Here
are all the good reasons why you should build a completely brushless wind turbine.
Welding cable is a highly specialized power transmission
medium used for grueling applications that demand extreme resistance to twisting,
turning, abrasion and pulling. Welding wire is also exposed to UV rays 10 x more
intense than the Sun in welding rooms so it can withstand above normal levels
of UV radiation. Welding wire is made using hundreds of very small and soft, ductile
strands of annealed copper wire and will last for over 50 years while being subjected
to over 2,000,000 cycles of twists, tugs, bends, turns and other torques per year.
It is also water tight and the special rubber jacket is especially made to withstand
millions of hours of abrasive action.
The professional welders who have
used this great cable for over a century drag it over their rough shop floors
decade after decade. Many welding machine's used for ship building during WWII
are are still in use today and are over 70 years old. Even after 70 years those
cables are still going strong with no sign of replacement needed any time soon.
To replace the slip rings in your old wind turbine or to install one of ours
you will need two pieces of 6# welding wire, one red and one black. This will
go inside the pole tower and can withstand lots of twisting and turning motion. IF
you don't have any obstructions near your turbines to block the wind, then purchase
a water pipe as your mounting pole. Choose schedule #40, 1-1/2" water pipe
for light wind areas or schedule #80, 1-1/2" if you live in a real windy
or storm prone area. This pipe is available at any Plumbing or Hardware type store.
I would recommend you have them cut the pipe to 15 feet. This will give you 3
feet cemented into the ground and a nice tall 12 foot tall mast that will not
require messy looking guy wires. But, if you need a taller tower, we sell
the tower kits, buy Sch.40 pipe per the spec for the
tower kit you buy. The two options are 27' and 45'
towers. But if 12 feet will work, then it is just high enough to easily
be worked on with an 10 foot painters ladder and is tall enough so kids can't
get cut by the spinning blades. While you are at the hardware store buy a post
hole digger and a few bags of premixed "post hole" cement too (Por-Rok,
or fast drying concrete). Remember the welding wire is only to hold up to the
twisting action of the turbine head in the pole. Welding wire is too expensive
for long under ground runs. The longer run of wire can be done with UF type direct
burial type wire. 10 gauge 4 conductor is fairly cheap. Double the wires up for
maximum amperage. Twist the black and the white together to become the positive
and then the green and copper together for the negative. A 250 foot box is about
$120.00. You can check with us for current pricing on 10/3 w/ground Type UF. Run
this wire under ground as UF type wire is a water proof, direct burial type wire
that is easy to install without need for conduit.. Finally connect this wire to
your battery with the proper fusing or DC breakers based on your system design..
You are basically done with the hard part. What you do with your battery power
is you own prerogative: Grid Feeding via Grid-Tie Inverter, Powering an Inverter,
Heating water etc.
*Note: IF you
use a pipe over 12 feet tall on a wind turbine that has a 65" or smaller
blade diameter it will need guy wires or need to be at least Schedule #80 to resist
bending when a storm hits!!! However wind turbines that have a greater than 65"
diameter MUST have guys wires AND be mounted with
schedule #80 pipe! Our tower kits are safe with Sch.40, see
our tower page.
More On "No
Slip Rings"
Our advice on slip rings is to use heavy rubber
coated welding cable and don't worry about twisted wire. Twisted wires in the
pole are an overrated problem in modern small wind turbines. Heavy rubber welding
cable tends to simply unwind when it is under tension and the wind turbine head
favorers turning in the opposite direction to effect unwinding. Welding cable
also has special qualities when it comes to taking continuous twisting and has
incredible abrasion resistance when rubbing inside the pipe. Welding cable will
last for about 50 years (Not even slip rings will last 50 years)NO
OTHER TYPE OF WIRE HAS ALL THESE QUALITIES EXCEPT WELDING CABLE! USE IT!!!!!!!!!!!!
If you use a terminal block with lugs to connect your welding
wire to the UF wire, you need to get a block rated for highly stranded wire, welding
wire. Over time, in the wrong block, the wire will loosen up. Regular tightening
would be required by the owner but electrical inspectors will soon be strict on
using the right block.
In all our testing slip rings eventually failed
and required maintenance while over 100 small test turbines equipped with #6 rubber
welding cable operated with an exceptional 100% dependability factor for over
14 years now and counting. 100% reliability
Yet
more on the - "NO SLIP RINGS" Topic
If you have #6 rubber
welding cables and put them in a wind turbine tower pipe you can only turn them
about 20 or 30 times in any one direction before they get tight. Interestingly
enough this point they react like a giant Rubber-Band and try to turn the other
way trying to unwind themselves. A simple rubber tension system was born from
welding cable! It's very reliable, cheap and never fails. No moving or rubbing
parts to fail. Welding cable is specially made cable designed to endure endless
abrasion, twisting, bending and turning motions offering at least half a century
of service life or more. Especially if it's in a dark pipe with no UV shining
on it. It should last a life time.
WATER IN CEMENTED TOWER PIPES
Drill a small 1/4 drain hole at the
ground level of the pipe. Fill the pipe with a few cups of liquid cement (water
mixed with Portland cement powder only, NO sand or rock!!!) When this mixture
comes out of your 1/4" drill hole then chase it with a gallon of clear water.
If it cogs during pouring use a piece of wire until it flows clear water. DONE!
- Water in pipe problem gone!!!!!!!!!!!
Tower
strength
We only talk in terms of lateral loading or in simpler
term sideways thrust or loading. Your Hawk turbine creates 1200 lbs of lateral
loading at 115 MPH.
That is like a car with a rope tied to the top of your
tower applying 1200 lbs to the tip of the mast in an attempt to pull it down.
Your tower manufacture should understand this.
If you are in a cold area also
remember about 'icing" that brings down more towers than just wind alone
does. In other words BUILD YOUR TOWERS TOUGH!
QUESTIONS
AND ANSWERS
Q.
How do you get the electricity down from the generator as it changes direction
to face the wind? Would the wire get twisted without sliprings?
A.
Our turbines do not have a tail that flips to the left or right in high winds
so how can the wires get twisted??? This is a 70 year old misconception left over
from a bygone era when ALL wind turbines made in the 1930's would turn in one
direction for high wind protection. IF you simply use rubber welding wire (made
for twisting, abrasion and tension resistance) and tension the welding wire at
hard points like a rubber band it will never be able to make enough turns to get
twisted before it desperately wants to release it's build up tension energy and
literally unwind itself in the pole. Welcome to the the new millennium and evolution
from old ideas.
Many wind turbine manufactures brag about their brushless
PMA's and also admit to the terrible dependability of carbon brushed generators.
Then they do something very puzzling, they install a set of carbon brushes in
their slip rings assemblies! Is this not at odds with their own philosophy?
FACTS: Carbon brushes wear out,
sooner or later, snap like ice sickles in freezing weather and
those are
just a few of the cold hard facts against the use slip rings and carbon brushes
in general.
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