Pic of our turbine
- Thread starter julied
- Start date
miss_thenorth
Frugal Homesteader
How many guide wires are on that, and what are your wind speed highs?
reinbeau
Moderator Extraordinaire
julied, that's awesome! Thank you for posting it. I hope it works great! I'd love to have one, but I don't have the space here, unfortunately.
- Thread starter
- #4
There are 4 anchor points and 4 sets of 3 guy wires. wind speed not real sure. but a good steady 25mph makes power. we've had gusts around 50 on a stormy day and she furls herself out. but like i say, constent wind speed does not happen.
big brown horse
Hoof In Mouth
I want one 
I want one!!!
I want one!!!
miss_thenorth
Frugal Homesteader
what is the tower made of? If you are having gusting winds--does it (the tower) still stand strong? When you say it furls itself out, is there maintenance involved to get it going again? If so, how do you access the blades/components?
If your wind speeds were typically averaging higher than 25mph, can you adjust the components to allow it to work in windier conditions?
Sorry, I'm not good with all the terminology, but 25 mph would be an average day around here. Then, alot fo the time we have gusts, and in winter, storms can push the wind around 80mph (100kmh).
We have commercial wind turbines all around our place and more are going up. We were offered a turbine from a friend of hubby's, but it still would have been costly. In the future, we would like to have something, but I'm not exactly sure a homemade one wil handle our winds.
thanks for the photo, and info. Very interesting.
If your wind speeds were typically averaging higher than 25mph, can you adjust the components to allow it to work in windier conditions?
Sorry, I'm not good with all the terminology, but 25 mph would be an average day around here. Then, alot fo the time we have gusts, and in winter, storms can push the wind around 80mph (100kmh).
We have commercial wind turbines all around our place and more are going up. We were offered a turbine from a friend of hubby's, but it still would have been costly. In the future, we would like to have something, but I'm not exactly sure a homemade one wil handle our winds.
thanks for the photo, and info. Very interesting.
miss_thenorth
Frugal Homesteader
Sorry, I just realized my math was off. Average wind speeds around here are about 25 -30 kmh Often we get winds around 50kmh, and during storms, the wind can gust to 100kmh. It's a very rare day when we get no wind.
Sorry, I'm not even going to try and convert those speeds--it's too late
Sorry, I'm not even going to try and convert those speeds--it's too late
- Thread starter
- #8
The tower is galvenized (AMERICAN non-seamed) pipe. Chinese stuff is poor quality. Couplings are screwed on and welded. The tower is THE most important part of the turbine. She's got to withstand alot. I mispoke earlier, 4 anchor points but 4 (not 3) sets of guy cables. Needless to say geometry was involved figuring those out. The blades he hand carved (3 each 6' long makes her a 12' turbine. He wound his own coils of wire for the stator. Check out otherpower.com. Thats where he started and learned so much from those guys out in Colorado (the ones who started the website). The dump load is important because you have to have a place for the power to go when the batteries are full. we have a whole system, convertor, invertor, etc. to take the power from the turbine (DC to the batteries, then converted to AC for use in the house). Its complicated, but like i mentioned, my husband is an electrician and was able to do what needed to be done. I'm by no means a guru about this (smile). I'm very greatful for my husbands knowledge and determination to do what we have done. Furling is when the tail moves the turbine out of the wind when she's going too fast. A good combination of turbine and tail is real important too.
RLAZ
Power Conserver
It looks nice!
It would be cool to have a couple of those around here.
It would be cool to have a couple of those around here.
I can't believe I missed the original thread.
You need to ask your DH about the power output and if he made the genhead himself or bought it, a 70' tower is outstanding. I am playing with a 3' blade at a 10' height just to see if I have enough wind around here to make one worthwhile (before spending the thousand$) so far it is not . WKY is not a windy area, and for those wanting the conversion me thinks 10 kmh is about 6 mph so 25kmh is 15 mph.
here is a video of my little guy which makes enough power to run a light bulb for ten minutes
http://placetocrash.com/xpc/files/windy.wmv
You need to ask your DH about the power output and if he made the genhead himself or bought it, a 70' tower is outstanding. I am playing with a 3' blade at a 10' height just to see if I have enough wind around here to make one worthwhile (before spending the thousand$) so far it is not . WKY is not a windy area, and for those wanting the conversion me thinks 10 kmh is about 6 mph so 25kmh is 15 mph.
here is a video of my little guy which makes enough power to run a light bulb for ten minutes
http://placetocrash.com/xpc/files/windy.wmv
