As long as I haven't been able to get this machine on the tower when I wanted to, might as well go over some of the other "features" I built into this one.
I've never had a need to change oil in the gearcase on any of these geared turbines, and the oldest one is over 2 years on the tower and about 16,000 hours running time on it. The last time I had that one down, which was last summer, it still hasn't developed any backlash in the drivetrain, it runs quiet, and still has the original oil in it that was put in when it was built in November of 2009.
But I figured what the heck. On this one I put in a drain plug on the side of the gearcase that faces the ground when the tower is lowered, and the drain plug is at the lowest point in the sump:
And then I put in a fill plug on the other side of the gearcase - this particular transmission design requires 250cc of oil in it. I didn't bother putting a brass washer on the fill plug.
On the last two turbines I've made these smoked Lexan generator shrouds. They help to keep the weather out of the generator (especially snow and ice). And they look really nice too
I used the same type of stator mount that I used on the ferrite machine. There's a steel bushing in the stator that prevents crushing or cracking of the stator, and a spacer with two stainless steel washers on the end of it. I used five 3/8" bolts on this one and they are torqued to 45 lb-ft. The old "threaded rod mount" in the book designs is bogus because they come loose after awhile - it don't matter if you use loctite on the nuts or not. They still come loose. This setup will never loosen up and ruin a stator because the nuts came loose
On this stator I brought all six leads of the three phases out in the form of power studs cast integral in the stator. I have it wired wye for this high voltage application. But I can also wire it IRP or delta if I want. I've built some stators that are hard wired internally delta or wye. But it's always best to bring all six leads out like this in case you want to change something in the future
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Chris