Pitch control revisited

[willib]

i've been thinking about the furling process.

When it gets really windy the blades of a generator furl out of direct exposure to the wind.

What if we could use a pitch control system , to provide a constant RPM for our generators??

When it is really windy we could increase the pitch out to almost a feathering position , when it is not so windy we could decrease the pitch down to a normal setting.

If pitch control is good enough for airplanes it might be good enough for us..

In place of the hydraulic system, could be a lead screw connected to a servo to change the pitch of the blades..

As the piston moves in and out ,the pitch of the  blades ,increases or decreases.

[Flux]

Pitch control works fine but it requires excellent engineering to be reliable.

If you have the facilities and ability, go for it, but don't attempt a backyard engineered solution.

I see no advantage of the electric servo over direct centrifugal weight control that others use and if you use the servo approach be sure to incorporate a furling mechanism to protect things when the servo fails ( as it will one day).

I have started 3 pitch control mechanisms but only ever finished and tried one.That was a small one and worked fine.

The others were for larger blades and ended up becoming so heavy that I never finished them. Here we never get the sort of winds that would make it worthwhile and a properly designed furling scheme still produces good power in high winds, although a pitch control would do even better.

A badly engineered pitch control will be a disaster but if you can do it properly then there is no better.

Flux

[willib]

These use centrifugal weight control , but there was no internal diagram of how they worked, so i did'nt include them in the origional post.

[willib]

Flux i would really like to see a picture of your centrifugal weight pitch control mechanism ?