April Fools Day Results

Another month with very little wind.  When there was wind, it was gusty with low averages.

Power made this month 307 KWH

Windview software

People have asked about the wind view software. Originally, it didn't do very much but now that the inverters are attached it is getting more useful. You need to run it from a Opera web browser. It will not run on ie8 or ie9 but will run on an iPhone.  We were able to restart the turbine when we were away on a windy weekend. After the wind turbine shuts down from over wind it needs a manual restart, which we could do from an iPhone.

Green on the graph is the wind speed and yellow is the power out. You can see from the graph that high wind does not always = higher power out. It seems the sweet spot is 8 meters per second.

Best output so far

NYSERDA gave me the okay to do my reporting at the end of the month rather than on the 27th.  Feb. is the perfect month to make the switch.

This month the wind picked up.  Too much wind last weekend.  Those peak wind speeds = turbine shut down.  The wind was an average of 8.5MPH for the month.  Power made 432KWH

During the really strong winds the noise came back, it must be the breaks. But over all, it is still much  quieter now that the hub has been tightened.

Our Nuts Were Tightened!

Yeah!  Redriven came this week and tightened down all of our bolts. The tech said that just about everything was loose.  I guess vibration will do that.  He said the hub nut tightened down about ½ inch. There was another term the tech used to describe what he did to keep it from coming loose that they do now – tapped it or tinned it?  Does anyone know what they do?  I know someone that commented a while back talked about welding it or something like that so it couldn’t come loose again.

This year is such a freak year.  There is so little wind, that I had to wait two days to see the turbine even move after repair. Last night we got some good wind and I could hear a marked improvement in the sound the turbine was making. We didn't get the highest winds, but it sounded healthy for a change.   Let the winds come!

Dec to Jan Results -Retraction - I made a mistake last month

Results report for Dec 27 to Jan 27


I was putting in my calculations for this month and I found in a mistake in my spreadsheet. In my excel formula, I copied downward the wrong calculations for the last 2 months. I found this because the numbers just weren’t adding up. We had an average wind speed this month of 8mph but the results didn’t improve on my sheet. So I’ve gone back and fixed my error.

The wind gusts (show as blue dots) did cause the system to shut down several times this month.


Month of Jan Wind Speed



 This month (Dec 27 to Jan 27) average 8 mph with a gain of 367KWH with the inverters putting out 581KWH.

Month of Dec Wind Speed



Last month the average wind speed was 6 mph and we made 320KWH with the inverters putting out 408 KWHs

  

We had some high peaks of wind speed, but these wind gusts cause the system to shut down in protection mode . Also,  the system needs to do a lot of yawing to move out of the wind on these gusty days. A slower steady wind speed will produce much better results.

Wind Turbine Popped it's Lid

After a very windy day, we noticed that the wind turbine popped it's lid.  So in the bitter cold we had to take it down one more time.  We think it popped because of the vibration caused by the loose hub. Redriven still hasn't come and we don't have the socket to tighten it ourselves.  It would be best to turn the yaw break on and take it down face up.  We don't know how to do that trick or if it is even possible with the newest software.  REDRIVEN we need a Tech!

Loud noise source found?

My husband an I took the wind turbine down yesterday to see if it was a loose nut on the flange that was causing the loud airplane sound. when  we shook the blades they did seem to wobble back and forth more than it should and made kind of a " wa wa"  sound.  One thing we didn't consider was that this nut was gigantic. About twice the size of the nuts that hold the tower together.   We tried to tighten it with a pipe wrench but that would not move it. With the blades on, you really can't get a wrench in there very well.  You really need a big socket to go around this or take at least one blade off.   Here is a picture of what the nut looks like, under the hub cap.

I looked back at my youtube video -  and saw that it was originally tightened down with a pipe wrench but before the blades were attached so there was some room to get the wrench next to the nut. You can also see that the shaft sticks out about 1/4" and now it is flush with the shaft.

We called Redriven to tell them our findings and that we couldn't tighten it ourselves. They said they would send someone next week to tighten this down.