Wind Turbine Day 13
__ Day 13

The wind looks like it’s picking up a bit so I’m going to have to move the turbine because at the moment if it swivels the blades will hit my trailer. I tried to erect the turbine onto the end of a 4m scaffold pole, that bit went ok but it was too heavy to hoist up. I hadn’t anticipated how heavy this was going to be but trust me I tried numerous approaches & crazy plans to get this thing in the air but I ended up packing everything away & the turbine is back in the workshop, disappointing but I have a better plan for erecting it on the roof which is where it will ultimately hang out. I’m lucky in that I have a multi-tiered house with flat roofs so I’m not anticipating too many problems, it’s still a shame that the winds blowing & I’m not taking advantage of it.

In light of my ‘poor erection problem’ I popped out & picked up a couple of scaffold fittings that I think will overcome the problem but before I erect it in it’s final resting place I’m going to give it a quick paint job.

Well it wasn’t that quick, I had plastic, metal & wood to paint which all needed a different primer, I then needed to wait for it to dry, probably overnight, & then add a top coat which I think can be the same paint from now on.

Picked up 3 different cans of primer, disassembled the turbine & cleaned the surfaces & primed each piece.

It wasn’t until later that I found a primer that said that it could prime wood, metal & plastic as well as many other things, oh well, another learning curve.

I used an oil based white top coat that I had lying around & the turbine is looking less like washing machine parts & more like a professional turbine, well it would when it’s on the end of a pole & spinning.

That evening I done more research into powering my home rather than just my workshop or hot water. I’ve also been looking at making some solar panels, it looks fairly straight forward. The main problem with solar panels is that they are very expensive & provide very little power, the upside is that they can provide power when there is no wind & would therefore complement the wind turbine.

So to overcome the solar panel expense I’m going to make my own & to overcome the lack of power I’m going to make lots of them.

OK, lets get back to the turbine, I mentioned looking at powering my whole house & this has always looked feasible, at least making a dent in my power bill would be good, but it generally involved many thousands of dollars in batteries & electronics but I’ve found something called a grid tie inverter. A normal inverter converts 12v DC to 230v AC & can be connected to a car cigarette lighter etc etc. Well a grid tie inverter does a similar job but the output can be connected to a normal power socket in your home & that power will go to running what ever is needed in your house. If more power is created than is needed then this power will go back into the grid & spin your electric meter backwards. Well I’m still skeptical but it looks possible to pick a 600 W one up for a few hundred NZ dollars so I can always try it. I like the idea of the electric meter going backwards!!
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Fixing the top of the scaffold pole to the side of the house, at high RPM you can hear & feel the turbine from inside the house. This is definitely something to avoid in the future, it's not really bad but I will insert a piece of rubber between the house & the wooden bracket to minimise any vibration.
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Showing the lower scaffold pole connection. This coupling will swivel which makes it easy to initially install. I changed this cable later for a much thicker 30 amp cable. Notice the rubber grommet that protects the cable where it enters the pole.
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The turbine fully installed & working, creating free power.
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