My Cats

This post is in celebration of my cats, even though they pooped in the garage which made me really, really mad.

"What's the deep, insightful comment you can share with us?" you may be asking. Here it is. I don't like it when the cats poop in my garage. That's it. I got nuthin'. They're just my cats.

I promise more substantial content later.

Trust the Midas Touch

The following is a video of a Danish wind turbine by a manufacturer called Vestas. From what I can read about the incident, the braking mechanism failed so that high winds caused the blades to spin out of control. Eventually, one of the blades comes apart. This causes the other blades to pitch backwards and a second blade strikes the tower with enough force to cause it to buckle. Yahoo.

Wind Turbine Project Part 10 (Tower Raising, Take 1)

Jonathan, Brittany, Ryan, and the boys and I spent about nine hours at the World Hunger Relief farm today trying to get our wind turbine tower raised. Cole, Anna, AJ, JT, and Katy also helped out too. Thank you to everyone for the hard work! We are tired, dirty, and sunburned.

The vertical pole is called a jin pole. Its purpose is to provide a lifting mechanism so that the tower can be raised without a crane. It alows us to use a tractor to pull the tower up.

Here you can see the 41 foot tower laying down, and the jin pole being prepared for the lift.

We call this the pivoting base. It's essentially a big hinge where the tower and the jin pole meet. It sits on the concrete slab we installed in the last few weeks.

We were able to get the tower raised to nearly vertical, but some of the cables pulled too tightly and we had to lower it back down. Here is a low quality video of the tower raising halfway. We had to stop because the tractor we used to pull it stalled.

We restarted the tractor and kept pulling. The tower made it to a near vertical position, but several of the guy wires were pulled too tightly and we couldn't lock it down. At the end of the day we lowered it back down until we can leave it in a safe condition.

Ryan and Jono attach cables to the tower flanges.

Tower flange and cables.

At each of the four compass points, we have a ground anchor connected to three guy wires. Here you see one of these anchors with three sets of guy wires coming from the turbine. Are you impressed with our handiwork with turnbuckles, thimbles, carabiners, and U-clamps. (We now speak all the lingo.) Looks pretty professional for a bunch of amateurs, eh?

Brittany and Anna are being a dead weight on the end of the tower as we hammer the other end. (It looks like they're not working but they are!)

Wind Turbine Project Part 9

I have channeled manly fire. I have melted steel. I have felt the hot sparks land on my bare arms and have rejoiced in the surge of testosterone. I am a wielder of welds, a player of power. I am Gandalf crossed with MacGyver.

I fight the urge to Tarzan yell. I want to pound my chest and scream "YEAH!" like only professional athletes and middle-aged fat guys can.

This is the good weld. The other side looked ugly. But I'm the one in control of which photos get posted, so I put my best foot forward.
Live long, and prosper.

Here David is grinding the rust off the pipes. Tomorrow we paint them. We have two 12 foot pipes, one 17 foot, and one 20 foot. They have 0.25" thick walls. After the paint dries, we will attempt to raise the tower.

I am dizzy with excitement.

Wind Turbine Project Part 8

Here are the magnets on a steel plate that will form one of the rotors (the rotating part). The wood is a template to help us get them in the right spot. It will be removed later.

Tayo, Karen, and Anna put a bit of superglue on the back of the magnets. I'm not sure why this is recommended, because the mangets are so strong that they grip the steel plate with about 75 pounds of force each. They were so strong that you could put one in your fist, and if you passed your hand near one of the others it would pull your hand down hard. If you weren't careful, it would smash your fingers!

Last we remove the wooden form and the magnets are all in the right places. Next we will cast the whole thing in a fiberglass resin. Come back for that exciting event! Tell your friends!