Three Legged Tower

[behoof]

I put up this three legged tower with a Danfoss PMDC on it until I can get my 3hp Baldor conversion completed and put up there to replace the Danfoss. I needed to get the tower up early this Summer so I'd have it ready this Fall when the Baldor was ready. That is IF the Baldor conversion is ready. This tower is 65' from the deck of the base mount to the deck of furling mount.

This is the base with the lower section and gin pole mounted on it for leveling and checking distances.

Another view of the tower with gin pole and 4 of the sections getting ready to put the guy wires on. I use 4 sets of 4 guy wires. The lifting side wires are 1/4" and the other 3 sets are 3/16". The base mount is 6' deep with better than a yard of concrete and a good helping of re-bar welded to the legs.

The ground anchors are 4' long with a welded eye at the top. They are inserted through one of the center cylinders of a 350 cu in Chevy block. I have a bunch of old engines and such and decided this would be a fitting end for some great old engines. After putting the engine blocks with the anchors thru them in the hole, each hole then received approximately 1/2 Yard of concrete. The anchors are 33' from the center line of the tower base and all are an equal distance and 90 degrees off each other. Since making a couple mistakes in the past I've learned to pay attention the the location of the anchors <grin> and be very sure to line them up carefully.

A picture of the tower with 4 sections put together and in the background a couple of the other towers I've been working with. One is for my wireless internet and the other is a little Ametek 72 PMDC for a 12 volt battery bank I use for DC lighting.

Getting ready to raise the tower with the little 2910 Ford tractor. It went up smoothly with no problems. I've raised and lowered it many times to make changes and modify or adjust items. It is set up to raise and lower by myself without any other assistance needed. Of course, there's usually someone visiting and they always get into the mix but that's the fun of this.

I'm going to add some pictures and information on the Danfoss PMDC I've got on the tower now in the next page of this Diary. But I did want to put a picture of my little Listeroid that powers most of my tools and such most of the time. It's a real workhorse and I feed it Bio-diesel which is one of the other fun projects that I enjoy.

Besides running the lights and tools in my little garage workshop it powers my bio-diesel processing equipment. Kinda nice to run the little guy on the waste veggie converted bio-diesel that it's power makes. A neat little full circle of energy so to speak.

I'd like to thank the many great folks here and on the IRC site for all the information and pointers. This has got to be the best site on the net IMO. The Danfoss PMDC information and mount pictures and info will follow this diary entry.

[TomW]

behoof;

Hmm, so you actually do stuff besides chase cattle around?

Sweet setup your getting there. Where are the battery pics? I have seen those and they are sweet also.

Cheers.

TomW

[RP]

Behoof,

What size/grade are those bolts at the base of the tower?

[behoof]

Russp,

The cross bolts that hold the tower legs to the base mount are Grade 8, 5/8" and the

legs for the base mount frame are 1 1/4" and are also Grade 8 - treated, upper and lower are standard 1 1/4" nuts with lock washers on the top nuts and lock nuts on the bottom. All are course thread.

The base plate is 3/8" thick with    1 1/4" stubs for mounting the lower section.

behoof

[Shadow]

Nice looking setup! I'm interested in your Listeroid, I just got mine running this week. Its a GTC 6/1 running a 5000 watt generator. I was having heating issues but got my thermosyhponing figured out now.

     What do you do to make your Bio fuel? I have a Lister SR2 2 cylinder air cooled, it runs at 1800 rpm powering a 7500 watt gen. All summer I've run it on 2/3 veg oil and 1/3 diesel.I get a barrel of oil a week from local A&W (have about 200 gal ready for winter).They are very good at keeping it clean, no bacon grease etc. I have a  2 cycle pump, I pull up and pump it out of their dumpster into my barrel, takes about 10 minutes in this hot weather! I strain it through a cloth strainer as its filling the barrel. Usually a pant leg off a pair of sweats or similiar. Then I slide the barrell off a ramp at home beside the 200 gal tank. After settling for about 4-5 days I pump it from the barrel to the tank straining it again through a finer material. From the 200 gal tank (its painted black so gets very hot) it goes into the generator shed through a water filter then through a fibre filled filter as used on an oil furnace and thats it, right into the engine.

          The air cooled Lister doesent know any difference between diesel and veg oil, it starts the same and runs the same. This week I'll be hooking up the 6/1 on straight veg oil, but I'm using the engine water to heat the oil. So not quite done that part yet. I'll get some pictures on soon I hope.

[behoof]

Hi shadow,

Tell ya what. Since this thread is in the Wind Section (even though I should have put it in my Diary). Go to Diary Section and post a little comment in the Title "Three Legged Tower" there re: Lister and we can share some ideas over there. Probably best not to do the biodiesel thing here.

behoof

[RP]

Nice.  I like the use of the tractor for pulling it up too!

[dinges]

Tom,

I still maintain that it was the bull that chased Behoof, not the other way around...

Behoof, nice setup you have. I didn't know you already had a few things flying. The little diesel is nice too, and I like the fire-extinguisher near it. Of late I've been getting and placing extinguishers in strategic places as well.

Looking forward to reading the story and seeing more pictures of the Baldor conversion!

[Bushwhacker]

I may "inherit" a three legged tower. It's on a property I'm looking at buying and will include it in the bid. I really like the tip/lay down feature you have added and will probably do the same if I acquire the property. Now the silly question...

If a person added a second guy wire anchor to the tower roughly 1/2 to 2/3's of the way up, ran a second pulley on the gin pole "leg" of the tower, and added a pulley to the draw bar of the tractor. Would it be an easier/safer for the tower at least, to lift, looping the guy wire with the first anchor to the top of the tower, through the first pulley on the gin pole, through the draw bar pulley, through the second pulley on the gin pole, to the second anchor part way down the tower?

Basically what I'm trying to get at is there would be two lifting points on the tower rather than the top only, to reduce stress on the tower. I know torque on the cable anchor points enters the picture but would hope the pulley on the draw bar would reduce the stress on any given point and allow for difference of the slack/take up of the guy wires going through the gin pole pulleys.

Right now I really wish I had a scanner!!! AAARG! :-(

Cheers!

BW

[behoof]

Hi BW,

There are four lifting points on my tower, on the lifting side, that all have 1/4" cables going from their anchor points on the tower standoffs to the top ring on the lifting end of the gin pole.

So, what I do is use two blocks (pulleys), one on the top of the gin pole and one on the pulling side ground anchor. Then hook one end of the lifting cable to the gin pole lower eye ring and the other to the draw bar on the tractor. Thus reducing the force necessary to lift the tower but it does increase the distance of have to travel by a factor of two. Of course, using a tractor I really don't need to use the blocks, and have raised and lowered it many times without them, but it is fun to watch mechanical advantage at work.

I just go about it slowly and cautiusly, take my time and all seems to go very well. The hardest part of taking it down is getting it to go over enough to get gravity into play, LOL. I found that climbing the tower and tying a line up about 20' or so and running it through the rear groung anchor eye and pulling on it while pushing the tower over, of course leaving a bit of slack in the lifting cable, and it goes pretty well.

behoof

[scorman]

A neat gin pole design modification that I saw installed near Rochester, NY, has the gin pole fixed at a finite angle other than 90 degrees, say 80 deg, so that when the tower is vertical, the ground anchor is three feet below the end of the gin pole. A short separate cable 3 feet long with a jaw turnbuckle is attached for the permanent installation allowing easy removal and adjustments in tension. However, when raising the tower, a 15 ft comealong with snatch block can easily be attached to bring the tower down the last several feet. Also can use a boat winch and multiple blocks attached to the ground anchor w/o the use of a tractor for a totally manual operation for the raising from the ground up.

Me personally am designing a tiltover tower ...saw a 65footer in Ontario whose pivot point was 20 feet up and counterbalanced, and my wife could easily crank the boat winch up or down single handedly in about three minutes. For those who need a diagram with details, here is a link to a Rohn design that was sold several years ago and a 60 footer is installed a few miles from here:

http://www.redevices.com/rohn-foldover-25.pdf

I also have an old eBay auction listing with detailed photos of the attachments as it was sold by Rohn ...I can post if there is any interest.

Stew Corman from sunny Endicott

[behoof]

Stew,

Thanks for the .pdf. Was very interesting and sure looks like a sound platform for a jenny. I didn't see what the wind loading would be on that but probably pretty good I'd suppose?

behoof

[3rd Charm]

Man would I like to get my hands on one of those listeroids. That thing should run forever on bio-diesel.

Some day....

[scorman]

behoof,

I forgot to mention that IMHO the Rohn implementation  is very marginal at best.

Even tho some of these ham antennas weigh 100#+, they do NOT have wind load like we talk about

Too much sheet metal and thin tubing to be used as structural parts.

These are the pics of the actual parts that are detailed in the pdf:

closeup of the folding section:

showing the sheetmetal "boom" and thinwalled tube (note the two bolting holes):

I am planning on using two pieces of 14 ft 3inch "C" channel which weighs 4#/ft (to replace the sheet metal boom), both bolted (vertically orientation) to another 14footer (horizontal orientation) overlapped by 8 ft (to replace the tube) and may simply cast lead into the open face of the "C" for counterbalanced weight. The steel itself weighs over 150# and tower pivot point will be 15 feet above the pad

Just using the Rohn design as a guide, you can build a very substantial tiltover from any manufacturer's three legged tower ..just overbuild it!

Stew Corman from sunny Endicott

[Bushwhacker]

Thanks! I learned something today, from you.

As for the lay down part, why not leave the tractor snug and add a few tarp straps to the line 20 feet up the tower to provide the initial pull to get the tower off balance?

just a thought,

BW