Author Topic: A whisper 500, a roadtrip and a mission  (Read 2766 times)

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Timbersawz

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A whisper 500, a roadtrip and a mission
« on: January 23, 2017, 12:30:49 AM »
 I won a whisper 500, tower and controller etc on an online auction. (condition unknown) It was still erected, on another island and 20 hours away. So obviously it was time to grab an RV, load the kids and wife and do a roadtrip/family holiday.
 Trying to guess what gear was going to be needed to lower the 30 foot tower (and never having done it myself). Owner didnt know much about it and wasnt communicative. So I loaded up some rigging gear, tools and my climbing harness and hoped I could get the thing down. (had a limit of what I could get across on the ferry)
 So we picked up the RV and headed down the west coast of the south island, bad weather the whole way but stayed in some beautiful places and visited friends along the way.
Finally made it to the tower, which was down a steep gravel drive and not that easy to access on a slope among scrub, and bad weather was coming

Biggest issue was that it had no gin pole and that the tower lowered downhill so it would end up grounding at 30degrees below horizontal. Seemed it had been raised using the boom of an excavator. I had pretty good anchors in the form of 6 inch trunked trees nearby and had brought one of my tirfirs. (although I soon identified that I need at least 2) The pole was heavier than I expected, it had a 5 inch outer diameter but nearly 3/4 of a inch wall thickness. Which spelt bad news as not only did it add to the differculty of lowering but also meant there was no way of getting the pole off site without an excavator or skidder!

I didnt have the resources or time to install a gin pole although I busted my brain trying to work out how to. After some calling around I sourced another tirfir from a local arborist company, I brought 4x 2500kg 9m long loadbinders and with the help of my wonderful wife we took on the tower in 20 - 30kmph winds.

I climbed the tower and took the blades off, at least if it was going to crash to the ground, I was going to save them!



I then rigged the main tirfir to the top of the tower and the secondary tirfir about 8 feet up the tower, redirecting the cable through a shackle mounted on a sling which was positioned on a 8 foot vertical piece of angle that the turbine pole rested against when vertical. I theorized that the weight could well bend the piece of angle once it started to take the load and pigtail my tirfir cable, but figured that was better than the pole dropping some 15 feet or so.

Undid the guys after clearning some scrub and started the lowering process with the wife on the main tirfir and myself controlling the secondary one. It took some time before the tower was about 15 degrees above horizontal and the secondary tirfir was required to take the weight. The tirfir and angle struggled with the strain, Poor positioning and the wrong end of the lever with such a heavy tower, but it did the job, the tower came down in a controlled manner. I nearly danced as it was far from being a sure thing.

Took off the generator, was able to cut the top few feet off the top of the tower to insure a good fit later on my own future pole, got the controller and other odds and ends and freighted them home!

Now i need to test it, paint it, and work towards building a tower for it!

 




electrondady1

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Re: A whisper 500, a roadtrip and a mission
« Reply #1 on: January 23, 2017, 07:30:52 AM »
quite a story .
you make it sound easy .

SparWeb

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Re: A whisper 500, a roadtrip and a mission
« Reply #2 on: January 23, 2017, 10:20:09 PM »
Congrats!
You earned it.
Now that you know what a dicey tower job is like, I bet you'll take extra precautions when it's time for the new tower to lift.  Looking forward to it  :)
No one believes the theory except the one who developed it. Everyone believes the experiment except the one who ran it.
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David HK

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Re: A whisper 500, a roadtrip and a mission
« Reply #3 on: January 24, 2017, 04:26:44 AM »
This is going to be a world wide interesting article. Well done so far, but please keep us all posted.

Dave in Hong Kong

Timbersawz

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Re: A whisper 500, a roadtrip and a mission
« Reply #4 on: January 30, 2017, 05:08:16 AM »
 Im an arborist so at least climbing things and getting them on the ground is everyday stuff, when its made of steel it adds a few new challenges.

 I have been trying to work out how to deal with some of the rust and how to repaint it.

 Also after talking to other people im wondering if its going to be tough enough for our conditions. Have been toying with the idea of making a 2 blade variable pitch hub using aluminium Ge222's blades that are available through ozwind engineering. The head on the generator seems better set up for 2 blades rather than trying to fit a 3 blade on it. Of course it would mean modifying its furling set up.

One potential  issue I see is that the turbine is supposed to make peak power at 900rpm, (although other sources say 500rpm) which is probably to fast for a home made variable pitch.

I came across this design while searching on this forum and the net in general



Wondered if the basic mechanical layout could be utilised, so tried something simular in lego!



Im obviously way out of my depth!



« Last Edit: January 30, 2017, 05:45:59 AM by Timbersawz »

SparWeb

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Re: A whisper 500, a roadtrip and a mission
« Reply #5 on: February 01, 2017, 08:37:50 PM »
All I can say is that the forces on blades go up squared as the speed goes up, so the difference between 900 RPM and 500 RPM is
(9/5)^2= 3.2 times more load.
The speed is dictated by the generator and the system voltage it's connected to, so anything you can do to find out its specs will be worthwhile.
IIRC there are different versions of the W500 for different voltages.
No one believes the theory except the one who developed it. Everyone believes the experiment except the one who ran it.
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