Good Morning
Kevin asked me how I was going to sell the old wind turbine blades when they never worked well? Hmmm, I thought about it and said, "They are a fine set of blades, they just need little re-carving." Someone out there doesn't have the time to make a set from scratch, and might like to start with these blades.
So what's the deal. did we already get the CNC router carved blades on the wind turbine? Sure did. Yesterday morning. Kevin was feeling better and helped me take down the tower, remove the old blades, and after fiddling around with one of the mounting rings on the blades we had it back together before the wind picked up.
I should have used a larger drill bit when boring the holes for the axle bolts, because we had to pound the blade set on with a sledge, which wasn't a problem, but it will be when the time comes to pull this blade set and test the next set of blades. The position of the bolts were moved slightly out of place when pounded through the tight holes in the wood.
After we customized the holes in the outer steel ring with a round file for the new bolt pattern, we tightened the bolts on the hub; no I don't think that the blades will ever fall apart. We began to balance the five foot six inch blade set. For unknown reasons, these blades needed a lot more weight for proper balancing.
Basically what we do to balance the blades is set the turbine blades to stationary, and see if it tries to change position. If it does begin to spin and it isn't because of a breeze, the heavy blade will drop to the bottom. We add lead to whichever blade rose to the top. If, like was the case yesterday, one weight did not create balance, we used our nifty steel cutting band-saw from Louie to slice off a appropriate hunk of lead from a block creating heavier weights.
Cutting lead has its own idiosyncrasy as it melts quite easily. At one point the lead melded with the band saw blade which I was rushing because Kevin was in the field waiting for the weight I was cutting. Amazingly the lead pulled the blade right off the saw. It took some doing and finally I got the lead separated from the blade. Once I had the crude block of lead cut I quickly shaped it on the grinding wheel, which of course got clogged up with lead quickly as well.
I have a wheel dressing device that will remove the lead from the stone and I got the band saw blade back on the saw and most importantly Kevin and I got the new set of wind turbine blades in the sky without any major mishaps. This time when we lowered the windmill we took more precautions for safety. Last time I recalled that at one point in the travel of the tower and the center of gravity changed and the chain attached to the cable on the gin pole went slack for a second.
We just heard on the OtherPower forums about an unfortunate event occurring because a chain failed and a tower fell. It occurred to me that the chain might come off the hooks if it even went slack for a second, increasing the possibility that the tower could fall. So, Obviously that would be a really bad thing and ought to be avoided at all costs. I simply used bailing wire to create a solid connection between the chain hooks and the vehicle and the cable from the gin pole.
The bailing wire doesn't really hold any force, it is just there to hold the hooks in place so when the chain goes slack it doesn't come free. I know, I know, between the two of us we are very smart, hold the applause. Mishaps, conversely make one feel pretty stupid. and leaving a hook to fall off while raising the tower would have not made us look real dumb, but some might have gotten hurt.
The wind never really did much yesterday, but the breeze which I guesstimate was around five to ten miles per hour created eight to ten amps at twenty four volts, and believe me that is impressive. Now, the only anxiety left is how the wind turbine will do in higher winds. Will it fly right off the hill? Will it make so much power that we'll need a new inverter to burn the excess energy? Questions remain, and that is good. Personally I can't wait to see the wind turbine put out too much power.
So there it is.
Brian Rodgers
