Tails of a wind turbine

[97fishmt]

I got my turbine working very well now.

I added about 10 pounds and doubled
the area of the vane.


Starting to furl at 45 amps.


Fully furled and putting out 65 amps.

With a hand held wind meter
the most wind I had at ground level was 14 mph.

[windvision]

It's beautiful!

I am assuming it was furling early. Just wondering, what is the height of the tower? Given the wind speed at ground level, at what wind speed are you fully furled now? Again, nice job!

[ghurd]

Nice!

One of the better furled/unfurled pair of pics.  Easier to see what it what.
G-

[97fishmt]

All right I know you folks like the scenery, lots of depth from my deck.
Just think this is on a summer day of 90 degrees Fahrenheit and  I went
to the hydroplane races the day before on the lake down below.

Lots of lakes in all those folds of land.  The boat races were on lake Osoyoos.

[jeraklidis]

What is the diameter and charging voltage of the turbine?

[97fishmt]

Hi,  This is a 10 foot rotor on a 9000 watt servo motor
charging a 12 volt bank of batteries on a 65 foot tower
on top of a hill at 4400 feet in elevation.

I miss the old board's diary section.  I think it was easier
to see what folks are doing.

OK one more.  Can you see the helicopter in the center
of this picture?



He circled me 3 times.  I could see his camo clothing
on one pass(a guys leg hanging out the door) I'd like
to think they were admiring my turbine, but I think they
were looking for pot growers.  They used to have a black
helicopter and dress all in black.  This chopper was white
and blue.  The next day an F-18 (blue angel type) flew
over real low.

[bj]

   Beautiful scenery.  Us flatlanders always appreciate it.

[SparWeb]

No smoke on your horizon so I guess you're safely away from the forest fires to the north.
I've told you before stop flasing those pix around or you're gonna have more neighbours that you can deal with.
Speaking of white and blue helicopters there's one based near Calgary here and its full-time job is to look for smokies with an infrared camera.  If they catch them small enough an air-tanker can drop a load or 2 on the flames and put it out before it turns into another mile-wide inferno.
Next time you see a heli like that get the binoculars and look for a globe hanging off the nose.  The grow-op theory is likely too.

[JoeD.]

That pic with the helicopter in it puts everything into perspective!

[TomW]

That pic with the helicopter in it puts everything into perspective!

Yeah, like having your kid hold the big fish. Brings it all into scale!

BTW, niice mill, nice digs and why am I jealous, 97fishmnt?

Tom

[don1]

  97 I think you have planted your self right in the middle of one of the most beautiful place on earth. Nice wind machine too.
    don.

[dsmith1427]

Nice.... Very nice

The closest I've ever been anyplase like this is Gacier Park which is one of the prettiest areas I ever seen.  Needless to say, I am jealous... very jealous!

Don

[wooferhound]

I miss the old board's diary section.  I think it was easier
to see what folks are doing.

We still have the diary section, it's near the bottom of the HomePage above the Site News area. All the diaries are still there from past years too.

[Isaiah]

Fish
Do you have a formula or ratio for the tail to blade diameter?
How far back from the blade do you start the tail fin?
How long do you make the tail?
How tall is the tail?
 in relation to the blade diameter.
 I have a mill Im trying to get up befor bad weather and I have the tail to work out and would like a rough idea where to start
How hi do you place the tail centerline in relation to the centerline of the rotor?
I did buy a servo just after you went to the cabin but that will be another topic.
Anyones answers or comments on the above questions will be appreciated.
Fish you got a good looking place and looks like a nice set up also.

[97fishmt]

Hi Isaiah,

Well to be honest I am using what Hugh and Dan recommend for the formulas.
My machine right now was a progression from another motor platform and a
spring loaded tail with a smaller prop on it.

I wanted a nicer working machine on top of the awesome tower I put up.

What I have now is a 6 inch offset from the center of the yaw to the center
of the prop shaft. About a 5 foot tail boom and a 6 square foot tail vane.
With a 10 foot prop.

Also I moved the motor forward.  People have stated moving the rotor out
front more may not help in furling but in my experimenting it has made a big
difference in smoothing out the furling and gets the blades away from the tower.

With the motor moved all the way to one side of the mounting platform I made
the tail pivot on the opposite side to balance it and also to be able to mount longer
motors with out the tail getting in the way.

I wish you luck getting your mill up.  I think you have a little more time before
the weather changes.  Have fun.  It's hard to put in words the rewards you get
from building your own wind turbine and it making power for you.

[Isaiah]

thank you  for the info .
what i did on my first mill was I made the tail fin then I put it all together on a fence post and then move the tail fin out til it looked like the motor to tail balanced  At the pivot point. This one worked pretty good, I then put up a test stand  and did about the same thing again  but when we got some wind the mill would walk out and all around so I lengthened it out and added  some more sheet metal to the fin . The turbine thats on it now is what I want to put on my tower for winter with a different pivot mount. But this motor on the test stand could use a bit more fin.
Tis is a ecm motor and we are in a lower wind area so I dont have to worry about furling out at this point.