Improvements with the new version of software

We had a surprise visit from Kyle / Redriven Friday. He gave us an upgrade to Diagnostic HMI Version 3.18

We’ve noticed a few improvements in the software and were told about a few others.

The settings all save now in Flash. There is new flash program that seems to upload and download software. In the older version there were 3 setting that had to be re-entered when you lost power. These should hold now after a power outage.

The screen now turns off when you are not actively looking at it that should improve on power consumed by the system. Also the main screen shows Voltage, RPM and Wind speed all together on one graph displaying the last hour of readings.

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.

Results for Jan and Feb

Today is measurement day. I didn’t post results last month since I was out of town,  so this is my very sad two month report. 

From Dec 27 to Feb 27^th we made 134KWH.  Keep in mind the turbine was only running for 16 of a possible 62 days.     

No word yet from  Redirven on when they are coming back to fix it.

Thanksgiving day

Happy Thanksgiving United States readers! I’m very thankful that both Rural Wind & and Electric (Rodney and James) plus Redriven (Dave and Scott) were here for the last two days working hard to resolve the issues with our wind turbine. They replaced a cable that was 6 wire unshielded with a cable with 2 shields and 2 twisted pair cable. This cable replacement significantly reduced the noise and raised the control signal. Dave from Redriven also programed some checks (firmware 2.05) so the system will automatically reset on the over-speed error that we just started getting.

Now our wind turbine is back making power better than ever. Since they left yesterday, we have had no errors at all. Plus now at 3.75 miles per hour the meter stands still (no gain no loss). If you remember, with the older system, the meter stood still at 8 miles per hour. This means that when the wind turbine is slowly turning we will now have a net gain rather than a loss. The parasitic loss is now about 300 watts, we think it was about 600 –to 800 watts with the older control system. This should do great things for our power production.

Redriven was here this week.

Redriven was here Tuesday and Wednesday this week. They got the wind turbine running Tuesday afternoon but night we started getting contiunous nacelle faults.  The next day they came back but couldn't get the errors to stop.  They now think the wiring between the controller and the nacelle is picking up interference.  They said they would be back this coming week to work on it again. I think replacing the controller cable to the nacelle.   It kills me that we are missing all of this great wind, this would have been the best month ever.

We're off line again

The wind turbine worked for about two days.  As luck would have it no wind days.  On the third day a little wind and we got a Nacelle fault.  Resetting it got it working again for a whole day.   The next day we got a DV error (Dog Vane- I think?) and then another Nacelle fault.  We have been unable to get it started back up.  The anemometer shows no wind even when there is wind.  So now we have everything turn off and are waiting for the next fix.

Windturbine back on line

Parker came back Wednesday afternoon and work past dark getting our wind turbine running again. He put in another external power supply in the nacell. Of course since that time there has been no wind at all to test it out.  Hopefully, there will be some tomorrow.



Three issues with the wind turbine but fast response to our call

Yesterday, my husband noticed that it was windy but the wind turbine was not moving. He called Rodney and he came out today. They found three things that were wrong:


1) The Yaw break was burned up. Apparently it had been permanently on for the last two months, but this break will not be used until we get the new controller card.

2) There were some loose connections on the Yaw relays.

3) The a power supply needed to be moved in order to get more ventilation in the head.


It was impressive that Rodney came the next day after we called him. We are about 3 hours away from him. Hopefully, fixing these things will also help to reduce the power needed to run the turbine.

Wind turbine will be delivered soon

I got a call from Rural Wind and Electric. They said my wind turbine and tower are in Newark NJ!

Last steps in the foundation for our Re-driven 10k wind turbine

The last step of building the foundation is taking the forms off and the dirt is pushed back.

Now were back to waiting. First, waiting for the cement to cure and then for the tower and turbine to arrive.

Rodney from Rual Bolt Generation and Wind says the parts will be coming in about 4-7 weeks. He said he would try to do a better job at keeping us up-to-date on what is happening.

The next layer of the foundation

The next layer is made with forms that sit above the underground base.

The top layer of the foundation contains the bolts that that support the tower. The tallest pipes are conduit that will hold the electric cable coming down from the top of the tower and come out under ground to connect to the house.

The digging begins!

The digging begins for the foundation of our wind turbine.

Getting a permit for the 80 foot tower

This week we submitted the paper work for a permit for a 80 foot tower with the town. We'll find out in a few more days if this is going to be easy or if we'll have to go to a town meeting to plead our case. I submitted pictures along with the satellite photos, and a survey map that show there are no close neighbors to the turbine. We'll keep our fingers crossed.