not seen much info on scafolding being used to construct tripod towers, so thought i would build one for my 10ft turbine with a center tuilt up mast specifically designed to be raised and lowered by a single person (me : -)
the total tower height is just over 40ft, the tripod section is 31ft, with the centre mast extending a further 9 ish ft above the tripod.
each of the 3 legs are buried 5 & 1/2 foot deep with 1/3 of a ton of concrete in each hole. the holes are about 2 foot round give or take a foot here and there : -) eah leg also has a reinforcing bar attached, and the lower part of the first latice goes in each hole... thats why theres 3 poles in each hole, we also filed the holed with steel mesh and scrap
3 cross sections and one lattice piece need to be removed when raising and lowering the centre mast. the mast is hinged with 2 scafold swivel joints at about 6ft above ground level, all joints are scafolding joints, so its easy to remove pieces of the tower when ever its needed.
about 5-6ft down from the turbine head are some guy attachments, they werent really needed, but added just in case, just below the guys the mast is doubled up with another scafold pole (this was an addition to stop some vibrations), the main 5mm winch cable and backup rope also attach at this point.
during the preperation we supported the turbine head with an old barrel
although the tower was specifically designed to be operated by a single person, i had some help over just to make sure for the first few raisings... my m8 gary tentively puts his head under a ton of mast and turbine.. he's brave
so far so good
nearly half way up
even more... wont be long now : -)
getting there....
nearly.. at this point there is no more load on the winch, the tower is takinjg all the strain... there is a receiving clamp ready for the mast.
raising the mast only took about 2 minutes, mainly due to the gearing on the winch... it was slowwwwwwwww.... we then secured the mast to the tripod in its clamps.... there are 3 clamps each located on cross setions of the tower
we are working at about 30ft, i made steps up one of the tower legs, so its wasnt too much trouble, its pretty stable up there even in high winds. a bit scary sometimes though...
all up and done, the total time it took including replacing the side sections of tower we had to remove so the mast can be raised was only about 15 minutes.
found some household mains board brass blocks, which came in handy for wiring the 25mm welding cable that comes down the mast, to the 18mm cable that runs to the batter room (only about 5 feet away)
all that was left now was to wire it into the NCHC mercury switch controller
the battery room is an old animal shed attached to the end of my workshop, the previous residents run the place as a farm, so it came in handy, they also left an old chest freezer here, which made a perfect box for the batteries, water tight, and insulated from the cold weather.
the battries are 4x 200amp hour dynasty ups batteries.. wired in series and paralell for 24v... we run a large ups at work for the servers, and replace them every 4 or 5 years, they had only ever been used twice in power outages, but i expect the ups units regular discharge testing of the batteries over 5 years has probably killed 1/2 of their life span, but they were free so who cares : -) good job, these things are like $200 each + shipping
the dump load is another old thing the previous resident left round, its an old heating brick, what he used it for god knows, but had to shorten the length a little to get the right resistance. its only tempoarary until my imersion element arives
last but not least,, the dog enjoyed himself today, lots of activity : -)
the turbine is just sitting above the conifer tree tops, but they are creating a little turbulence in the air, so they will be trimmed down a little next weekend, also need to paint the whole tower yet(green), but so far so good, there is no noticable wind outside at the moment, but at 40ft its spining nicely and charging the bank with a few amps.
also here is my 200W solar aray, with a tracker, its currently disconnected today while we moved the batteries to the new room next to the turbine.
as an over all conclusion, if i did another tower i would probably buy a pre made one, the scafolding and joints were free, (used about 70 joints) so not complaining, but it was a lot of work, building the turbine only took a few weeks in total, but building the tower took far longer and much more effort (and out in the cold weather), its certainly stronger, my neighbour, whos a building structural engineer site forman, rekons it wil never fall over... only time will tell i spose..
regards
satmanuk
