July 22 2007

[DanB]

Yesterday was a long - very hot (at least parts of it) and very fun day.  We helped our friend Lee - who lives about 20 miles North of here (but its about a 70 mile drive) put up a 10' wind turbine that we'd built a couple of years back.  Rich/George and DanF came along.  The machine is on a great site - on top of a ridge basically  - the ground quickly drops off around it in all directions except for North.  The tower we built is short (40') but reasonable on this site and he could easily add more to it.  The tower itself is built from 6" tubing.   The site is very rocky so all the anchors are into very solid rock.  Pictured above Rich is drilling holes into the rock so we can epoxy re-bar into them for anchors.

The ground was not quite level here which makes things tricky with a tilt up tower.  One of the side anchors was level with the base, the other one was about three feet low so we moved it back behind the pivot to help make up for the difference in elevation.

We didn't weld the coupler  to the tower.  Instead George welded 'stops' beneath them.  So this tower just 'slips' together.

It was easy for 4 people (two lifting, two pulling on a cable) to raise the 20' gin pole.

Lee had this very small mig welder that runs flux core wire - it worked fine for this job.  Nice and light weight - very handy for this sort of job.

The top guy wire mounts.  It's made from 6" pipe - it's 6" long.  Notice on the closest guy wires where I 'saddled the dead horse' with the cable clamps.  DanF noticed and we fixed that.

I'd have rather had a better winch - but for $25 or so, this little worm gear winch from harbor freight does the job fine.  You can take the handle off and fit it in a 1/2" drill to make raising/lowering pretty easy.

We got the tower raised at about 6pm.  It threatened to rain and there was a bit of thunder but the storm passed and never stopped our efforts.  It took about an hour to get all the cables adjusted properly.  In the end it worked very nicely - it tightens when it goes up and loosens on the way down like it should.

The tower top is 2" pipe welded onto a sleeve made from 6" pipe that fits over the tubing.  We welded it on to the tubing.  Notice the stub is generously greased and we have an oil-lite bushing on the top.

This is part of Lee's power room (which is about 1' away from the tower base).  He built a nice rectifier box with an ammeter in it.  He's using a C60 with an air heater to divert power when the batteries are full.

Rich and Lee fit the alternator to the tower.

We got the turbine up just before dark.  Of course we stopped the wind - but right at dark, after we'd cleaned up we got a bit of breeze, enough to see 100 watts or so. The machine is very quiet.  On our way home there was a whisper H40 about 200 yards from the road.  Rich and I pulled over and by comparison - it was quite loud.  You could never hear Lee's 10' machine from that distance no matter how high the wind.   Fun day and most everything went as planned.  I like this tower with the 6" tubing for 10' machines - it's very rigid compared to smaller diameter/heavier walled pipe.  Good strength to weight ratio I think.

The materials and cost required to build this....

• 3 20' sections of 6" diameter 12 gage tubing.
  
• 4' 6" of 6" sched 40 pipe (12" for the tower top, 6" for the top guy wire mount, 24" for the coupler and two 6" pieces for the pivot and 6" on the end of the gin pole)
  
• a little bit of 1/4" steel sheet (maybe 3 square feet or so) for the pivoting base and guy wire anchors
  
• 8 turnbuckles
  
• 350' of 1/4" steel cable (we used all of that except for just a few feet)
  
• 48 1/4" cable clamps
  
• cheap worm gear winch
  
  

That's most of it anyhow.  The total cost was around $700 for all the materials I expect.  It took one day to fabricate the parts and one day to assemble/erect it.  Lots of fun.  Thank you to Lee and his freinds and family for all the fun - lemonade - beer - hospitality and willingness to be a guinea pig and run our 10' wind turbine on his site!

I really dislike painting wind turbines - it's messy, expensive and often times frustrating when dust/bugs get into it.  I had this one powder coated last week - very nice durable finish and not terribly expensive.  I think I shall do things like this from now on.

[jmk]

 Nice read, and excellent work! Both of my side anchors are low also. I have a ridged tower too and with it down the guys are loose also. I just make sure that the wind is calm when raising and lowering. I haven't had a problem yet. I have had breezes which have swayed the tower just a bit but not much. The nice thing is that the lines get tighter as it goes up in the air so the higher it gets the safer it gets. One side is 18" and the other is 3' lower. I raise and lower it by myself but it would be safer to have some guys hanging on to the side guys till it gets most of the way up. The powder coating is nice. Did you guys bake it on yourself or did you take it somewhere? I have seen kits to where a guy could do it in the oven. The parts have to fit and be able to be supported too. The oven cold be found for cheap where the top burners quit but the oven is still good on it. It would take some space up though, or look like clutter in the yard outside. That's what keeps me from doing it. I think it would be a great way to go for the ones with the room for the oven. Hey if you want to try a turbine here your more than welcome. You guys made good time. Your friend Lee must be very pleased with his rewards. I like 100 watts in a breeze. If I had a better site mine would do it too but all these dang things growing around me! Taller is better but I'm scared to hell of lightening.        

[mtbandy]

It's interesting seeing a bit more about how you guys do the towers, I've always wondered about a few things. Is the gin pole always removed after raising the tower, and what do you do with it's guy wire? I think it's brilliant how a small cordless drill battery can raise that thing as well!

A homebrew power coating machine probably wouldn't be too difficult to make, I reckon you could do it with a large wooden container and a carefully designed blower system. I used one a few years ago and that was basically what it was. The biggest difficulty would be evenly heating the whole item to 'blue hot' before dipping it in the powder blower...

[DanB]

On this one the gin pole is always to be attached (the guy wires on that side are fixed to the gin pole and the gin pole is locked down).

It was a bit bothersome on this one that we couldn't actually guy the gin pole - I worried about it falling over once we'd raised it.  The base is very strong though so that's the saving grace here I suppose.  We did tie ropes to it so that once it's raised we can guy it, but they have to be removed during raising or lowering (because his power shed is in the way).

I have seen simple powder coat setups to do it at home - to be honest though I'd rather just pay someone else to do it.  The cost is not bad.