Well I keep getting a little closer to actually making power and the next major step is a real tower. I want to build a tilt up tower much like the one pictured below. I copied the pic and jimovonz description of it as a close example of what I am hoping for. I have 33 ft lenghts of 4 inch well casing and 35 ft long 12 inch wide at base utility poles to play with.
The 8m side poles are 2m into the ground. The pole in the middle is 10m. The engineer at the local lines company told me that a standard 8m power pole embeded 2m into the ground was rated for a 6kN lateral load at the top. This seems a lot to me and I think his specs relate to a guyed pole (probably using the standard screw anchor). I have three guy wires/screw anchors on this pole and I don't think anything short of a hurricane is gonna move it. I've tited it up/down by myself with over 200Kg on the end with no drama (used a come-a-long and a 200l drum filled with water on the short end as ballast)
What I wanted to do was use 4 inch pipe in the middle of 2 poles and mount the turbine on top of the pipe. All the turbine height will be above the end of the pipe so its height would be added to pipe length. I have a good idea of how I am planning on building this tower but hoped that some of ya'll with more experience or better at engineering might have some good advice.
The questions are
Where and how would you guy it?
Would guys at the top of the pipe and on the top of the support poles be enough?
Should I guy at the pivot point or away from it?
How high up would you pivot it?
Any reasons why it would be better to weld on a bracket or drill a hole in the pipe for the pivot shaft?
Other than the pivot point where and how to fasten pipe to poles?
Now for some of the figures that you will want. Turbine is a vawt with a 13 ft diameter and should be 8-16 ft high. Plan to start with 8 and then may add a second layer. Slow speed 1 tsr or slower and will weight around 300-500 lbs total with ½ to 2/3 of that weight being in the blades and supports. Tree level is about 20 ft.
My idea at the moment is this
2 poles at least 6 ft in the ground
pivot point at 25 ft above ground
15-20 ft of pipe above pivot depending on guying needs and counter balancing
extra pipe added on bottom of main pipe to reach to near ground level
welded bracket so pipe is above pivot shaft when pivoting.
Cross braces as needed between poles so pipe will not go over center when raising
Guy lines at or near pivot point and as near top of pipe as possible
Finis
