Wind/diesel installation....

[byways]

Sillage tyres - And airtight to stop it degrading.

Is there a possibility of an insurance claim, even if not for the genny, for any consequential damage?  Or would that lead to further complications and risk assessments on Ivor or worse?

That blade, its on the roof of the barn on the extreme left...........

If it flew up, and caught the wind, it could be many hundreds of yards downwind.  Next time put your name and address on will yer!   

If the inner two bolts bust, the outer two would have tremendous bending-back motion where they snapped.  Should they be high tensile or stainless, but a plate over top as NI says would take a load of stress off the bolts, perhaps a wise retro mod for anyone else? It is a safety issue if it was not a one-off.  (Then you can claim from the suppliers insurance.......... )

[Paulh_Boats]

frotter,

I agree it does look like a bolt failure or a fracture in the casting caused the failure.

The bolts are rusty, so they are not stainless (which is brittle). Might be worth sticking a torque wrench on the other bolts to see if any have stretched...... a low torque suggests they might have loosened or stretched. Were they high-tensile bolts? Probably not.

Can you take an end-on picture of the casting and does the steel/iron look "porous" in any way? Porosity in castings is a common manufacturing problem, caused by trapped air when molten steel is poured into the mold. It weakens the casting.

cheers
Paul

[Bill H]

  A quick fix to prevent catastrofic failer in future (Still think Cast is too brittle for that job, mind) might be to sandwich the rotor to blade mounting point

Yep, has the signs of Cast-o-strophic failure there it would appear....

 

Bill

[acmetowers]

Looks like Frotters not the only person with a tower of doom!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3FZtmlHwcA
or a slow mo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvvRHhsQhi8

[pete-filldir]

That is scary 

[chaso]

Hi Frot,

I have been trying to work out points of catastrophic failure and have come up with another idea.
This still might be due to over spinning or a bigger gust of wind than it can cope with but here goes.

In the pictures below look at the hub. The way it looks is that the bolt holes 'marked blue' stripped out first and this was to much on the other bolt holes which basically acted like a pivot 'marked red' and broke that part of the hub off which then did all the other damage.

I think this is backed up by the picture of the blade where you can see the holes marked red have been stretched like a pivot point.

[frotter]

Yep i think your analysis is right... bolts snapped first.
Havent had chance to test continuity yet but have good news on replacement blades/hub.
Got to go now - update later

 

[wookey]

And we foolishly thought this thread couldn't get any more exciting!

 

[frotter]

Well i'm extremely pleased to report that i have in my hot little hands a new hub and set of slightly smaller blades intended for 2kw turbine in high wind areas. I assume our output will be reduced but hopefully so too will our sense of dread.....




These came from a very nice man wot lives no more than a dozen miles from Frot Towers (Hi Jason!!    ). He is, apparently, known to lurk occasionally in the tea-rooms at Navitron's Evil Underground Volcano base. There was apparently some negotiation between his good self and the reclusive criminal genius Professor Ivanuff Kashnow to secure said kit for nowt! He (Jason) also randomly gave me a spare copper water cylinder for future tinkering projects. Top man!
And thankx to Nav-dudes for sponsoring continued wire-chopping activities here at The Towers...!
Hoorah! Tea and stickies all round! Now we've just got to get the  blighter back up again... 


And as for running out of things to tinker with... i think not!
After our big excitation controller failure and alternator slipring cleaning etc.... number 1 alternator starting giving intermittant output - checked all connections etc, then i remembered the comedy shortened brush lives in that alt.....
This is a really blimmin awkward spot to reach. Its like playing twister with a big hot filthy black lump pressed up against you. (no Ainsley Herriot sausage comments please - it'll only cause trouble....)






And here - the offending brush block and nice new one freshly surgically removed from its mysterious regulator gubbins.... Them old brushes have certainly lost weight!





So thats all back in and working ok now. 
After the controller failure the Spectacled Person has been pondering......  The excitation controller does not output pure DC (which would be ideal..) but is a pulse width modulated output. This is probably what caused the failure as inputting pulses to large coils of wire, many of which live within alternators, probably causes extremely high frequency Electric Monkey Fighting (remember..?) which bounces back at the little insects inside the box and makes them sad.
Sooo - he has been trying to design a way to filter or smooth out these pulses into summat a bit more like proper dc to keep insects happy and Monkeys OUT!!
So he's made this...



Nope, no idea, sorry... 


I wish someone would tell him he's just making a fool of himself. Sillyscope?? yeah, right Speccybloke! Sillyb*gger more like!


Nurse! the screens!  Quick - 25milligrams of Feckerin! We're losing him....!



Anyway so far.... it does kinda smooth the output. Alts run cooler BUT as expected speccygonk's wee creation gets HOT HOT HOT! 
Back to the drawing board with ye  - ye Photonic numpty!




Pfff - enough excitation for me tonight.....

Next time - More of S.B.'s insane creations (possible). More pipes jammed full of COLD lard. (certain).

XX

[Ivan]

Probably just needs bigger caps. The current in smoothing capacitors is something like 8x the current being driven - often overlooked.

[goodnoisefella]

Oh man....If only me electronics tutor had told it like that, i'd have stayed awake

.....but then I'd prob'ly have to wear specs by now

Electric fighting monkeys....I can't cope........lol

Big ups to Jason and comrade Ivanenuff for organising low cost (no cost....wow!) bits to get you going again.

Best of luck

Tim

[Twenty4Seven]

And we foolishly thought this thread couldn't get any more exciting!

I'm off work right now with stress/anxiety/depression etc etc and this thread works better than the happy pills. If a day goes by without the latest installment from Frotty Towers, I know about it. So c'mon Frot, my health and wellbeing is in your hands!

BTW, your rection to the loss of the windmill thingy is an inspiration.....

Nick

[frotter]

I'm off work right now with stress/anxiety/depression etc etc and this thread works better than the happy pills. If a day goes by without the latest installment from Frotty Towers, I know about it. So c'mon Frot, my health and wellbeing is in your hands!


Nick

No pressure then.........

Managed to measure (in Chernobyl) across the 3 phases of the 'resting' wind turnip today - all open circuit. Doh! Hideous overspeed mustve done the dirty deed.
The Speccyone was loitering about below the fearsomely whirling thing about 45 minutes before peak wind struck. He said there was a high likelyhood of either - severed extremities or  - heavily soiled underthings if one remained in the environs of said infernal contrivance. (eh?) So he retired to chernobyl to peruse the visual display indicating the motion of electrons through wires. He saw 22 amps... (we know our ammeter reads 20% low!) so in real life about 26 amps. 1300watts.
I guess when the 'monster' gust hit the output mustve been too much for the weedy brushes. Havent had a look in yet but i bet its all ugly, burnt and twisted. (much like my Good Self...  )



In other news...... we have had a real nuisance problem with feckin air bubbles in Ivors fuel lines stopping all the fun and causing lard to cheese up the whole blimmin lot .... anyone who has mucked about with diesel fuel lines will know brilliant they are at sucking in air under negative pressure but not leaking AT ALL to show you where its coming in... Grrrrr!! (Beano, circa 1971)
So i had a fiendish plan to construct a bypass loop to sneakily let air bubbles return to the tank. Hah! that'll learn 'em.

Some plumbing things..... featuring the patented Frotgrip solder ring to stop pipe slippage.




So the fuel/air mix  enters from top right. There is a ball valve adjusted so not all the flow returns straight to the tank but allowing it to run fast enough to sweep any air across the top of the feed pipe. And it seems to work - yay! 




Until the dozy operative (ahem.. ) forgets to reconnect some relays so Ivor automatically shuts down at the end of the (cold) night on PURE Evil Lard.



...works hard my hot air paint stripper....... 


Mmmmm... splodgy snow above Okehampton.....



Is it summer soon..!!?   

[jason]

keep up the good fight you will get there in the end. Ivor is quite addictive on my visit on sunday all i wanted to do was roll up my sleeves and get stuck in. really great to come and see  your amazing set up, very inspiering
 thanks
Jason

[ajstoneservices]

And people sit and watch the tele