If you cannot understand why I would be "concerned" I don't know what to tell you....I have spent thousands in copper and magnets to pursue what I like doing and I must protect my interests.
I'll summarize some things here - Steadfast started this project on March 14. On March 26 he buys a ReDelco from Hurricane Windpower and this is the post, with the spiel and power chart that came with the sale:
http://www.fieldlines.com/index.php/topic,146527.msg1003979.html#msg1003979I look at the sales pitch. Then I look at the power chart. And I go, "OMG. We got the Natural Aluminum Delco's with a blue sticker. We got the Marine Green ones from a different outfit. We got Baby Blue from yet another outfit. And now we got somebody pedaling Red Delco's with a different sale's pitch and the same power curve."
I could see Steadfast is very interested in his wind project, but he is going at things totally wrong and it's going to end up being a failure and he'll eventually give up on it. I don't like to see someone new have to endure that after having high expectations.
Well, this went on for TWO MONTHS and he still didn't have the product he ordered. Finally, on May 24 I donated an axial generator to his cause. I told him I want nothing for it. I talked to him on the phone and told him my enjoyment would be seeing a newbie to wind power get the thing up and get it working. It had been laying around my shop for several years.
I also told Steadfast this was an opportunity to show every newbie out there the difference between what we build and what is commonly sold on eBay by the Delco peddlers. The Delco-based units have a bad reputation and there is constant infighting between all the "dealers" of them over who's Delco pushes the most amps, and who's suing who over one "stealing" or copying the others "design". It's like a comic relief act on YouTube among all these Delco peddlers.
Over three months, Steadfast got excuse after excuse after excuse why he never got what he paid for. Long before I sent him the axial, and DaveM donated a set of blades for it. And all the while Steadfast was convinced his ReDelco was "revolutionary" when in reality all he had bought was a re-branded Baby Blue one. Well, now we all see how that ended up.
Steadfast wanted to do the comparison of the two units. And I ain't afraid of no comparison. Bring it on. Even though he's got a poor wind site so the turbine is going to have terrible power production, you still get 20 mph gusts thru the rotor now and then and get a chance to see what it can do.
I hope it is perfectly obvious to any newbie to wind power, thru this thread, that it pays to do a little research before you spend money on something that won't work, and the advertising being used to sell some of this stuff is downright deceptive.
Now Steadfast has another offer for a servo motor to bring his project to fruition. I say go for it.
And in the end I hope Steadfast has learned that here in the homebrew community we're into building stuff that DOES work. He came here looking for advice and got lots of it. And every step of the way he's learned that the collective wisdom here is worth WAY more than any sales pitch with a fake power curve.
My wife and I are going to Canada tomorrow. When we get home I expect to read about one of these machines flying
--
Chris
