We're working again, but now no wind!

The Redriven guys, Ben and Dave, finished up Saturday morning.  The wind turbine spun for a few minutes Saturday afternoon. Unfortunately, there hasn't been any wind since. Yesterday, the wind came up to 3 meters per second - starting speed, but didn't last long enough to really get going.   The new way that the system yaws is much slower, so you need some consistent wind to get it started.   I'll write more about the new yaw system soon and show the new display screen.  The forecast for today is 1-2 miles per hour.

Today is also my monthly reporting day.  Since we only made power for a few minutes this month and raised the tower a few times, we are in negative territory again.  - 4 KWH this month.

Ben might be back today or tomorrow to grease up the turbine, he didn't have the grease with him on Saturday.

Redriven is here!

Yesterday, they replaced the controller hardware in the nacelle and began wiring the new controller parts. They also replaced our yaw break that had been taken out last year.  Dave Vandermeer ( the programmer) said we are going back to code 0. This code will be a light version with just the basics. It will just do the primary functions of on, off , moving out of the wind and fault protection. When there is a fault, we will have to manually restart it. Those higher functions like restarting will come with new code releases. The code and system is still not ready to for internet  up or down load, so they will need to come back to upgrade for that function.


I told Dave that my expectations have been lowered. Last summer, I complained when the system was using a lot of power to sit there with no wind. Now, I’ll be very glad to just see it spinning. Dave said that is one of the improvements we will see right away. Now when it sits there with no wind it will go will use much less power than it did last summer. Perfect timing since we are headed into the no –wind season.


I’ll post more details later. They think they will get it running today!

Redriven says they will be ready in a few more weeks

We have heard from Redriven that things are going well with the new software and that they are still working on the remote uploading of code from the Internet. They should be here to get us working again in a few weeks.