Follow up on free standing tower

[Richard Marble]

I found a guy that sells a turbine I'm interested in. He says he can put up a lattice type free standing tower and that he can put hinges on two of the legs and set it up like any other tip up tower. This tower would be 100 feet.

He sells towers and several brands of turbines. I don't think he has done one like this yet but he assured me he could do this.

Has anybody tried this or seen this? any thoughts?

[Ralph Day]

Hello Richard
I would be wary of a 100 foot lattice tower, un-guyed, un-tried. What sort of warranty would you get? Would it cover a new setup and turbine if there was a failure sending your investment crashing to the ground faster than the recent stock market tumble? If the supplier is willing to experiment on your dime (learn on your dime) let him take some of the risk too. Perhaps partial payment up front, payments over time as the installation proves itself.

In my municipality a building permit is required for installing a tower, even though not all wind turbines have been permit-issued jobs. The permit required engineer certified numbers and analysis...not hard to come by, but moderate cost. The permit process keeps the municipality happy $$$, but also shows them, and your self and your neighbours that proper thought and calculation have gone into the installation. A 40kg turbine with blades spinning, the weight of the tower, in a falling failure could do significant property damage, not to mention death and dismemberment of people or animals. :push:

What is it the little war amps kids say? "Play Safe!" :blink1:

Best of luck

Ralph

[Ric Murphy]

Richard,
I'm curious to know how you would raise and lower this type of tower? Just because it hinges at the bottom, what carries the weight of the upper portion as it comes up or down.
Ric

[Nicolas Fournier]

Hi Richard

Im a bit young, only 25 old, grew on a farm with father, and beeing an electronic tech specialised in radio-comm with an averange of 10 hours by month of tower riggin dont give me the background to concive myself how to desing and weld a tower that will hold a windmill at 100ft with hinges without guying.

As other have told, if he give you waranty, if he can show you a similar one already holding for a while, can show you a tower that he developed earlyer, that would be a start. Just for yourslef, calculate the thrust of your mill lets say a 15 footer with wind of 25m/s (should the sh$$ happen one time i wish you dont get it on the head) would push the numbers between 1215-1654lbs depending of the formula used to calculate thing.... so i wish you could anchor the tower on hard rock.

check this link, ive put it online a bit for you
http://www.greenpowertalk.org/showthread.php?t=6895

[Rob Beckers]

Richard, the tilt-up self-support lattice towers that I know have two hinges (on at each of two legs, the third leg doesn't have a hinge). The tower is then assembled on the ground, and a very large crane is used to tilt it upright. From that point on it is pretty well a regular self-support, non-tilt tower, since the crane that would be needed to tilt it down is just too expensive to do this on a regular basis.

The more usual tilt-up towers that I have experience with use four guy wires. Those can be tilted up/down with any reasonably heavy vehicle (a winch makes it easier and safer, but it can be done without). A small truck, tractor, or even SUV would do the job. That makes it much more feasible to tilt the tower down for turbine maintenance.

-RoB-