New Tower Build

[SparWeb]

What if your elements weren't round, but square?  Turned 45 degrees to present and edge to the wind and away.  It would cut down on the wake and so reduce the vibration, and still be an inexpensive material to purchase.  But I can already see those washers won't fit.

Does oscillation of the antenna affect what you receive?

The vertical pole on the right doesn't look like aluminum.

[kitestrings]

Give us a broader picture if/when you can Mary B.  I don't follow what you are doing there.

[Mary B]

Ham radio antennas, 4 of the top one in this picture(click the thumbnail) http://www.arrl.org/soapbox/view/7714 they are a pain in the rear to build, tolerance on the element is .5mm side to side and those rotten little stainless element keepers are all pushed on by hand! That antenna is for 1.2ghz ,half the frequency your microwave runs at. Your microwave is 1,000 watts, I am transmitting 500 watts to an antenna gain of 26.54dbi for 137,444 watts effective radiated power right in front of the antennas. Don't stand there! It WOULD cause skin burns! The dish antenna I used to have(wind destroyed it) at that frequency killed a bird that perched in front of the feed horn.. cooked it... Did a test with a hot dog, burned it... operating at microwave frequencies you have to be VERY aware of how dangerous it is right in front of the antennas or feed horn.

[kitestrings]

Oh my... had had understood they were high power, but that's significant.  Oh, and thanks for the picture.  Very helpful.

[Mary B]

136 elements that will vibrate in cold weather, plus another40 on the 33cm antenna, and 34 on the 70cm antenna all on one tower right next to my ham shack/office window... I can look out and see the tower legs... I sit 6' from that wall and that is the tower with 2 massive house brackets... that transmit all the noise into the house wall. The open ends of antennas booms whistle if they are just right to the wind too... think blowing across the open end of a 1 1/2" diameter tuber 20' long...

This is why I cannot recommend a house bracketed wind turbine, the noises would drive you batty!

[Scruff]

Sticking one on the roof of a van is pretty nauseating too. I retired mine after a 2-month build from 3 hours of operation.

Like a chimpanzee ochestra.

[Mary B]

The low moaning sound off the antenna booms comes in handy to freak out friends who stay overnight. My house is 140 years old and used to be the midwives house, lot of deaths took place here(book up at the city office lists them all). When the antennas started up moaning one night I told a friend it is one of the house ghosts... ignore it... I let it go for 2 hours then turned the antennas to streamline with the wind LOL they started swearing at me...

[SparWeb]

Speaking of noises...

During a very deep cold snap last month a little squeak developed.  It went away when it warmed up so I didn't fix it 2 weeks ago.  My mistake.  It got cold again, came back, then a chinook wind (warm wind) blew in and it DIDN'T go away but it was way too windy to lower the tower.  Had to listen to it for 2 weeks with no chance to fix it.  Finally a quiet day came today.

It was hard to tell from the ground what the source of the noise was.  Either the tail or the yaw mount could do it.  I was also worried that the noise would not be reproducible when the tower is down.  Leaning horizontally, the surfaces in contact won't apply pressure.  It took a bit of watching from below to catch a moment when the turbine did yaw without making the noise, and the tail did move plus make the noise, to be sure.  So it was the tail.

Another lowering process with the new tower. I didn't get into any trouble but I still have to admit there are a lot of "memory" items, like having a ladder to prop up the gin pole a certain amount so that it can start tilting over, and so on.  There a lot of steps and some aren't obvious.

I decided I needed a "washer" between the contact surfaces in the tail hinge.  Not having a 7/8" ID washer handy (who does) and my lathe is still rigged up with a generator test contraption, I had to get out the hacksaw and just cut a bit of tube off the other end - then insert it between the offending hinge surfaces.

Tower is back up again, just waiting for the wind to come back (give it a couple of days)

[kitestrings]

One day you'll be able to tell stories to the younger generation.  "Why back when supply lines got strained, during the Covid pandemic of 2022, we had to make our own washers..." ;>]

Are there grease zerks on the tube, perhaps out of sight in the photo?

We have oil-lite bronze bushings on ours, but under the right conditions I can still get a squeak when the tail returns from a fully furled position.  I find if I periodically hit the pin with dry-lube graphite spray just above those bushings it takes care of this.  Funny I just did it on Sunday, 'cause it had been so cold prior.

[SparWeb]

What a relief - the squeeeeeeeek is gone.

The setup doesn't benefit much from a grease zerk.  There was one on my previous turbine mount, and that had issues of its own (water getting in, crack in the tail hinge).
This turbine I have been doing without.  The top thrust bearing is a sealed bearing (not actually a thrust bearing, just a conrad bearing).  The yawing contact is softened by 3 wraps of rolled sheet-metal in the gap between the two tubes. This tail has been up for 11 years because this generator's been on it for that long.  There have been little temporary squeaks in the past, also from the tail, but they went away in a day or after the cold snap ended.  This one stayed for a few more weeks and forced me to do something about it.

Everybody's blaming everything on FedEx these days...

[SparWeb]

Today I unwound the twists in the cable.

26 twists since November.
I gave it an extra dozen or more un-twists to buy a bit more time before the next.

Just to show me who's boss: the wind today did two full revolutions.  A couple of storms blew through.  Thankfully I didn't get caught with the power cables of the turbine disconnected when the breeze picked up.

[SparWeb]

It started in the NE, drifted around to the south, then dropped to a calm that barely registered, but when the wind picked up again, it was rounding the west.  Then the first storm passed, carried through north and then east.   Then that happened again!

The weather station doesnt tell the whole story...  when the wind is calm from the west the anemometer doesnt register properly.

[kitestrings]

Do you have a plug/receptacle, some means of easily disconnecting at the bottom Spar?  I don't recall seeing your wire termination.  Five months might just be too long, in the spring anyway...

What is the x-axis on your chart?  I'm having trouble following what we're seeing.

[SparWeb]

Time on the x axis.
https://www.wunderground.com/dashboard/pws/IALBERTA147/graph/2022-05-7/2022-05-7/daily

No plug.   Only hard wired on a terminal block.

[SparWeb]

[kitestrings]

I assumed it was time, I just couldn't make out the vertical intervals.  I guess it is 3-hr increments, so on average you're seeing a twist like every ~six days?

Yea, that looks like a pain.  We used one like this,
https://www.northerntool.com/shop/tools/product_200220974_200220974

I bet you could get a receptacle to flush mount in your existing box.

[SparWeb]

But....
Isn't it too easy to "accidentally" disconnect the turbine, thus completely unloading it, allowing a runaway?
I'd want some way to padlock it in the plugged in position, or something...

[kitestrings]

It's a pretty tight fit on a plug of this size.  We've never had that happen, but I suppose you could fashion a lock with a small clamp and hasp to the box.  I think the key is to have plenty of slack, a generous drip loop, and flexible stranded wire.  I think you've got that from the looks.

On ours, I grab two wire ties and a pair of needle-nose pliers.  It takes less than 5-mins.  I fasten the SO to one leg of the tower ~2' below the plug so there is no pull of the plug/socket.