Posted: 07:42am 20 Dec 2005

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Hi everyone, well as explained in last post the new 42 foot windmill went up 2 weeks ago, this was a new F & P in star and she started putting out strong power straight away, we spent the rest of saturday charging up the batteries but had to return to Adelaide in the evening. My nieghbour came up and told me bad storm was forcast for later that night and to batten down. I shorted out all three phases in an earlier test before she went up and the rotor was extremely difficult to turn, i did this so in the event of a storm i could short it out for blade protection. So it was comletely electrically braked and off we went home. I returned the following saturday and found the blades smashed and one piece over the other side of the shed. My nieghbour told me in the storm the F & P was going off its face, several roofs were blown away and a lot of damage was done in the area. Well here we have an F & P electrically braked on all 3 phases spinning off its face, thats one heck of a storm. I thought i would do a test and reconnected the charger controller, instantly the unit started up with 3 busted props, began to wobble the post and guy wires voilently, my wife ran around the shed incase a piece flew off, this windmill was going very fast. She shorted out the three wires and it took more than a minute to stop, i held on to one of the main guy wires to try and help it firm up and will never do that again, when it stopped my terrified wife just looked at me and shook her head, better than her fist i suppose. The unit is still up there braked and will be rplaced by an F & P in straight delta uncogged, the wind as i said 2 weeks ago here is very strong 80% of the time, i enclose a photo of the busted unit and the blade pieces, the black one being from the last unit. I love this stuff!

Bob & Anne

Posted: 10:33am 20 Dec 2005

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Hi Murray.

You have a problem that most of us would dream for, too much wind. When I designed the F&P kit I was worried about its strength, I didn't have the strong winds to test it properly. Well you have certainly done that for me. I now feel confident in its design.

Maybe you should make a smaller set of blades, reduce the diameter a bit and make them thicker. With the winds at your place a flat plank of wood would work.

When you take the windmill down, check for any over heating in the stator. That shorted stator in the storm would have produced a lot of energy, and it had to go somewhere. The windings would have heated up, but the strong winds should have kept them cool hopefully. Thats one reason I kept the open side of the stator facing the wind.

Glenn