We're Back!

We're back in the wind!

. . . Only on a much smaller scale

I've been wanting to replace the Redriven turbine but my daughter will be in college for a while so I can't throw too much more money in my wind hobby.   I set up ebay and Craigs list searches for wind turbines within driving distance.

In July, I saw a wind turbine on eBay for Sale only a few miles from my house and bought it.

Its a 1K Southwest Whisper 200 HV.   Unfortunately the HV ( High Voltage 240V ) model is quiet obscure an the manual doesn't cover that model at all.

So it has taken a while and a village to get all the info an parts  together to get it going again.

Our neighbor Matt, who is a farmer and and expert with Hydraulics helped us make sure the the tower wasn't going to come crashing down on us after many years of not being used.

We hired Scott Fouts from (QED) an ex Redriven employee to help us with the conversion from the complex wiring of the ReDriven set up to the basic  South West Wind set up. Scott also remotely dialed in to configure the Inverters.

Rob from Greenpowertalk.org guided us in getting the measurements and calculated the power curve for the Whisper 200 model.

My husband hired an Amish company down the road to weld the part that my husband  designed on CAD  to convert from the Redriven mount to an new Schedule 40 pole that the South west requires.

And I did what I do best, gently nudged (nagged) everyone to do their part.


The wind started today Dec 29th and after a little troubleshooting, it is making power! Not a lot of power but we are now out of the lawn ornament category now.