3 inch tilt up pipe tower plans, maximum height?

[Volvo farmer]

I copied this design very closely for the tower for my 10' axial flux. After watching the turbine for a week or so, I have found it hunting for wind pretty badly when the wind is out of the south. I have a ridge of 25' trees about 250' away that I think is making significant turbulence at my current ~43' height.

I realize these "backyard engineering" questions rarely get meaningful answers here, but I'm looking for anyone who has experience with this tower design and has stretched the thing to 55 or 60 feet. I would like to add an additional set of guys and add 15 or 20 feet of sch40 3" pipe to the lower section. My gin pole is 20' long and my guys are 30' away from the tower base.

Any reasonably educated guesses or experience welcome!

[ghurd]

I have no idea about the tower.

Are you pretty sure it is from the trees?

They are 10X farther away than they are tall, and the existing tower is 1.75X taller than the trees.  Seems like they should not have much effect, unless you mean the trees are on a higher ridge?

G-

[veewee77]

Let me give you a little tip here, ok?

If you want help, don't belittle the helpers. . .

"I realize these "backyard engineering" questions rarely get meaningful answers here" isn't the way to get them to step up and help you for sure!

Ask sincerely and always remember to search the board and do a bit of research before asking and you'll find them very helpful!

DS

[TomW]

VF;

Glad to see some folks are still willing to put up with this dog slow, more busted than not forum and post!

To the point:

I have a roughly similar situation here. The scale is different and the trees are closer.

Here is what I have observed. 2 towers about 60 feet apart. One is 65 foot tall with a 6.5 foot Zubbly [R.I.P] conversion on it the other is 30 feet tall with a 10 foot Danbilt 10 footer on it.

My treeline is in pretty close maybe 50 feet from the tall tower and a tad over 100 for the shortie but my prevailing wind comes from the NW and there is nothing but grass for a good 1000 yards that way and a few smallish trees in the terraces.

It is not uncommon to see the one at 40 feet hunting all over the place while the one at 65 feet just runs in one direction. They seldom actually face the same direction for long even in steady wind from one direction.

Bottom line seems to be that higher is better. And I suspect it is more important in a turbulent area.

WRT the taller tower of pipe my laymans thought is that if it is properly guyed and kept vertical it should be doable.

Maybe one of the engineering types will pass on some info but I am not qualified. I just follow what others do generally and trust to over building if I can.

Good luck with it.

Tom

PS:

I will fix the subject for you. the " for inch kills replies with the 50 word limit bug. I apologize for how things have gotten here, it is embarrassing how this forum has been let go to hell by the one who is its ADMIN.

[wpowokal]

You will be disappointed.

The extra height will result in too much pressure on your tower for the pipe sizes you list and turbine size you list.

In my experience you will need all guy wires on pull up side to be connected to the gin pole and then the gin pole to the anchor point (tower erected and for lowering/raising).

There is a tendency for the tower to bend towards the gin pole for the first and last say 20 deg away from vertical, and your pipe sizes would be very prone to this.

Disclaimer!!!!!!!!!!!

I only write from my own experience, both successes and failures, and just for the record my 60' 3" OD pipe tower raises and lowers just fine even with the side anchors not in a horizontal plane.

allan down under

[frepdx]

here's some numbers for 65' and 80' towers based on 2-1/2 in pipe;

http://www.firemountainsolar.com/windgenerator.html (bottom of the page)

[Eirbyte]

Hi this might help it's Bergey's tilt up manual http://www.bergey.com/Products/XL1.Tilt.IM.4.pdf

[Volvo farmer]

Thanks for the help everyone. It is appreciated!

[ghurd]

If it is from the trees, I am SOL.  

G-

[bj]

   Some of us won't give up Tom---no matter what.

   Keep the chin up.

  bj

[SparWeb]

I started with that drawing, too, and my situation is a lot like yours.  Worse, I have 35' trees about 200' away.  Taking my tower up to 60'?  I'm not sure I would want to do that, but there are a lot of things holding me back.  I don't have enough room to space out the guy wires.

Things to do if you are making the tower taller:

Up-size the pipe (add the bottom 20' section by using 3.5" pipe),

Lengthen the gin pole (30'),

Add a lot more guy stations (not sure if 3 is enough),

Increase the size of the guy wires at the top, and the lift wires, too,

Do dry-lift tests of the modified tower to demonstrate the equipment works.

Your guy wire anchors are only just far enough apart for this height.  Did you put in earth anchors or did you concrete them?

It's a lot like starting all over again, isn't it?

As usual, the answer is:  "No" with an "if", or "yes" with a "but".

[bj]

   VF-- can't help with tower, as I always over build things to be on the safe side. Sometimes too much.  But on wind, I had similar problems with

turbulence, not real bad, but should have been above it.

   The grandkids helped.  We were all flying kites, and were watching them swing around in the turbulence, so I figured it might be a learning experience.  Turns out the kite said another 20 feet.  So new tower is at 60 right now, but I will probably add another 10 before I pour the anchors.

  Point being, it isn't always what the calc's say.

  bj

  P.S. yes, the turbine did eat a kite that day.

[youmanskids]

Its great to see all the comments.  Im a newbie and building a 10 foot homebrew machine.  Im very interested in your question-  My plan is a 60 foot tower ( loosely based on the same picture) using 3.5, 3, and 2.5 inch pipe, (20 foot sections each) with only 2 layers of guy wires (3/8 inch cable),  one at 25 feet and one at 50 feet.  I also plan a 30 foot gin pole.  The anchors will be concreted in with a 4 foot depth.  Im definitely no engineer but thought this was reasonable and would work.  I'll keep watching this thread  and appreciate the help too.    thanks for the original question.

[Volvo farmer]

I apologize for being insincere, it was not my intention to belittle anyone.

[scoraigwind]

I have built a 60 foot plus tower using 3" pipe all the way up and it has a 12 foot AWP on top.  I put the guys a bit further away.  I like 45 degrees on the top guys, so the anchors are 60 feet away from teh tower base.  

I use a full set of guys on the gin pole.  I put the gin pole at less than a 90 degree angle to the tower, so as to be able to keep pulling it right until the tower is vertical. I pull from the guy anchor which is much further away than the end of the gin pole.   Beware when the tower is near to vertical it is prone to buckling failure.  Once erect and with all guys tight it works very well but some would find it sways too much for their taste.

I am not sure what the advantage is of using several different sizes of pipe one above the other.  The top section has the maximum bending loads.

It is really a good idea to have a tall tower with trees around for sure.

Make the cable exit hole nice and big so you can see any twists coming out easily.

[wpowokal]

Volvo I read your comments as you were calling yourself a backyard engineer, arn't most of us!

allan down under

[Volvo farmer]

Thank you for taking the time to reply Hugh, it is a huge help to me.

I am very fond of copying things that work, rather than learning lessons the hard way. If you have a moment, could you give me a little more information?

What size cable did you use for the top set of guys, I was thinking of using 3/8" (9.5mm).

How long was your gin pole? Mine is already at less than 90 degrees so that is good, however I think 20' might be too short for a 60' tower.

How many sets of guys did you use? I was thinking of using three. As I am using earth anchors, it should be no problem to add another set of anchors out at 60'. Do you think I should move all the guys out to 60' or could I leave the shorter ones at 30' and only run the top ones to the far anchors? It would mean less re-rigging that way for me.

Again, thanks for sharing your experience.

-Bob

[SparWeb]

VF,

I'm trying to write a reply here but getting nowhere.  posts vanishing into puff of electrons.

You wouldn't mind e-mailing me instead?  I don't have time to type out the whole page again.

s p a r w e b (at) h o t m a i l . c o m

I'm just gonna sit here hitting post until it goes thru.

[Volvo farmer]

Steven,

Email sent. Maybe we should start a mailing list! Might bring back the good-old-days of the 1990s, before web-based forums :-p

[TomW]

VF & Steven;

You can also use IRC for real time one on one discussion.

Either in the main room or you can open your own private room for non public discourse.

VF I think you know how to get on IRC?.

Steven if you are interested in this you have my email just contact me and I will help you figure out how to do it.

If you are lucky just click this link and it should work:

HTTP:/IRC.OTHERPOWER.COM#otherpower

Just another real time option for private discussion.

Shamewless pimp intended.

Tom

[TomW]

Goilly, I messed up the URL.

Try this one:

IRC:/irc.otherpower.com#otherpower

DUh.

Tom

[SparWeb]

Every once in a while I see someone refer to it - but I didn't think anyone actually used it!  Like half of the other features on this board.

I don't have an IRC client installed at home, and one wouldn't be welcome on the computers at the office.  Been there done that (in the 90's) and it was a frustrating experience then.  Has it gotten any better?  E-mail is superior IMHO because you have a record of the advice people give you, to look up later when you might have forgotten the details.  Have some other reasons not to be interested in IRC, but that's enough.

[TomW]

Steven;

No problem. It is just another tool, only as good as you make it.

The big difference in our IRC is that it is a fully independent, stand alone IRC server run by me on equipment and bandwidth donated by JacquesM. It is NOT a part of Scoop or this forum. It is "associated" with Otherpower and Fieldlines not "owned" by them. IRC is run by and populated by people who care and not one Luddite among the regulars.

Everyone from apartment dwellers with no RE installed, 100% off gridders with nothing but RE to hicks like me somewhere in the middle. And not just geeks either we have folks doing everything from electronics design to turbine construction all helping each other find solutions.

If your experience with IRC was from one of those massive IRC networks like Dahlnet or something then the difference is as big as the difference between shopping your local department store and going to the Mall of America. Small friendly place similar to a local pub or tavern. But with a global user base. Lots of quick one on one solutions have come from our little channel.

We have put many folks on the track to workable systems as well as steered folks away from dead ends.

Typical end of summer low user count lately but as winter gets here more folks are inside and online so our user numbers go up.

Anyway, likely nothing like your experience from the '90s.We have a messaging system and there is logging which addresses your "record of the exchange", too as well as in channel calculators for RE related things, units conversions and math.

Its there to use for anyone and it is your choice, of course.

Only 11 folks on IRC today but by mid winter it will be a couple dozen lurkers on the main channel. Just at a quick glance I see people on this morning from Australia, The U.S., The U.K., Finland and The Netherlands. So you get a wide variety of viewpoints and timezones so never know when it will get hopping good.

The doer to poser ratio is lots better than on this forum.

Just felt I should clear up any misconceptions on the facts about IRC . Of course there is no guarantee other than it will be working when you try to use it.  Unlike some resources.

Tom