new wind system

[(unknown)]

Hi folk's nice to hear all your comments on lightning protection.

A lot of these opinions  are coming from some very intelligent guy's with a lot of experience in this area. which is great for everyone who reads, But for someone brand new to the field (like myself)some of the terminoligy and ideas can be a bit confusing. I've got a lot to learn, but really looking forward to it. I am just about finished building my first wind generator, (it has been alot of fun.) And was looking for some advice on protecting my system. So could someone out there give me an idea of how to protect my windmill from lightning. Like as soon as I put it on the tower what would be the first thing in protecting and grounding would I do.and then as I pull the wire down the tower and across to the batteries are there precautions I could take,and then from the batteries to the inverter is there a grounding option and then from the inverter to the house lines and so on.You get the piucture i guess simply put are there protections I can install as I go along with the initial installations and what would they be. (preferably in layman terms please)

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

                                               Thanks a million

[drdongle]

Firstly ground the tower. If you are close to the point of usage you can use the ground rod there (if you have one), If your over 50 ft then put one at the tower.

Not knowing specifics of your system I can only say that surge suppressors on the lines from the generator to ground are a very good idea, at the tower and rated appropriately, they should at a voltage some what higher than your max output. And a disconnect as well ( this could be at the point of use).

As far as you equipment use a "star" configuration, that is run the ground lines from each piece of equipment to one common point and then from there to the ground rod ( use at least #12 wire). You can use one piece of equipment as the common point ( if it will accommodate multiple wires) or use a bus bar ( available from the local electrical supply).

[Experimental]

         I say, pretty much the same as Dr, D --- but with one system I have, I not only have a ground rod at the base of the tower -- I also have one at each guy wire termination point, as the supports are in cement..

        I also suggest a twist lock plug at the base of the tower, so it can be "unpluged", durring lightning storms -- but, provide a "replacement plug", on the plug from the mill, shorting the wires together, so your mill can,t freewheel, and overspeed !!

         I may be in the region of overkill, but have already lost a mill to lightning -- and don,t want a repeat...

          I still wonder about "backfeed" through the ground rod at my cabin, going into my electronics, from a near strike --- some of the other fellas may have some suggestions on that --- FOR BOTH OF US !!!

       I may just be Paranoid , but lightning is serious stuff..

       Hope some of this helps , Bill H.......

[wooferhound]

 I used to replace the light Bulbs on several 1000 foot TV transmission towers. I also did inspections of all the guy wire anchor points. These towers had 6 guy wires coming from the 3 corners of the tower. At every anchor point was a LARGE ground wire that connected to ALL of the guys coming down off the tower. At the base of these tall towers were 3 ground wires, each attached to the three corners or the tower. LOTs of grounding going on here.

 At the top of the tower was an Antenna that was about the size of a normal Telephone Pole. These were UHF TV antennas. At the top of the Antenna was one of the beacon lights with two 620 watt bulbs in there. And over the beacon at the top of the tower were 3 rods 3/4 inch in diameter that extended up about 2 feet past the top of the beacon.

 It was interesting to look closely at these Lightning rods at the top of the 1000 foot towers. There were some very deep 1/8 inch deep pits at the top of these rods. There were also lines of pits where I could see that the lightning was Walking down the rod as it was striking.

This information may not apply directly to Wind generator towers. I am thinking that if there were ground wire going out to the tips of the rotating props, the motion of the moving grounds would prevent the lightning from finding a solid grounding point to hit. Lightning really wants to find a stationary point to hit.