PROJECT EARTHBILLY

Funded by:

 Hadley Sawmill, New Stone Age Jewelry, and Earthbilly Organics

All owned/operated by Mark & Rita Hadley
www.hadleysawmill.com       www.missouridreamstone.com

Tracker 1&2  Control Center  Wind Turbine  Studio Roof  Home   Solar Hot Water   Journal

3/14/2008 THE TURBINE IS UP AND SPINNING! A couple of minor things to finish.

3/16/08 the turbine is running perfectly since 10:00 hours. I saw it generating up to 1000 watts and it is a calm day. No wind, no breeze at Earthbilly Manor and the readout peaks at 600-900 watts. WOW! Wait till the wind is from the West.

SYSTEM DIAGRAM      Here is a wiring diagram of our complete system.

Wind Turbine generating 3238 watts. We don't have a wind speed meter yet. I guess the turbine works.

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We plan to start installation after the Control Center is complete. We have a 21 meter tower kit supplied by South West Wind and made for the Whisper 500 turbine.

12/1/2007  We purchased 6,000 feet of #6 wire and 2000 feet of 1-1/2" conduit to run our turbine 2000 feet to the top of the mountain for best wind. We calculate only 3.6% loss from the wire at 240 VDC. We calculate gaining 20% more wind than at the house. Thanks goes to to Butler Electric Supply of Farmington MO for a great deal on the wire. Our turbine will be 400 feet higher altitude than the house, on the seventh highest mountain in Missouri. Vickery Mt. There is already a cell tower up there. Three sides of the ridge drop off 600 feet very steep. Our tower will be 30 feet above the trees. I may need every ground rod in Iron Co. to protect it from lightning, but it will be up in the wind! Put in ten ground rods. Two per anchor and two in the mast base and tied into the re-bar driven into holes drilled into the bed rock.

12/26/07  We measured and routed the path to our turbine tower. Tomorrow we will start clearing a path for the backhoe. It is 2500 feet to the best tower site, 1500 feet to the first possible site on the ridge. Update, we choose a site 1,700 feet away.

12/28/07  The conduit path is cleared, ready for the backhoe. The wind turbine tower site is cleared and ready for digging the footings and building forms. Monday we will start the footings! It is 1700 feet to the top of the tower from the control center. The base of the tower is 300 feet higher altitude than the control center and has extreme exposure to the sky! So much so that we will pull 7 feet off the tower height, to three 21 foot pipes, and add an extra guy wire to each of four anchors. This should boost survivability to 150++ wind speeds. Above that, debris in the wind will be the problem. While the tower concrete cures we will start installing our last inverter, a SB3000US, in the Studio, for fixed PV panels on the studio roof.

1/8/08  The ditch and footings are dug.

1/11/08 The 1700 foot run of conduit and wire is finished.

Cold weather is slowing progress.

1/24/08 Redesigned and fabricated, with green power, the guy wire tie down assembly. Instead of one 3/4" eye bolt in the concrete for two guys, we now have six 5/8"x 16" L bolts into the concrete with a 16" long 4"x 6" T beam and 3 guy wires per anchor. This system should be adapted by South West Wind Power as the standard for their tower.

2/7/08  Lots of weather related days off. Today we pour concrete in the turbine tower anchors and base. Concrete Finished! Total of 13 yards in four anchors and one base. A major step forward for the tower and turbine.

2/11/08 Waiting for the concrete to cure before installing tower. Assembled the turbine head. Impressive!

2/28/08 After three weeks of winter, we plan to pick up 5 joints of Scd. 40 - 5" steel pipe on Monday, 3/3.

3/3/08 Picked up the pipe. 22X3=66 feet tall. Thank you SKYWALKER Steel supply. With a name like that, how can I go wrong. One more ice and sleet storm to wait out.

3/10/08 Assembled jib and attached it to the mast base.

3/11/08 Assembled mast and attached it to the base. Ready to paint and rig guy wires.

3/12/08 Painted the pipe JD Green. Rigged all but two guys. The top is ready to accept the turbine.

3/16/08 Finished the turbine today. Three times up without the turbine and two times up with the turbine before I was satisfied everything is right. Total control of the mast.

3/17/08 Installed battery shunt and changed Sunny Island parameters to properly monitor the new external DC generation.

3/19/08 It all works. Cheers.

4/1/08 Turbine failure. I took it down and find it's possibly shorted out in the windings. Freeze and thawing separated the steel ply of the core, touching it to the windings.. Already heavy rust in the core. The light steel plate holding the bearing has bent misaligning the drum and the core. Improper shielding of the Cu windings in the core causing more windings to contact the core. I left voice mails for three days that it had failed at the manufacturer without anyone calling back.

4/6 Boxed and on a pallet to send back to South West Wind Power in Flagstaff AZ. At my expense. They seem to think it was hit by lightning and will not be under warranty. No sign of any surge. Just poor equipment.

4/14 Finally getting good communication with SWWP. I hope to know what will happen with the turbine today.

4/16 We got a message that our stator windings were defective and they will rewind it and send it back in May.

5/14 Stator arrived today but two magnets were deeply shattered and prevented re assembly. SWWP will make it good and send  out a new magnet can. Got to wait another week.

5/19/08 Turbine back up and spinning. Odd, the transformer fan does not work now.

5/26 Something is wrong, windy but no generation except very short pulses in very high wind.

6/7 Turbine does not produce electricity. Checked voltage and it has been rewound at the wrong voltage. Took it down again.

6/9 Worked out all the wiring is correct and the proper stator is in the turbine, only the voltage is half what it is suppose to be. SWWP says send it back and they will pick it up tomorrow. I even put it up in the air again and still had trouble with voltage. So it is down and off the mast ready to box up.

6/10 Shipped out. AGAIN!

6/21 Up again but not working.

To make a long story short, we had to replace the magnet can, then the charge card also, the heart of the charge control. Then the communications cable kept falling out and messing up the operation until I cut a wooden stick and braced the plug into the socket. Now it all works great!!! Just no wind this time of year. So from;

7/3/08 Everything is working well. Check the Journal for daily outputs, except for a month after a hacker messed with our site. Now early August, all data is up to date.

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