Posted by robvann on October 20, 2005, 10:13 pm
I am looking for tower type suggestions for a small home windmill.
After 20+ years of sitting on the sidelines I finally bought a little
AirX 400W (1 meter diameter) windgenerator, and have test mounted it at
the top of a tree in my front yard. See photos:
http://www.perfectphoto.ca/Gallery/AltEnergy/index.htm
My deliberation now is what kind of tower to build / buy. My five acre
lot is very well tree'd, and therefore my current tree top mount with a
60 foot height is just barely high enough. I can see that the wind
generator is catching a lot of turbulance and swinging around in
various directions in strong winds. I suspect that I will need to get
to 75 feet or more.
There seem to be a few used TV / ham radio (DelHi triangular type)
towers around, but the more I read about them they are not really
designed to handle the horizontal loading that a windmill needs,
thereby requiring guy wires to bring it up to spec. I really like the
idea of a hinged at the bottom unit that I can tilt up. But, it this
really practical at 75' plus?
Alternatively, it would seem if I need to use guy wires to reach that
high, that a simple pole type structure (sched 40 pipe) would be as
good as the radio tower. If so then how the heck does one climb up the
pole to mount the wind generator head?
Q1) Are there any benefits to using a radio tower over a pole assuming
it's guyed?
Q2) If I use sched 40 pipe, are there any special techniques for
joining the 21' sections. I was thinking of using a slightly larger
pipe over the two as a sleeve, with a bolt through the middle.
Any feedback would be most welcome.
Posted by Steve Spence on October 20, 2005, 10:40 pm
robvann wrote:
> I am looking for tower type suggestions for a small home windmill.
>
> After 20+ years of sitting on the sidelines I finally bought a little
> AirX 400W (1 meter diameter) windgenerator, and have test mounted it at
> the top of a tree in my front yard. See photos:
> http://www.perfectphoto.ca/Gallery/AltEnergy/index.htm
>
> My deliberation now is what kind of tower to build / buy. My five acre
> lot is very well tree'd, and therefore my current tree top mount with a
> 60 foot height is just barely high enough. I can see that the wind
> generator is catching a lot of turbulance and swinging around in
> various directions in strong winds. I suspect that I will need to get
> to 75 feet or more.
>
> There seem to be a few used TV / ham radio (DelHi triangular type)
> towers around, but the more I read about them they are not really
> designed to handle the horizontal loading that a windmill needs,
> thereby requiring guy wires to bring it up to spec. I really like the
> idea of a hinged at the bottom unit that I can tilt up. But, it this
> really practical at 75' plus?
>
> Alternatively, it would seem if I need to use guy wires to reach that
> high, that a simple pole type structure (sched 40 pipe) would be as
> good as the radio tower. If so then how the heck does one climb up the
> pole to mount the wind generator head?
>
> Q1) Are there any benefits to using a radio tower over a pole assuming
> it's guyed?
>
> Q2) If I use sched 40 pipe, are there any special techniques for
> joining the 21' sections. I was thinking of using a slightly larger
> pipe over the two as a sleeve, with a bolt through the middle.
>
> Any feedback would be most welcome.
>
You can see our tower at
http://www.green-trust.org/wiki/index.php?title=Our_Solar_PV_System
we have the air 303.
you should drop your question at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/awea-wind-home/
--
Steve Spence
Dir., Green Trust, http://www.green-trust.org
Contributing Editor, http://www.off-grid.net
http://www.rebelwolf.com/essn.html
Posted by robvann on October 25, 2005, 7:48 pm
Hey Steve,
Nice work you have been doing. I really like the idea of your wooden
"lookout" tower! I never thought of incorporating my windmill needs
into such an idea. I do seem to have a hankering for high places...
On a side note I keep reading that we could just add Vegie oil to our
VW Diesel Jetta, but I can't get up the nerve to try THAT (too
expensive to repair if I screw up). It looks like you have had good
sucess with your vegie generator.
- Rob
Posted by Steve Spence on October 25, 2005, 9:20 pm
robvann wrote:
> Hey Steve,
> Nice work you have been doing. I really like the idea of your wooden
> "lookout" tower! I never thought of incorporating my windmill needs
> into such an idea. I do seem to have a hankering for high places...
> On a side note I keep reading that we could just add Vegie oil to our
> VW Diesel Jetta, but I can't get up the nerve to try THAT (too
> expensive to repair if I screw up). It looks like you have had good
> sucess with your vegie generator.
> - Rob
>
The tower isn't tall enough, there isn't enough wind, there's too much
lightning, mumble mumble mumble .....
No, don't "just add Vegie oil".
Add a second, heated, tank, and startup/shutdown on (bio)diesel. None of
that "Diesel Secret" crap either.
http://www.green-trust.org/wiki/index.php?title=VeggieBenz
--
Steve Spence
Dir., Green Trust, http://www.green-trust.org
Contributing Editor, http://www.off-grid.net
http://www.rebelwolf.com/essn.html
Posted by George Ghio on October 21, 2005, 12:10 am
robvann wrote:
> I am looking for tower type suggestions for a small home windmill.
>
> After 20+ years of sitting on the sidelines I finally bought a little
> AirX 400W (1 meter diameter) windgenerator, and have test mounted it at
> the top of a tree in my front yard. See photos:
> http://www.perfectphoto.ca/Gallery/AltEnergy/index.htm
>
> My deliberation now is what kind of tower to build / buy. My five acre
> lot is very well tree'd, and therefore my current tree top mount with a
> 60 foot height is just barely high enough. I can see that the wind
> generator is catching a lot of turbulance and swinging around in
> various directions in strong winds. I suspect that I will need to get
> to 75 feet or more.
>
> There seem to be a few used TV / ham radio (DelHi triangular type)
> towers around, but the more I read about them they are not really
> designed to handle the horizontal loading that a windmill needs,
> thereby requiring guy wires to bring it up to spec. I really like the
> idea of a hinged at the bottom unit that I can tilt up. But, it this
> really practical at 75' plus?
>
> Alternatively, it would seem if I need to use guy wires to reach that
> high, that a simple pole type structure (sched 40 pipe) would be as
> good as the radio tower. If so then how the heck does one climb up the
> pole to mount the wind generator head?
>
> Q1) Are there any benefits to using a radio tower over a pole assuming
> it's guyed?
>
> Q2) If I use sched 40 pipe, are there any special techniques for
> joining the 21' sections. I was thinking of using a slightly larger
> pipe over the two as a sleeve, with a bolt through the middle.
>
> Any feedback would be most welcome.
>
Judging from your photos you will need a tower on the order of 160 Feet.
Can send you a drawing of why the tower need to be this height. One way
to test what I have said is to fly a kite at your tower site with light
streamers (10 feet long) tied to the string at ~ 20 foot intervals where
the streamers start to straighten out nicely is the minimum height of
your tower.
XML site map
>
> After 20+ years of sitting on the sidelines I finally bought a little
> AirX 400W (1 meter diameter) windgenerator, and have test mounted it at
> the top of a tree in my front yard. See photos:
> http://www.perfectphoto.ca/Gallery/AltEnergy/index.htm
>
> My deliberation now is what kind of tower to build / buy. My five acre
> lot is very well tree'd, and therefore my current tree top mount with a
> 60 foot height is just barely high enough. I can see that the wind
> generator is catching a lot of turbulance and swinging around in
> various directions in strong winds. I suspect that I will need to get
> to 75 feet or more.
>
> There seem to be a few used TV / ham radio (DelHi triangular type)
> towers around, but the more I read about them they are not really
> designed to handle the horizontal loading that a windmill needs,
> thereby requiring guy wires to bring it up to spec. I really like the
> idea of a hinged at the bottom unit that I can tilt up. But, it this
> really practical at 75' plus?
>
> Alternatively, it would seem if I need to use guy wires to reach that
> high, that a simple pole type structure (sched 40 pipe) would be as
> good as the radio tower. If so then how the heck does one climb up the
> pole to mount the wind generator head?
>
> Q1) Are there any benefits to using a radio tower over a pole assuming
> it's guyed?
>
> Q2) If I use sched 40 pipe, are there any special techniques for
> joining the 21' sections. I was thinking of using a slightly larger
> pipe over the two as a sleeve, with a bolt through the middle.
>
> Any feedback would be most welcome.
>