Welding the Alternator and Raising the Tower

Welding the Alternator and Raising the Tower
energy facts gallery blades electrical welding grant info	Welding Welding the wind turbine has been quite an experience. We started at the beginning of the year and it has been a big learning curve. I (Simon) had worked around a metal shop before but this was totally different. Under the tutelage of our welding instructor, Wyatt, we started out from scratch with some pipe, steal angle, and a total lack of experience. Over the year we learned to cut, take the right angles, measure, drill, and weld it all together; and that’s just for the alternator. Tower raising Raising the tower was a process of many different steps. Once we had all the blades carved and the alternator assembled, it was time for the turbine to finally get raised. The tower is two twenty-one foot sections of steal water pipe; the two sections are attached by a coupling that has four guy lines attached to it. There are four other guy lines attached five feet below top of the tower. The guy lines are attached to four rebar anchors that are cemented in the ground with about one hundred pounds of concrete for each anchor. Once you have attached the guy lines to the tower you run wire through the center of the tower and connect the wires to the wind turbine. You then attach six of the guy lines to the anchors and attach the last two to a gin pole. A gin pole is a big lever that is attached to the base of the tower and sticks out at a ninety-degree angle. It is about twenty feet long and is used to lever the tower up into position. Once you have raised the tower, you have to take off the gin pole and attach the two guy lines to the last anchor; then you straighten the tower by adjusting the guy lines. To give you a look at how much power our turbine produces, we were admiring it spin with out a load on the circuit, and then we shorted it (closed the circuit). There was a beautiful blue arc and the two copper leads welded themselves together.
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Welding

Welding the wind turbine has been quite an experience. We started at the beginning of the year and it has been a big learning curve. I (Simon) had worked around a metal shop before but this was totally different. Under the tutelage of our welding instructor, Wyatt, we started out from scratch with some pipe, steal angle, and a total lack of experience. Over the year we learned to cut, take the right angles, measure, drill, and weld it all together; and that’s just for the alternator.

Tower raising

Raising the tower was a process of many different steps. Once we had all the blades carved and the alternator assembled, it was time for the turbine to finally get raised. The tower is two twenty-one foot sections of steal water pipe; the two sections are attached by a coupling that has four guy lines attached to it. There are four other guy lines attached five feet below top of the tower. The guy lines are attached to four rebar anchors that are cemented in the ground with about one hundred pounds of concrete for each anchor. Once you have attached the guy lines to the tower you run wire through the center of the tower and connect the wires to the wind turbine. You then attach six of the guy lines to the anchors and attach the last two to a gin pole. A gin pole is a big lever that is attached to the base of the tower and sticks out at a ninety-degree angle. It is about twenty feet long and is used to lever the tower up into position. Once you have raised the tower, you have to take off the gin pole and attach the two guy lines to the last anchor; then you straighten the tower by adjusting the guy lines. To give you a look at how much power our turbine produces, we were admiring it spin with out a load on the circuit, and then we shorted it (closed the circuit). There was a beautiful blue arc and the two copper leads welded themselves together.