Furling Tail

[ruddycrazy]

Hello I'm in the process of fabricating up a wind genny with a furling tail now with the tail designed to swing 90 degrees when huge wind gusts arrive but is the tail supposed to swing in both directions or is a stop needed and say the tail would only swing to the right. I know this could be a silly question but my tries in the past searching takes me hours and I'm keen to get this genny up and flying. So I hope you guy's can help me out.

Ruddy Crazy

[Flux]

Tail needs a stop, you can't let it swing both ways.

You offset the alternator so that there is a torque trying to rotate it one way, the weight of the tail against it stop balances it. In high winds the torque becomes greater than the weight of the tail . Tails stays in the wind direction and prop turns towards it and away from the wind.

You need the offset, so you can't let the tail swing the other way or there will be no restoring force.

Hope I have got this reference right, should explain it to you.

http://www.fieldlines.com/story/2005/3/9/232440/9997

Flux

[ghurd]

The mast, in photo #1 has the hole in the top.

The blades are on one side, the tail is on the other side.

To much wind folds the assembly together, so the blades are out of the wind.

G-

[ruddycrazy]

Thanks guy's that info supplied put everything in a nutshell so to speak. Today I'll get the fabrication finished and take a photo of it to show here. Basically the wind genny is an old 50 volt nominal tape drive motor and for a quick and easy trial I've made up some water pipe blades. It will be interesting to see what output I get from this setup and by utilising a tilt up tower I can tweak it as needed.

 Ruddy Crazy