Discreet wind turbines for homes and businesses

[victimofGM]

Originally Posted by NORTY FLATZ

One thing's for sure. You won't see any moles/gophers or other vermin around there, as they HATE subterranean vibration. So, there is that...

I’ve seen some windmill type devices just for that purpose.

[guidoLaMoto]

Originally Posted by victimofGM

An added complexity could help with such issues but would require more service is an automated variable pitch system. Low wind sets blade pitch to its maximum effective pitch to catch the wind for turning. As wind speeds increase, fan speed would also increase. The automated pitch system would adjust the pitch to maintain a set maximum fan speed regardless of wind speed. However the complexity of such a system adds to the number of possible things to go wrong thanks to Murphy’s law.

Mine is a vertical system, so it's always facing the right way at the right pitch. No set of vanes can travel faster than the wind driving it, anymore than a canoe set adrift can go faster than the current.

We finally had a windy day and I was able to put a voltmeter on it-- Another stupid thing the jerks who design and sell these things do is supply you with a charge controller that only protects from over charging the batteries. The problem is, I've come to realize by these measurements, is that at wind speeds less than the rated value, not only does the power produced decrease, but also the voltage...

...to charge a, say, 12V battery, you need more than 12 V (Volts are to electric flow as water pressure is to hydronics-- water, and electricity flow from hi pressure to low.)..So, unless you're getting the full 27mph (for my gizmo) rated wind speed, you can't charge a 12V battery. ...I assumed (how naive am I?) that they would have provided a charge controller that includes not only over-charge protection on the hi side, but also a boost transformer for the low output, usual conditions...You can buy an after-market one that does that for about the same price as the original unit provided....

How dumb are they? Well, if they had said that the after-market upgrade may be needed, they might be making extra money by selling some after-market stuff. But they don't tell you that and I bet most people wouldn't figure it out and just throw the thing away.

[Labonte18]

Originally Posted by karen_in_nh_2012

I could probably live with everything except the bird strikes. I actually googled after reading your post and found a study that said bird deaths by wind turbines could be cut by 72% simply by painting one of the blades black. Such a simple fix.

Huh.. So this brings two questions to mind for me.


1) Why the hell would this work? I thought birds eyesight was more focused, like dinosaurs, on movement and not on color.


2) It would seem to me, on something of that size, that additional engineering would be needed because the single dark colored blade would absorb more heat and expand more than the others, thus throwing the whole thing out of balance. Or am I just over-thinking it? Or is that a simple problem to address?


And, I suppose another option would just be to install netting below to catch the birds that were hit and now not only do you have wind power, but you've also got free poultry falling from the sky.

[guidoLaMoto]

The problem for birds vs large wind turbines is that the blades on those things are 100-200 ft long and turn at 10-20 rpm. A little arithmetic and that translates to speeds of up to 200 mph at the tips of the blades...Those little bird brains have trouble comprehending that.

It reminds me of the dangers of deer vs cars-- Deer have ears so good they can hear your heart beat at 100 ft away. They KNOW you're there in that car coming their way. They just don't know what to do about you.