Hi ontfarmer, this particular turbine has been up nearly 6 years.
Each one of my 12 footers gets a good service, oil, paint, a few turns of unwind on the internal mast cable, and re-balance every 18 months or so.
Its coming down today, gin pole and 'tyfor' winch, that's if the sideways rain/sleet stops.
Hi KS, In heavy wind conditions I tend to keep an eye on my 'gals' a couple of times a day.
So I was very fortunate in spotting the nose cone spinning off centre, and starting to take shut down procedure. Very, very fortunate it was in daylight.
Found the 16 inch diameter nose cone, and it looks like it hit the blades.
I am not keen to put metal on the sandwich plates, as this will increase the nose weight, unless its a good bit of aluminium.
Because the blades are already twice the weight of the cedar blades the turbine sits slightly nose heavy and is putting wear on the mast top spigot and the turbine head mast over tube. I suppose I could extend the tail tube or counter balance the tail, but personally I would like to keep the weight up the top as minimal as possible.
Hi hiker, As I have said I really do not want any more weight up the pole.
I like Hugh's design, as its very simple, cost effective, and very robust.
But me putting fiberglass blades on has stretched the design a little bit, and that front 18mm ply has broken into 3 pieces, don't often see plywood brake like that.
I will closer inspect later and see what's actually going on.