Latice tower

[amiklic1]

As I found easy to collect just some thinner/smaller parts off of a large electrical latice towers around my town, I start some planning.

At first, about my site. Maximum tree height is around 5 meters ( hundreds of meters around), and it is not near parallel to the sea-level (not many sites actually are). It's downhill, but pretty flat if you look up to the mountain or down to the valley, and even on both sides.

I plan to mount Hugh's 8' wind generator on the lattice tower, and maximum that it has to withstand is dan's 10 foot turbine.

My galvanized steel pieces are L-angled 50x50 mm ( 2"x2"), three meters long.

Also, I plan to mount photovoltaic panels around three meters high on the tower.

I plan to make some sot of a platform on the top of the tower, and above that to use some 2 meters long tube as generator mount (thicker-low and thinner-top).

I need design without the guy wires. It looks better to me, and it's not the problem to make a base large/strong enough for that, as we are starting to build a vacation house there, so lot of concrete is going to be spent there.

Any suggestions about the height and dimensions?

[wpowokal]

Amiklic1 I don't know where you are located but a 40'/ 12m windmill tower springs to mind (water pumper) ready made, frequently available for little outlay, can be tilted, climbed, ready made platform on top.  Or you could copy one and use up your 2" angle.

allan down under

[elvin1949]

Allan

 I agree that would be the best for what he want's to do.

 BUT  i think he is in eastern europe,those towers are not readyily available there.

SO

Amiklic1 check the files of those who have them to get an idea of how to build one.

some who have a tower like that are,

wpowokal

Tomw

jerry [i think]

there are other's but i can't think of them at this time

later

elvin

[dinges]

A thing I've wondered about before:

aren't there any good DIY plans available for building wind generator towers? With all the free information on the internet, there's bound to be someone who has engineered, calculated and constructed such a thing. I haven't had a look for plans myself since I don't have a need for it yet.

I can't even remember having seen plans for a DIY HAM tower, even though I'd expect them to be much more common than windgenny towers.

I know liability might be an issue with such plans, but then again, just about anything else on the web I see this could be the case.

Peter,

The Netherlands (not yet crippled by litigation).

[paradigmdesign]

Try contacting some turbine manufacturers that build similar sized turbines and ask what kind of tower that they use.  Act like you are interested in buying of course, which should be easy due to your knowlage of wind turbines going into the conversation  Ask what the base size is and what kind of steel they use, they are usually preaty forthcomming.  I know bergey is preaty good about that kind of stuff (I've talked to them in person before) and I don't see why others wouldn't be as helpfull.  Bergey actually says you are allowed to build your own towers for there turbines and they give you the load requirements for the turbines.

Then you need to do some research on other towers, connection points, geometry of the cross members etc.  Then, and this part is the most important, you need to post everything you find out back on this board (please)

[amiklic1]

Thanks for the idea, as it is also my favorite way of collecting the info. Usually it's top-secret.

I found the web page

www.bergey.com/Technical/Excel.SSV.IM.8.03.pdf

with brief description of really large tower (up to 10 kW Bergey turbine). I think I'll use that one for reference.

Today a friend of my father told me that I can get 40 kV tower for FREE!!!!!

Only, I have to collect it around 100 km from my home and arrange the shippment. That's the easy part of the story.

i can't wait ....