pumping water. Using it for a turbine tower is good too. (if it's high enough, or you have an unobstructed location) If you can get em cheap, get em!  I only wish I could get my hands on an Aermotor windmill in decent shape for a small fistfull of bills.

[SparWeb]

Folks these days, even country folks, are familiar with things like legal liability.  Understand ahead of time the fact that you're climbing up a rickety old tower on THEIR land.  I've spoken to people already about unused towers on their property, and they won't let just anybody climb up.  Good for them, they're smarter than me, it seems.  And if you're going to take it down for them, they're also mindful of what a dropped tower could land upon.

Think about how you'll deal with these issues before knocking on the door.  Talk about these things up front with them.

The water-pumping rotor heads, with 12-20 blades on them, don't turn very fast compared to the speeds PMA generators want.  Maybe you can build a matching genny.

[thefinis]

I am positive that I could walk up to any of these houses and offer to take away the 'garbage' for them, or even coax them with a $20.  

Don't be so positive. Those towers and mills are still worth quite a bit. Even as scrap they fetch a pretty penny(check out the price of galvanized angle iron) and rural folks tend to see them as a resource not garbage. Most folks me included have the broken mills around because they think that one day they may fix them or because no one has offered enough money($200-$2000) for them. Last summer I saw a complete wind mill on a trailer and the guy was tickled as he had managed to get it for $500 probably 8 ft blade and 24 ft metal tower.

Steel towers should be fine but the wooden ones I would leave alone. Watch out for power lines if you are removing a tower. Electrocution is one of the reasons there are less and less windmill repair men. The towers are not made/mounted to tip over and they are usually moved with a big truck with a long gin pole and winch.

Finis

[windstuffnow]

  We have a bunch of them in my area as well.  I decided to inquire about one which lead to a purchase some time ago.  I gladly handed over a 100 dollar bill for it.  Only 30ft but was intact and still rotating with a squeek.  I spent another 100 bux on a boom truck to remove the turbine rotor and head assembly ( about 400 lbs ) after which we unbolted the legs and the boom nicely laid the tower over and we disassembled it from there.

  Spent a week digging the foundation and rebuilding the tower, replacing a few cross pieces that were bent and all the bolts.   Another 200 bux in concrete and it was ready to hoist into place... its been up ( and down ) ever since... nice tower.

  I did manage to sell the head of the unit which was still in reasonably good shape for the original cost plus boom truck so the main tower was essentially free with the exception of the steel and bolts I purchased.  

  Over all it was still cheaper than the standard tilt up tubing and cables but possibly quite a bit more work.   I'd have to say, though, if I found another one for sale I'd probably do it again.  It was actually a fun project!

.

[Shadow]

Both my towers were found on old farms. Each was purchased for $100.00.One is 45 feet and one is 55 feet, both were old Wincharger towers. I lowered them using the gin pole method.Both are designed now to pivot and be raised and lowered in about 15 minutes.I just put the taller one up last week and ran it all afternoon yesterday.So far so good.

 I climbed them each once and that was to connect the top cable to lower them. Once they are laying on the ground I split them and insert the top section into the bottom section then load both pieces on the flat bed and haul it home.

[hvirtane]

Really nice pictures, Shadow.

Here, where I'm living those things are nowadays really rare and costly. There were in Finland once American made and also Finnish made mills.

I think that you could use also the head. Make new blades and fit an axial flux alt there...

- Hannu

[valterra]

That is what I was thinking exactly.  Here's a question I still have - these old mills rotate all the way around.  Don't you have to prevent your mill head from turning all the way around, so the wires don't get yanked out?

And, say you have yours set where something blocks it from rotating past a certain point.  The wind changes direction and your mill rotates clockwise, but hits that obstruction on the way.  Does it stop and rotate all the way back around counter-clockwise, or does it keep beating against that point?  MAN I hope what I just said makes sense.

If it didn't - say you have a block at 90 degrees.  Currently your mill is facing 80 degrees.  The wind changes direction, so it now wants to face 100 degrees.  As it rotates from 80 toward 100, it hits the block at 90.  80 to 100 is the shortest possible route, but it's blocked.  What happens now?

[Shadow]

Its not the problem as you think it might be.Over time in very turbulant areas you may get a twist or two in the cable. I have yet to have to untwist mine, I have about a 6 foot coil that lays on the ground so it has lots of slack. When you think about it the wind very seldom does a complete 360 degree change of direction.So just let it have full rotation and check it once a month,I have a plug/receptacle at the bottom of the tower so I can unplug and take out twists if needed.

[Ungrounded Lightning Rod]

Stops are a really  ad idea.  Magneto-based mills have to furl in high winds to avoid burnout.

(The drag-type blades of a "patent windmill" will probably survive anything the weather can throw at them, but homebrew lift-type blades spin maybe 8 times as fast, so you also have to furl to keep them from tearing themselves apart.)

Furling is easily accomplished using the tail-with-tilted-pivot, offset blade axis system.

But think about what happens if you have a stop on the yaw bearing, you're up against it, and you need to rotate another 90 degrees to furl.  Oops!  Can't do it.  No furling.  Dead mill.

Easier to just untwist the drop wire every year or so.

[valterra]

ok,  so in practical use, the mill doesn't actualy rotate that much.  I guess that is why it's not mentioned anywhere (that I saw) in the descriptions on the Projects page of Otherpower.  They give so much detail of everything else that I should have figured "if they didn't mention it, it must not be important."    :-)

[hvirtane]

... Magneto-based mills have to furl in high winds to avoid burnout.

(The drag-type blades of a "patent windmill" will probably survive anything the weather can throw at them, but homebrew lift-type blades spin maybe 8 times as fast, so you also have to furl to keep them from tearing themselves apart.)

Furling is easily accomplished using the tail-with-tilted-pivot, offset blade axis system.

The same type furling system as used

with DanB and others was used with some

'American windpumps' already 100 years ago.

So if you are lucky it is incorporated with

the pumping mill you happen to find.

On the other hand, the blades of

those wind pumps are working with the lift principle, too.

But the shape and the big number

of the blades make them to run

with slow speeds. The shape isn't

the most effective.

- Hannu

[erne]

If you look in my photo section you will see a 24 foot multi blade with a 18 k alternator on it. it is a exact enlargement of a 12 foot aeromotor that pumps water for me. It starts to generate at about 4 mph....erne