We finally got our wind turbine up and running Friday night and enjoyed
wind power for about 10 minutes when the PVC adapter broke off the
mount.
We knew that a plastic part attaching the turbine to the tower would be the weak link, but the idea of electrically isolating the generator from the lightning-susceptible tower seemed worth it. Thankfully nothing else broke during this debacle, now all we need is a cheep piece of 1.5" x 18" steel pipe to replace the PVC (we will get that soon, hopefully). Everything else worked great-- the tilt tower, guy wires, and the generator preformed admirably. 100 watts should be the max power output. We are also going to drop the prop diameter down from 60" to 48", to lower the tip speed ratio (TSR) down to about 5. Our next wind turbine will be ready soon: a 500 watt bicycle hub motor drive, converted to a three phase AC generator. It should put out 400 watts, but the hard parts will be mounting the blades to the hub and the hub motor to the tower.
We knew that a plastic part attaching the turbine to the tower would be the weak link, but the idea of electrically isolating the generator from the lightning-susceptible tower seemed worth it. Thankfully nothing else broke during this debacle, now all we need is a cheep piece of 1.5" x 18" steel pipe to replace the PVC (we will get that soon, hopefully). Everything else worked great-- the tilt tower, guy wires, and the generator preformed admirably. 100 watts should be the max power output. We are also going to drop the prop diameter down from 60" to 48", to lower the tip speed ratio (TSR) down to about 5. Our next wind turbine will be ready soon: a 500 watt bicycle hub motor drive, converted to a three phase AC generator. It should put out 400 watts, but the hard parts will be mounting the blades to the hub and the hub motor to the tower.
http://greenterrafirma.com/axial-flux-alternator.html MOPE POWER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!