post pic,s of R.E. projects in wind forum

[hayfarmer]

here,s some pic,s of a micro (amtek)   3 ft , 26 ft tilt up tower,12 volt  I built for my farm ,enough power for the farm,I am building a 6 footer   35 ft tilt up tower ,48 volt for my home will post when complete. I think sharing pic,s on a thread will save a lot of searching head ache,s and stop the (Magic smoke ) for some people.

[TomW]

DanB and crew built this baby for me it is not up yet but it is in the works. I am not sure who the folks are in the photos but not me!



Dans Shop in the background:



After it was built Dan used it as an aid in workshops, etc so it has traveled a good bit and was assembled and disassembled several times before it got to Iowa.




This is my Zubbly Built (RIP) turbine perched on my 65 foot water pumper tower that I salvaged and several forum members helped me erect:




This is a shot of a 10 foot DanBilt at 30 feet with the Zubbly 2 meter motor conversion behind it at 65 feet:



You wanted photos so there you go.

Lots of photos over here of everything from our hens, pets garden to RE stuff:

http://pics.ww.com/v/TomW/

OH and my favorite shot of the Zubbly 2 meter motor conversion:



And, last but certainly not the least. My favorite turbine photo of all time.

Zubbly Rides his turbine:




Wayne Carter Abraham (AKA Zubbly)  1956-2007 Gone but never forgotten.
 
Because you asked.

Tom

[hayfarmer]

Wow, now that,s a tower ,Would not loose any sleep over on a stormy  night!
Monster mill also [move][move][/move][/move]
thanks for sharing.

[bzrqmy]

Hers is my ten footer.  Not sure if the pics will work as I am new to this software.

[hayfarmer]

nice system.wish I good go that high but the natives would be a little up set. here is the base I made for my 35 ft tilt up,plan on fitting  tower 3.5 inch on top of 3 in stub on pivot base and welding,then on the 3.5 in stub on pivot plan to bolt on a 3 in gin pole 20 ft long with a 6 ft 3 inch gusset between tower and gin pole.was considering welding gusset on both sides,any better ideas? plan was if moving just cut gusset.
this is a great place to get them before you make the school of hard knocks mistakes.
<a href="http://all constructive criticism&nbsp; welcome" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="bbc_link bbc_flash_disabled new_win">http://all constructive criticism&nbsp; welcome</a>
generator is a 75 lb 900 watt SWEA 6 ft .
more power to YA

[Sr WiNdTeCh]

TomW,

Where in Iowa, I live in Iowa... Central Iowa.. and work on the Giant 1.5MW Wind Turbines...

[TomW]

TomW,

Where in Iowa, I live in Iowa... Central Iowa.. and work on the Giant 1.5MW Wind Turbines...

Northeast Iowa where she ain't so pool table flat.

Tom

[bodyguy]

Tom and Windtech, I too am in the same area. Small world. Southern mn. I can see both freeways from my place. Great wind here.
Have you ever heard of a company called Energy works? My brother in law owns a part of the company. Amazing pieces of engineering.

[Sr WiNdTeCh]

No I haven't I assume they too work on large wind turbines? What type of turbines and where abouts? I'm 2 hours south of Cabellas...

Edit: I googled them and found out that I have seen their trucks around, I believe I've seen them in Kansas when I was working around the Salina area.

[hayfarmer]

started to fly 6 footer on a 35 foot tilt up,and so the rain had to start too. Rain won!  will post pic,s after she fly,s

[TomW]

Got this baby up last weekend (05-15-10). Thanks to DanB, George and Scotty. Its working sweet.

A 12 footer at ~43 feet on a mast from 6.75" tube meant for sprinkler systems.



Tom

[hayfarmer]

tom how high is it?looks like cloud level. very nice.

[TomW]

A 12 footer at ~43 feet on a mast from 6.75" tube meant for sprinkler systems.



Tom

At about (~) 43 feet.

Tom

[hayfarmer]

she flys.got her up between fronts,just no wind now

[jlt]

My 6ft running on test stand. I took this with cell phone camera .

[willib]

This is mine its been up for a couple of months now

http://i928.photobucket.com/albums/ad129/rorobee_2010/DSCF0010.jpg

its sorta hard to see sorry.

The rotors are rusting pretty badly , but i didn't use any epoxy or polyester on them so the rust isnt eating the chrome finish on the magnets that i've noticed.
Thats my new place btw ,two acres . The photo is taken from the backyard toward the front , where there is a small grove of pines , the trees in the backyard are mostly deciduous and pretty darn tall so i'm gonna need a tower.

[willib]

well they were really not that badly rusted, about what you might see from leaving a cast iron frying pan outside for two months.

[fabricator]

My 6ft running on test stand. I took this with cell phone camera .

jlt, what in the world are we seeing there? Some kind of weird boomerang shaped blade?

[jlt]

My 6ft running on test stand. I took this with cell phone camera .

jlt, what in the world are we seeing there? Some kind of weird boomerang shaped blade                 Its just how the picture turned out .It is a two blade prop and was spinning real fast                                                                 

[tanner0441]

Hi

Blades look like that because the camera scans the image not like film.

Brian

[SparWeb]

Some pictures of mine.

http://www.sparweb.ca/All/New_Tail.jpg

http://www.sparweb.ca/All/Tail_Furling_Shadow_T.jpg


The difference is not obvious, but they are pictures of two totally different turbines.  The first is the 2008 genny, the second pic is of my 2009 genny with similar blades and tail.

[SparWeb]

Oh yeah, forgot this one:



Rather inhibits the performance, don't you think?

[fabricator]

What is that? Delamination?

[Ungrounded Lightning Rod]

What is that? Delamination?

Looks like ice to me.

[97fishmt]

SparWeb,

I had that happen this year also.
I thought my diode's had shorted out.

It was very windy when I woke up
and just turning like I had flipped the
brake switch.  

The wind changed a little and then I could
see about the same view you showed.

It took until one o'clock PM for the turbine
to shed the snow and ice.  I'm wondering
if I should paint the blades black or something?

[fabricator]

What is that? Delamination?

Looks like ice to me.

Note to self : You have bifocals for a reason.

[freejuice]

Fabricator,
 LOL!  I Dont need bifocals yet....with emphasis on "yet".
 Here is my 11 footer at 60 feet, taken  with a "high" quality cell phone pic.
With a little squinting  you folks might can make out the battleship gray paint scheme and the D-Day invasion stripes on the tail.

[SparWeb]

Fishmt-  Painting them black might help.  But if the blades are fiberglass, they should stay white.  The strength of fiberglass is temperature dependent.
My blades are bare wood, though thoroughly soaked in linseed oil.  The surface isn't very smooth, so all the edges and scratch marks make for excellent nucleation points for ice crystals.
The ice fog persisted for 2 days, there wasn't any wind to speak of.  What wind there was would sculpt fascinating shapes, usually contorted build-ups of ice on the wind-ward side of wires.  If you ever see it you will know what "in-flight icing" on aircraft wings looks like, and why they spray planes down with glycol before flying in the winter.

[97fishmt]

The blades I'm flying right now are wood also
and painted white.  Just krylon enamel and super
smooth. 

The ice mist lasted all night for me,  I guess in the
past the blades were spinning to not allow for it to
stick.  This weather event didn't have enough wind
to get the blades to spin until sun up.  Then the wind
came up good and all I could do was to try and motor
the alternator.

I was able to get it to go after a few attempts with an
other permanent magnet motor on 2 of the 3 wires.
There was a dead spot from the open winding,  and I
was turning the motor shaft in my hand back and forth
to get it to turn the ac motor.

The machine then let go of the ice after a few gusts
and it was able to spin up.  I'm sure it would have stayed
frozen if the temperature didn't come up.

But there was some sun, thinking that the absorption with
black or dark blades might help even when temps are low.

[SparWeb]

...I was turning the motor shaft in my hand back and forth to get it to turn the ac motor...

Yeah, I've tried something like that.  In my case, I run pure DC from the battery through the alternator.  I do this by jumping some thick wires across some of the rectifers.  CAREFULLY not to short battery terminals, of course!  Just to open a DC current path through some of the genny windings.  Believe me it wakes up a turbine in a hurry.  It may be that the rotor pole pointed toward the coil you "tickle" has the exact opposite polarity, so it doesn't move much, so then try the next phase and it should jump.

I've actually been thinking of making the "tickler" a permanently wired feature of my control box.  Every winter I have to do this a couple of times.  It could also serve as a partial brake to use a moment before throwing the shorting switch.  By flooding a phase with DC the iron saturates with flux.  Still uncertain as to whether this would introduce other problems, so I'm not in a rush to put that in until I've really thought it through.

[97fishmt]

I can actually do it with another ac servo motor to make the
one on the tower motor.  You just have to get past the first
inrush of power to the motor you want to motor, and then they
will both turn effortlessly.  One powering the other.

I just did it in the garage.  I did it with a drill to get past the
first coging.  I tried it at the cabin with another servo motor
but couldn't get past the first cog with hand turning.  I should
have picked up a drill and tried it.  In stead I picked up a dc motor
and thats what I was commenting on in the last post.
Now I know.  Thanks for helping me think it trough.
I'll be ready next winter.

[Ungrounded Lightning Rod]

All this tweaking works fine if the ice has gotten the blades unbalanced but the rotor is still free to turn or easy to break free.

If the alternator is full of ice, though, it might not be as easy.

Fortunately, putting a little current through the coils will also warm it up enough to melt the ice a bit.

I'd be inclined to use some DPDT switches and a headlamp for a current limiter, and wire them up so:

 1 on : X grounded, Y gets + through the lamp
 1 off and 2 on: Y grounded, Z gets + through the lamp
 1 & 2 off and 3 on: Z grounded, X gets + through the lamp.

Then I could:
 - Turn on each switch in turn to motor the device.
 - Switch on two alternately to rock it back-and-forth.
 - Turn on each for a minute or so to heat the coils and melt ice out of the alternator before trying the above again.

Note that this could be automated with some FETs.

Of course hooking another permanent magnet alternator in parallel and spinning it will let you rock or spin the blades and, if the one up the tower has ice inside it, you can just spin it with a drill to heat the coils until it comes free.  B-)  Once it comes free the extra PMA will just spin along with the wind until you unhook it again.  But I figure as long as you have a battery bank why add moving parts?

[97fishmt]

ULR,
I am using a permanent magnet servo motor for an
alternator. I don't need to heat the coils, the motor
is sealed from the elements.  I just need to knock
the ice off the prop.

Although the prop may become off balance for a
few revolutions it should throw it off by spinning up
to cut in if there is enough wind.

Otherwise I wouldn't bother trying to get power out
of it and just wait for it to melt off.