maintenance..or lack thereof

[niall]

the mill has,nt been down in a year....and no checks done on the down cable for twists..( ever ... )



"feeling" the cable a bit might,nt cut the mustard at this stage...

everything gone dry, rusty and squeaky at this stage ...



prop is ok ...but some of the regular ply is delaminating a bit ..



when the mast will be fully flat on the ground it,ll be easier to see any twisting in the cable ...this bit i,m curious about ..



power coating seems ok except where it was drilled through or covers a sharp edge on the rotors



i did get some stator rubbing though ...one rotor must have been a bit tight ..not sure about that ..
.....band aid time




kinda glad i didnt leave of taking it down any longer now ....
     

[philb]

I am surprised the magnets were not simply rusty spots. Did they originally come with a nickel coating?

It's stories like this that will help everyone improve their mills.
Thanks Nial!

[niall]

these are the epoxy ones Phil.....but epoxy coated in this case might,nt be all that it sounds
the coating is more like a fine spray job over some kind of copper coloured plating  ...strange things

the damaged ones were on the front rotor ( stator rubbed , clumsy air gap)

last year on the back rotor i did find one showing signs of corrosion ...



it got a clean up and sealing with some 2 tube cheap epoxy...( erm...it,s thinner than it looks .. ) ..the dimmple look on the mags is a coating of epoxy rubbed over their surface,s ...(for luck )

this one did,nt rub the stator ...just got tired .. .., bad handling might be more the culprit here though
the air gap is set on the mill with 4 nyloc nuts , which means using the 24 mm spanner to set the gap before the front rotor is jacked on ......the rear rotor grabbed the spanner " a lot " ...a couple of mags (maybe this one)...took a bit of unnecessary brusing at first ..the blistered bit here was at the bottom of the mag , closest to the mounting studs

the mills at roughly it,s  5,th  year.....in our climate any mischievous mags might make their entrance around now .....    

when its reassmbled i,ll try for the biggest airgap i can safely go for..   

[shawn]

For 5 years running and in your climate I would say thumbs up :)if it wasn't for the rub they would be perfect from what I can see top marks nice clean looking mill!
maby some better protection on that ply though

[niall]

just a small bit extra on the down cable  ......

decided to pull it out completly today to check it .....





35 twists , ( at least ) ..was,nt expecting so many at all...i guess that reafirms in a way how bad the site is ...

maybe each time its lowered and raised theres potential for a twist...it has been up and down a lot over the years   

[bj]

Possibly related Niall,  I was having twist problems a few years ago, and was contemplating slip rings.
Ghurd suggested I might be out of plumb, and was right.  A couple of bad storms had tweaked (bent)
things just enough that when the winds stopped, the turbine would settle to heavy side lower, and then
winds would push it around to face the wind.  Repeat many times, and cable twist.  Probably aggravated
by the teflon upper bushing I had.  (very little friction)
Maybe not related, but thought it was worth mentioning.

[tomw]

bj;

Out of plumb would certainly aggravate the problem. As much as I dislike agreeing with Ghurd, the king of hot glue.

It is easy to tell from the ground without a plumb bob. If your turbine settles in the same direction all the time it may be off plumb. Or the top cut on the stub may not be square.

Been there, experienced that. Both issues at different times. Never had a twisting problem as I recognized the problem before it got twisted too bad and corrected it but it had definitely started to twist up.

Tom

[niall]

it was a bit off plumb for a long time ...no doubt about that ...the guy saddles needed adjusting a bit and i got lazy.....

a while back the ply tail had bent about 10 degrees ( on a v mount on the boom ) ....the yaw had got very tight ...
looking at it now the old remaining grease had mixed with the rust and formed a sticky gunk , not much lube action there...probabely the opposite



she may have been cought with her pants down a few times when it might,nt have been tracking light winds.....

tlc time ...

 
 

[ghurd]

As much as I dislike agreeing with Ghurd, the king of hot glue.

(Hey!  I heard that!  Type quieter.)