Light Wind Heavy Weight Turbine Project - as I build it.

[Steadfast]

Yes I have asked... and yes it is...

[ChrisOlson]

The way it looks to me, Steadfast, is that this tony is stalling in the hopes you'll just ask for a refund and then he's off the hook.  I mean, you've had how many promises of delivery (even one by hand in person), and how many different excuses has there been?

The good thing is you got a wind turbine you can put up.  But we really wanted to show folks why them converted car alternators with fancy bent aluminum blades don't work as a wind turbine, and why you're wasting your money if you buy one.  This was the perfect opportunity to put the two side by side and show all the newbies how it's done.

So I dunno.  This latest excuse is pretty lame.  Even lamer than the one about the tornados sucking up his factory, and that was damn lame.  When you pay perfectly good money for something, I have never heard so many line of BS in my entire life as to why you aren't getting what you bought and paid for.
--
Chris

[hiker]

ive rewired those truck alts every witch way but loose.! no thanks..
you need a lot of winds of small wire to get a decent cut in speed..that equals low amps.  ive never seen  such a long debate on this type of alt,-on FIELDLINES..
what chris gave you will far exceed the other...dont even bother with a run comparison !
been their done it--new better but did it any way==waste of time...............................hiker

[fabricator]

Hiker did you take that picture?

[hiker]

hello fab.....
just a shot taken last summer..its a place i go rock climbing..been going up there for years..
the sheep are use to me....there horns make me a bit nervoius at times...fun stuff
if you want some picts just drop a email.......

[fabricator]

Wow that is cool, I don't think I've ever heard of a sheep attack on a human.

[Steadfast]

Today's work on the HBird:

Hoizontal thrust reinforcement cage for mast of heavy wind turbine.




Template of rear face plate because Chris made it impossible to remove the stupid thing.


Fully installed short out switch to stop turbine and 3 phase to DC 80 amp rectifier.
Thats right it actually arrived today (Saturday) around 2:30 pm... I could NOT believe it! 
It was in vagas friday at 5pm how it made it here, I have no idea...wow....



50 watt dc fan to be used in the future load dump.... just keeping things cool for now.

.
.

[ChrisOlson]

Template of rear face plate because Chris made it impossible to remove the stupid thing.

Steadfast, no it's not impossible to remove - you need a puller.  That's why I told you to not try to take it off.  I hope you didn't loosen up the set bolts or nose bolt because chances are you didn't get things positioned correctly and torque the bolts right, and it will come loose.

That's one of my old-style hubs that doesn't have a square key in it.  It had two drive notches in the shaft that the set bolts engage in and the nose bolt that screws into the front is loctited and torqued to 35 lb-ft.

To mount blades on it, a template will work.  But what I do is c-clamp the blades to the hub and get the rotor dimensioned and blade tip distances set correctly.  Then mark thru the holes in the rear of the hub flange with a marker to drill the blade roots.
--
Chris

[Steadfast]

"impossible"...means it would not budge a MM....
So, Yes , it is still set in its original spot...

[Steadfast]

This is Sunday's Progress    --- and tower Failure   




balancing the blades:

Everything is flowers and berries so far..
"chirp chirp" says the happy blue bird!

[Bruce S]

Nice looking paint job on the blades!
TOWER failure!?

[Steadfast]

I promised to post all the event as they happen:
The good, bad and the UGLY…. So here goes…

AND NOW: Sundays Spectacular SECOND tower FAILIURE!
While raising it....half way up....
The tower went all "Spaghetti" and bent wildly right and left!
Then my 1000lb wench's tension bar snapped... 
So I quickly started to safely lower it down again...
I got with in 3 feet from the ground when the mast gave up the ghost and dropped!





The turbine made it down...mostly unharmed...


THE DAMAGE:


The only damage to the blades... thankful for that...


The tension pin on the wench also failed


Now "all I gotta do" is rebuild my entire tower design again and THROW MORE MONEY AT IT TOO!
gee, no problem.... 


I found a place here in Raleigh that will sell me a 20ft long stick of 4 inch wide,  3/16 thick, square black pipe for $161.00; which will fit perfectly and weld into the 4inch bottom of that 10ft long angle iron cage we built which survived the failure intact and unscathed.

I'll have to rebuild my hinge with a MUCH thicker screw... the gin pole worked flawlessly... so, I will keep that too...

I was thinking about buying a 2500Lb winch preferably with a worm drive...

Do you guys know where I can find one that wont run me $300?
Do any of you have an extra one laying around that you want to sell me?
.
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[sean_ork]

am slightly lost for words - am sorry for your loss

but am I the only one who assumed that ''tower'' was intended just for the alt based mill ?

[tanner0441]

Hi

It looks like you made the same mistake as I did with my first attempt, a solid wood blade  root, I used a piece of oak and it split like a carrot. Ply wood or metal plate only for anything which can be stressed by the blades, The torsional stresses on the blade root is tremendous, the failure you had was lucky, had it gone on a big yaw moment your blades could have detached.

Your welding looks OK have you not thought about building a triangular latice tower from 1 in tube with flat or angle braces?

Brian.

[Steadfast]

Hi
Your welding looks OK have you not thought about building a triangular latice tower from 1 in tube with flat or angle braces?

Brian.

I have thought about that... But Chris told me that if I did the lattace work tower that I would also have to increase the amount of concerte in my base by 4x the amount. He said I would be better just keep the base the same and getting a Stronger Pipe 3" or 4" across instead...

[fabricator]

Damn, this thread is getting very tedious, watching you make stupid mistake after stupid mistake, you would be a LOT better off sending Chris's alt back cancelling the redelco and buying more solar, you are obviously a danger to yourself and others.
Two questions, did you have the mill on the tower on the first raising? and were your side guys attached while the "Tower" was going up?

[Steadfast]

Damn, this thread is getting very tedious, watching you make stupid mistake after stupid mistake, you would be a LOT better off sending Chris's alt back cancelling the redelco and buying more solar, you are obviously a danger to yourself and others.
Two questions, did you have the mill on the tower on the first raising? and were your side guys attached while the "Tower" was going up?

Gotta love your eternal optimism!
hey, thats we we love you so much.... 

But, to answer your questions:

1. We had the LBird on the tower which was raised effortlessly, not the Hbird because it did not exsist yet.
The LBird weighs 20+ pounds soaking wet...
the HBird ended up being 60 pounds by itself.
the "anti-horizontal thrust reinforcement cage" added for the HBird's thrust was another 60+ pounds.

2. The only guys attached, where the 2 attached to the gin pole.
   (I can only assume that this was a mistake???)

[tanner0441]

Hi

The failure was predicted by many of us.. The difference is Steadfast is prepared to document and post the information. So when the next newby comes along the outcome can be displayed, and many will read this thread before asking daft questions or start their build being pre informed, and anyone asking the I want a wid turbine is it easy and how much power will it make can be pointed to this thread.

I agree he could do better with solar I said so at the beginning but he has come so far and others have assisted him almost to the point of hand holding, I would like to see him succeed.  I would recomend he buys a good book on basic engineering and learns about the loading and stresses on a simple beam, fulcrums and levers.

I don't see any "YIPPEE IT'S HERE" posts from the read Delco yet though. So don't drive him away yet.

Brian.

Any news on the spell checker yet? I am told my spelling defies gravity so I cant believe the last few posts were error free.

[fabricator]

Yes all the guys need to be attached, otherwise you got a noodle supported in only half of one axis, and you never, ever raise a new mill on an existing tower unless the new mill is a lot lighter.
You also don't need a new winch, you just need to double or triple line from the WINCH to the gin pole, go from the WINCH to the gin pole through a pulley, otherwise known as a snatch block back to the WINCH anchor through another snatch block and then anchor to the gin pole, that will slow your line speed down but triple your mechanical advantage.

[tanner0441]

Hi

It will also mean he needs more cable on his winch spool. I would have made sure I knew the working load of the cable, the capacity of the winch, the weight of the load and the mechanical advantage or loss of the gin pole before I started. Working alone he is also going to have problems stabilising the guy wires. The way the mast has bent is a clear display of overloading of the mast at the point it failed.  If it did not fail now it would have failed the first time a decent wind blew, read back through the posts and it was predicted by a number of people.

You were lucky noone was hurt, or any property was damaged, a 60 pound lump of anything falling straight down will gain a lot of energy, swinging through a 30ft arc on the end of a pole will be like a giant hammer on any thing it hits.  Add to the fact the wire cables thrashing about like a whip. The potential is for a lot of pain.

I am not convinced square section is the way to go for your replacement, the maximum strength is on the diagonals. Most of the masts on here seem to be scedule 40 round tube.  Being in the UK that doesn't mean much to me but it does point to an accepted mechanical strength, and which ever side of the pond you live we are all bound by the same laws of physics

Before you try to raise any type of generator I would have a dummy run with a bag of sand tied to the top of the mast.


Brian.

[fabricator]

The reason for the failure was clearly the fact that the only guy wires hooked up were the ones on the gin pole.

[CraigM]

Steadfast,

How many guy wires are you using? Seems I remember seeing something in your first thread about only using three?

CM

[fabricator]

He only had the three on the gin pole hooked up, that was the cause of the failure everything else is immaterial.

[CraigM]

Fab,

Look at the photo and the pivot direction of the tower base.

One guy wire should be on the gin pole. Two guy wires should be located at 90 degrees to the pivot point and one guy wire at 180 degrees from the gin pole.

How can one of the 90 degree guy wires be placed (under tension when raised) with the shed is in the way?

Sure, it failed because the only attached guy wire was on the gin pole but it also appears the guy wires can't be attached and tensioned properly because of the shed getting in the way.

CM

[fabricator]

The whole thing is such a cluster flock it's really almost time to unsubscribe from this one.

[Frank S]

As was stated this happened while he was raising the mast not while it was in operation.
 upon noticing the mast was turning into spaghetti he started lowering it to the ground.
 When he had it about 3 feet from the ground is when it cratered on him.
 Looking back at the previous pictures it is plain to see he had 4 or 6 guys located on the mast. None of these could have done him any good while raising the mast due to his location.
 Sometimes trying to do a thing on your own without help you run into problems. And sometimes when you have 50 people 4 cranes and 6 oilfield gin pole trucks trying to raise a 145ft derrick things can still go wrong when the guy who prepared the location did so by covering over old mud pits and never told anyone. A sad site to see $4 mill worth of rig turn into scrap metal and 20 men wind up hauled off in helicopters.

[fabricator]

Fab,

Look at the photo and the pivot direction of the tower base.

One guy wire should be on the gin pole. Two guy wires should be located at 90 degrees to the pivot point and one guy wire at 180 degrees from the gin pole.

How can one of the 90 degree guy wires be placed (under tension when raised) with the shed is in the way?

Sure, it failed because the only attached guy wire was on the gin pole but it also appears the guy wires can't be attached and tensioned properly because of the shed getting in the way.

CM

The guy on that side doesn't need to be at 90 degrees, he could put a temporary guy on the back corner of the shed to keep the thing from doing what it did until it gets close to a spot where the normal guy wire can be snagged on, that should work fine.

[breezyears]

My head hurts.

[fabricator]

Welcome to the club brother.

[Steadfast]

So... which is stronger and more stable.... square 40 schedual or round 40 schedual?
because at this point we are consitering scrapping the whole tower and building the entire 30 foot mast and gin pole, all out of 4" square...  I just bought a 3000 lb winch with a worm drive to replace my old 1000 lb one...  suggestions before I go into structural overkill are requested.

Randome snide pesimissim maybe deserved but it is not helpful.

[JW]

dont consider rectangular pipe with round pipe, I would recommend a minimum of sch80 or sch160, sch40 anit gonna do it with round or square pipe, relatively speaking...

[fabricator]

That is the best thing I've read on this thread in many pages, sched 40 3" round would be plenty if you are still going to use guy wires, or get a 20 foot length of 4" and a 20" length of 3" lap em two feet and you'll be good to go.
But you still need guy wires and you still need them all hooked up, even if the ones that go over the shed are just temporary until you can hook the permanent ones up.

[JW]

All pipes have a wall thickness gauge or thickness grade listed in grade, such as sch40, sch80, or sch160. structural steel, has the same identifiers as boiler pipe...