Sugar pine blades - more metal work

[Boss]

         

Sugar Pine blades getting  first coat of linseed oil by Kevin.

         

The grain is straight and the wood is easy to work



We choose these blades over the Douglas Fir



The Douglas Fir blades weren't shaped as well



Above the iron work is positioned together more or less



Above image shows the offset of the spindle housing

         

Spindle housing is tilted improperly. It should be out at the bottom more to keep the blades away from the tower.



Before we can weld this together we need to solve a related problem first. The arc welder power cord needs an extension built. We were going to weld this up outside in our old open air shop, but is was just too cold out there. We really need to get everything aligned properly. We try not to rush projects, even when they are this exciting. Kevin and I are working for a neighbor tomorrow, where hopefully we'll earn enough to buy the cable which will be used afterward for connecting the alternator on top of the tower to the rectifier and batteries.



The gray disk in the center of the dough-nut is the spindle shaft.

The piece of iron with three points is the stator mounting bracket.

It doesn't look like much, but the pipe connecting the yaw bearing pipe (the pipe you are looking in the end of here) to the larger diameter shorter pipe was the key to making this mechanism work together.



Obviously we'll need to keep on chronicling the assembly of this turbine before it makes more sense. At the bottom of the stator bracket is the hub assembly which will rotate with the blades and magnet rotors.

[KEG]

If your tempetures are even a little bit extream pre heating the metal will garrentee you won't get stress fractures in the weld.

[richhagen]

Kicking out the bottom of blades plane of rotation a bit seems critical as you noted.  After perusing this site for a few years, one of the most common failures I have noted are the blade strikes on the tower in extreme weather and yawing.  Five degrees of angle up on the blade plane will make little difference in performance, but will gain you more than 5 extra inches of distance between the normal plane of rotation of the blade tips and the tower for 5 foot blades, distance that could be critical in a storm.  DanB just recently gave his behemoth 20 foot diameter turbine a modification to tilt it up a bit to almost 10 degrees to give the blades more clearance, almost 30 inches on his machine from the blade tips normal plane of rotation to the tower, which would scale to an equivalent of about 15 inches on yours.  I am thinking Scott was getting tired of fixing and making blades for it as DanB wrote in his recent posting that there had been a couple of previous tower strikes with the blades on it.   Rich

[tecker]

I 'm sure there are better ways the preheat sounds relly good .I would brush the parts before you set them and tack all  the parts in place so you can turn the work . Then welds pool  semi flat and can be burned deep .Good pipe welds with thick pipe are ground or beveled and filled /laced but the saddles in this design serve to brace the weld very well . A surface weld will hold nicely  I think a vertical standing brace is a good idea for your stator mount going all the way to the hub.

[wdyasq]

I would be amazed if Sugar Pine was growing in New Mexico. I suspect it is the local pine, probably Ponderosa Pine, that works and looks similar.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ponderosa_pine

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugar_Pine

Just for clarification,

Ron

[Boss]

Thanks for the comments

Yes, Sugar Pine aka Limber Pine grows here in New Mexico, albeit a relative newcomer to these predominantly Ponderosa pine forests. We have several fifty foot Sugar pines on our property which are producing many seedlings. The Sugar pine has slightly shorter needles in noticeably different configuration, more tightly grouped and pointed away from the tree. Ponderosa pines have needle groups with needle tips pointing out in almost every direction.

Sugar pines are much softer looking than Ponderosa pines. The bark is also quite different; Sugar pines have smoother and greener bark than the rough and cracked brown bark of the young Ponderosa pine. The bark of a Ponderosa pine turns orange when the tree matures,  much to the chagrin of the tree huggers who are often under the misconception that Ponderosa pines belong to Old-Growth forests in the southwest United States dating back many hundreds of years. Most Ponderosa pines live only to 100 - 150  years, before they rot and blow over. I bet you didn't think I knew anything about pine trees, huh? Check my web pages to see what is happening in northern New Mexico. We've been active foresters since 1972 taking pride in our 200 hundred plus acres of trees and vegas (fields and meadows.)

The welding tips are great. Keeping the weld horizontal so the plasma pool stays deep makes a lot of sense. Unfortunately welding on the level isn't always achievable. One of the things we were looking at while we were freezing our tails off was the order in which the welds need to take place to optimize each weld position. After this weekend we'll be able to pay much closer attention to the details of our arc welding because, yesterday, we bought 250 feet of SO 8-3



Power Supply Cable SOOW 8/3

Conductor: Extra Flexible, Class K Stranded soft annealed uncoated copper.

Insulation: Water and Oil resistant EP rubber.

Jacket: Black thermoset chlorinated polyethylene (CPE) rubber.

Temperature: 90 Deg C to -40 Deg C.

Voltage: 600 Volts - 40 AMPS

This wire is fairly cheap right now, we paid $1.22 per foot from Summit Electric in Santa Fe, NM.

Here's the plan. We measured 150 feet from the electrical service entrance to the new workshop service panel, and 90 feet from the planned location of the battery room which is also next to the shop service panel, to the site (and up to the tower top) where we are erecting our first 10 foot wind turbine. Jona, a licensed electrician, said the same cable we will use for power from the turbine alternator is used all the time in the construction industry for temporary 50 amp 220 volt service. Our little arc welder calls for a fifty amp circuit.

Since the ground is still frozen up here in the mountains we can't easily dig the ditch by hand, the way we like to do things. The SO 8-3 is a good option as it is virtually indestructible. We decided, put off for now the inevitable 100 amp direct burial cable. We can reuse the 150 foot piece of SO 8-3 for our second wind turbine which if everything works out about the first turbine, a 10 footer on a shortish 40 foot tower built from four inch square, thin-wall tubing, the next turbine will be either a 18 or 20 footer and the 150 feet of SO 8-3 will reach to the premium site on the crest of the hill next to the new shop.

We like to kill two birds with one stone, and this plan does this nicely. We have good quality power to the arc welder in the shop, 150 feet from the power meter right now. We can be extra careful in the layout of the pieces of this wind turbine housing while not freezing our butts off.  By the time the weather warms up and we have our turbine in the notorious New Mexican Spring wind, we will trench the direct burial cable from the house to the shop at a leisurely pace.  

At some point the plan is to be able to dump excess 220 volt AC back to the meter from our battery bank in the shop. Not sure about the particulars in doing this yet. we have plenty of time to formulate a plan for that.  Kevin and I have some electronics expertise which along with Jona's knowledge of high voltage commercial electrical we ought to be able to come up with a unique method for interfacing an axial flux wind turbine through the inverter with a standard net metering system. But that 's firmly in the future, right now we are focusing all of our skills and talents at getting this ten footer in the wind.

[Boss]

    Limber Pine is Pinus flexilis.  It belongs to the same subgenus as sugar pine (P. lambertiana), called Strobus.  Strobus pines are 5-needle/fascicle "white pines", and are distant relatives of bristlecone pines and pinyons.  White pines have softer wood than "hard" pines, like ponderosa pine, during milling.  Sugar pine got its name in California because the sap tastes sugary.  Sugar pine populations have been severely injured by white pine blister rust.  There are no sugar pines in New Mexico.  Limber pine formed forest stands around Albuquerque during the last ice-age.  It has migrated to its current higher elevation position over the past 12,000 years as the Holocene climate warmed and dried.

    Kenneth P. Bentson, Ph.D.

    Associate Professor of Natural Resources Management

    New Mexico Highlands University

    (505) 454-3501

    kbentson(at)nmhu.edu

-----------------      

I stand corrected, Thanks Ken

--

Brian Rodgers

All Internet traffic from Las Tusas Ranch relayed through DIY solar powered WiFi tower. My Sustainable Lifestyle site  www.outfitnm.com/

Brian's Morning Newsletter Est. 1999 http://groups.google.com/group/brians-morning-newsletter?hl=en

[wdyasq]

Thanks for the clarification. I was in working in the four corners area in the early 80's and got fairly familiar with the woods then but ... 30 years will grow a tall pine.

There are many pines that are similar in working qualities to 'white pine' - which is what I know as 'Eastern White Pine'. Many are 'butter smooth' to carve and a delight to work with. Many times woods are miss-identified by the ignorant ... and even the expurt.

Ron