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Forum Index : Windmills : 2.9M White Pointer Review
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Greenthumbs Regular Member  Joined: 05/12/2008 Location: AustraliaPosts: 40 |
Hi everyone, I would like to share with everyone my wind turbine and my experiences with Trev from Live by Nature & Drive by Nature. I have been following this site for a couple of years now and was longing to make my own wind turbine but I found that because I live in the Adelaide hills and had to travel to work in Adelaide itself every day which is 100Km return trip that with the travel and the up keep of our hobby farm there was not enough time to make a turbine for my self. The answer was to buy one however I did not want to buy one and just put it up I wanted one I could work on and experiment with. I still also had to make the tower for it to go on and do all the wiring and so on, so it was still a very big job. Through The Back Shed website I found Trev from Live by Nature & Drive by Nature. Live by Nature & Drive by Nature After contacting Trev by email and deciding on what best to buy I decided on Trevs 2.9M White Pointer wind turbine kit. There is always wind up in the Adelaide hills and the huge blades of this turbine would catch that wind no matter what it was. 
After waiting for a while for Trev to catch up with his building of turbines, one was finally ready so I paid my money and had it shipped down to South Australia from Queensland. I worried that I may have done my money, as anyone would, as I did not know Trev at all. But sure enough to his word it arrived. It was packed well in a wooden box even with top load stickers all over it. The courier was not so good! They took no notice of the stickers and had loaded stuff on top and the box had Broken under the weight. My new mill was spread out all over the tray of the truck! 
I hunted all around the truck and found all the pieces and nothing was missing after checking by email with Trev. I put the mill aside and tinkered with it each night and set it up ready for its installation as I was still building the tower with the help of my father in law. The tower was a tilt tower so as I could raise and lower it as I liked so I could play around with it as much as my heart desired.  
I must say that the tower was the hardest bit out of all to build but it had to be built strong. I did not want it to come down and kill the turbine. Here are some pictures of the tower being made.  
 
The next problem was how to hold the tower down, every where I dug was rock. So trolling through the internet I found instructions for other premade towers and how to attach them. Dynabolts was the answer into the rock. I went down to the hardware store and bought the biggest I could find and a drill bit to suit. Eight hole into the rock, some taking one hour to boar through. think the new drill bit was stuffed after the first 4 holes. Anyway I put the turbine up and the first night we had a storm! We came out the next morning to this.  
The stump! Not only was the blades Broken but the furling system was ripped out too. We thought It was covered with our insurance but no! Trev and I tried to work out what went wrong as Trev has never had a mill destroyed before like this. My weather station was busted a few weeks before by a guy wire incident so there was no data to go by on how strong the winds were. They were very strong but not the strongest we have had and that coupled with the two 60 series motors I had installed in it and very curly wind gusts was the turbines undoing. I did not know what to think! It did not last one night and was almost a complete write off. At least the tower was strong. Trev and Marcy went all out to help me which they did not have to do as there was no warranty and it was the weather that killed the mill. I thought that a blade may have let go and the vibration and wind killed the rest because I was having Furling problems from word go. The mill would just get up to speed and then furl which would turn it out of the wind. However Trev thought that it was because I was using two 60 series motors and the turbine was not loaded enough. Trev and Marcy offered to fix and or replace any of the components that had been wrecked as long as I paid for freight there and back. This was a amazing offer and even though it cost many hundreds of dollar to send it back it was worth it. Trev replaced the blades and the hub the nose cone the furling system and repaired the body and also strengthened the tail section. The blades where made extra strong as like his latest design. My mill was a older design as I had had it sitting in the house for a year and a bit while I made the turbine tower. In a funny twist I had made the wooden carton that I figured was unbreakable to send the turbine back. IT was broken by the courier again but not anywhere so bad as before. When I put the turbine back together and up again this time with a 100 series and a 80 series motor installed. It worked much better. It furled better and has survived a number of storms so far. IT is now insured too. I was still having problems with the furling still and have found that the wind is very turbulent and throws the mill around all over the place and because the mill furls sideways this cause the mill to furl left all the time. I found the only solution was to lock the furling so it will not furl. Drastic I know but it is the only solution I have come up with. At least if the wind gets too strong and snaps the blades the tail can not furl and will face the turbine into the wind and protect the rest of the mill. I am running the mill at 48V and have been changing the windings constantly trying to find the best setup for the wind here. I have set it up to maximise low to strong wind i.e. it starts the Latronics pve1200 inverter feeding power at just 1.5m/s and I have only seen 7 amps max at 12.2m/s so far. The voltage only gets to 60 volts so that’s 420 watts but it is producing almost 24/7. My plan is to make a large millers rotor for storms that will produce 1600 watts. I am using a Latronics TC48 and PVE 1200 inverter the TC 48 has electronic braking and seems to be working great. I have asked Latronics if the TC48 should have a dump load conversion done but they assure me it should be left like it is. Guess we will see. I am using staggered winding. One 80 series straight out of the washing machine in star to get the volts up quick and the other 80 series is staggered 9+5 star rectified separately.  
 
 
I hope this helps anyone who is looking to buy a turbine. I can totally recommend Trevs 2.9m White Pointer wind turbine as long as you have clean wind. Trev is a fountain of knowledge and his service is second to none. I will be buying from him again real soon as I am after parts for my next turbine. Trev is more than fair and helped me out of a very tight spot when all had gone wrong. I can also say that you can trust him with your hard earned cash. I would like to add that I have no affiliation with him and his company what so ever and that my review of his product is of my own doing and hope that this helps others decide on buying from his company. I am a very happy customer and can not praise the level of service highly enough. Regards Damien |
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| VK4AYQ Guru  Joined: 02/12/2009 Location: AustraliaPosts: 2539 |
Hi Green thumbs Nice to see it up and working, after all the drama, it is amazing what the wind can do to machinery. It is also nice to know that we are associating with Good Blokes, fellow conversationalists, who believe in a fair go for associates. Did you find any feathers or politician parts after the calamity. It looked like Kin Sleazy may have gone through the blades by the damage. All the best Bob Foolin Around |
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| brucedownunder2 Guru Joined: 14/09/2005 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1548 |
Yes Green Thumbs,,, nice ending to your sad story,,, Been there, done that .. Trev and his family are very nice people, been here a couple times .. He makes good stuff, have a few bits laying around here .. Nice to see you have the mill up and powering away,,.. I liked the adelaide hills ,,was just talking about Harndorf today at a lunch .. Merry Christmas Bruce Bushboy |
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JimBo911 Senior Member  Joined: 26/03/2009 Location: United StatesPosts: 262 |
Hey Green Yeah flying a mill can be a real adventure. Wow thats one hell of a trip you've taken losing your new mill on it's maiden flight. Keep your chin up and keep plugging away, it will reward you for your efforts. Great posting look forward to view your progress. Jim Jim |
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| KarlJ Guru Joined: 19/05/2008 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1178 |
wow, that make my failure(with Phillms turbine) look trivial Good on ya Trev for stepping up thats certainly one great thing with buying from guys on this site, they are in it because they are passionate about it and when things break they are often more concerned about it than we are. Top work indeed. Both Phillm and Trev have great mills for sale and looks like gold warranty too. Luck favours the well prepared |
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| Greenthumbs Regular Member Joined: 05/12/2008 Location: AustraliaPosts: 40 |
Hi everyone We had some good winds on the 31/12/10 gusts up to 16.5 m/s. Not what I would call a storm but the wind turbine did not survive it. 
It seemed ok but after a few day the turbine became unbalanced so I pulled it down. I found that the new blades had once again hit the mast.  
Fibreglass tip damage._______________________________________________damage where the bolt goes through the blade. The blades I am sure are only hitting when the mill yaws. They just flex with the gyro forces. I decided that it was time to get some of those extruded aluminium blades. However after looking at the damage I decided to try and repair the blades. So I drilled holes to one side of the original mounting holes on the blade and set about modifying the blades so that they were not so close to the pole.  
Original blade mount______________________________________________New modification 2x 25x75mm aluminium tube and a small piece of flat steel. This was not as easy as it looks as the holes had to be drilled at the correct angle so that everything lined up when the small piece of steel was inserted. The other thing I did was put oversized washers on, as you can see the original washer damage to the blade when done up tight. The new larger ones do not crack the fibreglass.  
Original washer damage to blade_________________________________________Original washer vs New larger washer. The damage to the tips of the blade I could not fix as I do not know anything about fibreglass so I bodged it up with duct tape.  
The finished product seems to be balanced ok and the blade to pole clearance has increased from 160mm to 290mm. I dont know how this modification will affect the blade set but I will get some more use out of the blades which are only a month or so old. The good thing is my modification has not changed the hub at all so if It does no perform it can be pulled apart just like new, however I will have to talk to Phillm about his aluminium blades. Regards Damien |
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Gizmo Admin Group  Joined: 05/06/2004 Location: AustraliaPosts: 5078 |
Its pretty amazing how much force acts on a turbine, there can be hundreds of kg ( double that for pounds ) pressing against those blades in a strong wind, and gyroscopic forces during a sudden furl only make matters worse.
I have no doubt Trev will sort them out. Glenn The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago, the second best time is right now. JAQ |
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Trev Guru Joined: 15/07/2006 Location: AustraliaPosts: 640 |
Hi Damien, I have to put this PM of yours on the forum. It just may help the readers to understand the issues raised. Hi Trev, Bad news I have just done another set of blades This morning I looked at the mill as I do every morning as I am paranoid of damage and this morning it was unbalanced. I pulled it down and the tip of two of the blades has hit the pole again. They have not been destroyed but the outer blade bolts are moving in the blade so the blade is not held in one place tight. I don't know I might be able to put a spacer over the bolt to take up the slack and maybe add washers to the bolts to increase their clamping area. This might give them a little more life. The winds over night only got to 4.3m/s but the mill has been fine for months now with winds of up to 15m/s. The 31/12/10 we had gusts of up to 16.5m/s and the mill two 80 series motors in it with staggared windings. Maybe the damage was done then and it has just got worse and worse over the last 6 days. The wind is very curly as you suspected. I was watching the other day as the weather station tracked the wind coming up the hill to the east and then changed direction to the south west for a second and then change again. It swings all over the place, no wonder I have had nothing but trouble with the furling. If I had not locked the furling I think the mill would not have survived up till now. I think I am going to have to try some stiffer blades. Maybe the extruded blade from Phillm. I would like to know if anything special is needed to be done to the 25mm round shafts so that they will hold in to your 6 blade hub? Do you have any pictures of the inside of the hub? Regards Damien Duance 1) I do not expect this turbine to survive 60km/hr (16.5m/s) without some kind of protection. The best I have seen on mine here is about 40km/hr (11m/s). 2) The tail furl is there to protect the mill in high wind. It should have full furl at about 35-36km/hr (10m/s). Curly wind will be sooner. The tail furl also helps to spill off some gyro forces. 3) The curly wind is not a good thing. The gyro forces in high wind will do damage. Can you find a better location or go higher. Most of the curly wind is lower to the ground. How high is your tower? I think you are on the right track to adding bigger washers. Perhaps a full plate of alloy might be even better. With the plate thick enough, you could put a lot more tension on the bolts, but then you may need bigger bolts to. The spacers (2x 25x75mm aluminium tube) you have put in between the blades and hub need to be at least the size of the hub wings, other wise the spacer will not have enough support. It could punch through the blade. The spacer could be bigger. Extra blade distance to the pole is a good idea, but you need to deal with the reason why the blades have flexed the original set distance (160mm). We see this all the time in the medical field. People want to deal with the symptoms, rather than fix the problem. The blades in the pole is telling you that something else is wrong. Phil's alloy blades are very stiff, may be a good thing. Alloy will fatigue and crack if there is any flexing at all. Nothing special is needed on the blade shaft for the 6 blade hub. Here is some pictures.  
Keep us posted on how you get on. Trev @ drivebynature.com |
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| VK4AYQ Guru Joined: 02/12/2009 Location: AustraliaPosts: 2539 |
Hi Green thumbs I can see why you are looking for extra clearance but your blocks to extend the blades forward will cause a lot of problems in the mounting as the centripetal forces are now acting on the hub as a lever and will cause fatigue in the hub, and also the offset is transferred through the bolts in a dangerous manner and could cause the bolts to bend or break in the next storm. As Trev says it would help to fit a front plate to equalize the forces in the hub. The six blade hub may be the best way to go with the GE-222 as it keeps all the forces in a single plane. All the best Bob Foolin Around |
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