In my insatiable quest for information on building a 21' tilt-up tower out of 2 1/2" Sch 40 pipe, I came across an interesting article that shed a great deal of light on tower building economics.
It helped me see the dynamics of tower placement, tower height and for a layman (like myself), an easy to comprehend reasoning behind why it is so important to correctly place your wind genny.
The limitations of our humble 100'x100' lot, surrounded with (beautiful ... I might add) tall trees, has not, however, deterred me from building a treadmill motor, pvc blade, wind genny which I soon will be placing on a 21' tilt-up "tower" (if you will give me the liberty of calling a 21' piece of 2 1/2" Sch 40 pipe a tower).
Only time and shear determination will tell if I can suppliment my 37 watt solar system with this wind genny to keep my (humble) 3- deep cycle marine batteries charged, but whether this is, at all, economical or not I have had a great time reading about, planning and building this my charging system.
Anyway, here's the link to the article that has not only kept me in check, but also driven me to "make it so" when it comes to continuing my little project(s).
http://www.homepower.com/files/towereconomicsseries.pdf
I hope you find it as informative and I have.
arc
