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Wind Turbine install from start to finish - a photo diary

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bmannz:
By the end of the day there were green pipes sprouting out of the ground all over the place but the job was done and it was time for a celebratory beer



The next session involved dropping in the concrete turning pits - I had won 9 of these for $1.00 on Trademe  (NZ's ebay) as they were sitting in this guys yard and he wanted them gone. The pits go at key locations along the duct run to make rodding them easier and they are gold for changing direction.



A couple of weekends and a lot of help from Scott and Dee and three of these these were installed giving me a complete route from the turbine right back to the shed approx 180m away as the cable runs.



Here you can see the pit sitting to the right of the manshed which contains the batteries and inverters and assorted giblets that make it all go.

bmannz:
Cable Day...



My Electrical Wholesaler friend came to the party yet again with some great rates on 4 Core 6mm circular flex (orange drum) and some 4mm TPS (timber drum) to power the gate controller nearby. We also ran some data and power for a PTZ camera to go up the turbine tower.



The ducts were pretty full and a serious amount of hauling lubricant was needed to get them thru the 100m sections of duct, friends Ruth and Shaun were seconded to get the cables in. We used radios to coordinate the hauling and the quadbike got a lot of use running up and down from from pit to pit



Anyone who has ever installed ducts in the ground will tell you that no matter how well you glue them and seal the ends they are always wet and this goes double for turning pits, so I made sure all the joins were done in gel flooded boxes (they affectionately call these snot boxes at the trade counters here)

I got a mix of big ones from Tyco for the 6mm joins and some smaller ones for the camera power cable joins.

bmannz:
Painting Day



Wynn Fraser Paints hooked me up with a two pot epoxy system.  It turned out to be a fairly complex 5 pot solution of degreaser and the A and B pots for both the primer and top coat.  It was so tricky there was a two page document telling you how to put it all together.

I figured that after going to all this trouble we might as well do what we could to protect the steel, it just seemed odd that the paint was half the price of the entire tower!

Unfortunately they mislabeled something and we didn't have the B part of something so a quick phone call and they had one of their guys drive 1/2 and hour out to us to bring out the right pot - fantastic service!



Friends Dee and Scott were back for another round and together we got the paint on in no time

bmannz:
The Erection.



It turns out it takes a 1.2 tonne block of concrete 28 days to set.  So up early one morning a month after concrete day we finally laid out the foundation bolts and figured out what the adjusty tube was for - it turns out that these are used to level the tower.



Our neighbours Luke and Jess turned up with their dad Kevin who had a hiab on his truck, problem was it was too wet to get it up the hill so we wound up flying the tower with webbing straps off the digger

A lot of pushing and coaxing and she was in place, tiling the tower down and bolting the turbine on was a breeze as Aaron had prepped the tower top to suit the HYE mounting footprint.



The manual said never to raise the turbine on a breezy day, but after 6 months of preparation I wasn't going to be put off any further so with a gentle push the tower stood up straight and releasing the brake on the controller in the shed and away it went.

MattM:
Thanks for sharing.  Looks like a family event.

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