Hello,
Those who have seen my posts over the past year will remember I've been frustrated with light winds and a 10' turbine that rarely spun very fast. Even in occasional strong winds my machine never quite reached cut-in. What was really frustrating for me was reading posts by the pros on this board who often talked about producing power in "practically no wind at all".
So just over a week ago I put my machine back in action with a brand new stator I built for myself. Aside from a much lower cut-in speed I also noticed the blades turn much faster in light wind. Yesterday, for example, I couldn't feel any wind on my face but the turbine was making about 30RPM. So I got to thinking there must be more to this. I went into my garage and took a good hard look at the old stator. And wouldn't you know it, I found a short. The short was on wires from two phases that passed outside the epoxy mold. Each wire had brass butt joints to extension wires and those two butt joints touched when the turbine vibrated. I could tell by the way the brass was polished at the point of contact that the short was in fact the true source of the problem.
Now I see the blades spinning even when they are covered with snow (tonight).
Rob
