Breezy 5.5

[Spanky Tree]

Good day!
Per the request of another fellow in the forums here, Stew Corman, we'll see if there is any interest in the Breezy.
I too searched long and hard to find ANYONE talking about their Breezy, the guys at prarie turbines will give you a gentleman up in Canada who is more than happy to talk about his.
There is $4000 invested in this 5.5 kilowatt beast. That includes the hobo tower it's on.
It is very simple construction, most of the housing is 1/4" angle iron, with 1/2" steel on the base. It is a beast, probably around 1200 to 1500 lbs. The pole itself weighs that.

The micro controller is the only thing I bought from prarie turbines, (and the relay last week) the rest is over the counter stuff. My dad sells S.E.W. motors so he give me a good deal. (plus the service factor was a little higher than the nord)

The blades are 2x12 pine and very poor quality. I will be making a new set like they recommend on the sight soon. You use a power plane to rough in the blades and then shape the blades like an airplane wing. The blades create "lift" at a low rpm and pull themselves through. It is neat to watch it spin up. When it rotates to about 60 rpm you can see it take off. It will kick in and out (go online) down to about 4 mph.
These blades have really twisted on and warped. BUT, it is still really producing! That's why I want a new set of blades.
I painted the blades with an oil based paint which was wrong. They recommend epoxy paint (which will be on my new set) so to finish these and get it up in the air I put helicopter tape on the leading edges. It made it through the winter but it is starting to come off in spots.
The pitch is nothing more than a 1" spacer under one side of the blades. The whole unit really is an easy design.
I'll try to attach some pictures. (new to this)
Spanky

[Stewart Corman]

Spanky,
Thanks for following up on my request.

BTW, the commutator shown in your photo looks very similar to the one Breezy sells??

Back to the subject at hand:

The blades are 2x12 pine and very poor quality. I will be making a new set like they recommend on the sight soon. If you are really going to fabricate your own blades from scratch, if you haven't seen my older postings on this subject for techniques, I'll provide the links here:

http://www.greenpowertalk.org/showthread.php?t=1188&highlight=tutorial
http://www.greenpowertalk.org/showthread.php?t=1190&highlight=tutorial

BTW, DIY making blades from a solid hunk of pine is the worst possible implementation.
I recommend laminating sycamore with Titebond III, in 5/4 dimension which comes straight grained, lighter weight than ash, and is mostly knot free ...the availabilty KD/FAS grade is under $2/bdft out of Buffalo,NY


However, if your design is 20ft diameter rotor, NOT the 20ft blade length as in your CAD drawing, then I highly recommend you look into the prefabed wood blades that Dave B's 18footer was using from Royal:

http://royalfabrication.com/custom.htm

That Goe222 profile works just as well today as it did in the 30's!!!

they have a modeling program so can probably derive the performance spec for 4 rather than 3 blades. And don't presume that just because Brezzy claims tapered/twist is ideal, that non-tapered/non-twist isn't better ...Dave B tested them and Jacobs and Bergey use them in units rated up to 20KW/31ft diam !!

that profile is almost identical to what Bergey uses now in it's "latest and greatest" fiberglass blades


I will follow this thread and contribute when possible

Stew

[Spanky Tree]

Howdy!
The 3 phase motor in the pic is an S.E.W. eurodrive gearmotor. Real common in the industry. 7.5hp
The blades were such a lure at 12 bucks a piece I couldn't resist, and for that matter it has paid off.
The blades are not shaped like an airplane wing all the way to the center. It is very specific in the manual to flatten the leading edge at a certain point. This is to slow the blade in a very high wind. Remember being grid tied this will never exceed 120 rpm. Output above 28 mph isn't that great so the design is to try to slow it. It must work because today the winds hit 54 mph and it never stopped. To date 65 mph winds haven't shut this down.
You mentioned something about the cad drawing??
I like the idea of laminating, ESPECIALLY something other than pine. Thanks for the links.
Spanky

[Joseph OLall]

Can someone please tell me why are we still using slip rings instead of a product like a Mercotac rotary electrical contact unit?

http://www.mercotac.com/html/330.html

[Scott MacDonald]

Usage in cold weather!! The Mercotac's are not be suitable for temperatures below -22 deg F. The mercury freezes the unit solid so it dosen't rotate at or below that temp. Just depends where your located if your able to take advantage of a nice product. If your winter temps are cold, than slip ring is rated to at least -40 deg f. So I've been told.

[Scott MacDonald]

Hey Spanky. I am working towards building a breezy in the future and just searching if I can find any of the parts needed local or cheaper than from Praire wind turbines. So far buying from them is cheaper for me, even with shipping across the border. Just wondering where you sourced some of the parts, slip ring, dalton tourque limiter, sprockets, chain and I guess you said the SEW motor from your father. Also any info or pics on what you made or used for the yaw bearing.

Have you recored any monthy numbers on how many kwh breezy has produced for you? And thanks for your time posting about your breezy, its nice to get feedback from others that have been there done that and have any advice. Thanks, Scott.

[Paul Bailey]

I think the mercotacs are a great option for someone to try, but I'm sure someone has tried alot of them as they've been around awhile and they work flawlessly in a low vibration /mechanical shock enviroment.
Key advantages - NO cleaning and take up very little space. Yes there is mercury in them but apparantly about 1 drop per unit and its in a wetted oil emulsion so very unlikely to freeze due to the amount of dillusion factor. I've worked on alot of both over the years in an indoor enviroment, and I'd take a merco any day but as stated above, wind tower vibation may prematurely fail the Merco's. Paul

Oh I followed your link to Merco and its nice to see them selling back to PGE in California and using Fatspanial for system monitoring. as shown..

[Spanky Tree]

The prices prairie turbines offer isn't that bad. My cousin sells the nord they offer and he was about the same price.

The slip ring was from http://www.uea-inc.com/ They bumped up the guage when I told them the size wire breezy recommended to run to the slip ring. It was bigger then the wire in the slip ring. So the guy from uea said he didn't want to be the weak point.

The Dalton (which comes with the chain and sprocket) was purchased with the SEW through my dad. But again, with his commission taken out, there wasn't the savings like you would think. Prairie turbines doesn't mark the stuff up like you would think. At least not like I'm used to seeing in the industry here in Michigan.

It hit -24 degree's here a couple of times this last winter and since the global "warming' doesn't seem to be happening, I didn't trust the mercotac.

This last month we averaged about 100 kwh's less than last year. You can't really monitor it since the electric company doesn't know about it yet and hasn't put any meters in to monitor it. It just spins the main/only meter on the house backward. After you get the bill you can compare to the last 2 years and sort of average it out.

Oh, the yaw bearing came out of a real old 5 ton truck axle I found laying in a fence row at my father-in-laws.
It had a good hole through it, my cousin welded it on an 8" pipe about 6 ft long and we slid the whole thing over the end of the telephone pole.

When you build, don't cut corners unless you REALLY know what you are doing. I did use regular utility pole guy wire. It works, but I don't think it would handle the offset/imbalanced load if a blade were to break. The book says use 5/8" cable, that is so it won't come down if a blade breaks. The whole design is engineered around failures, that's why it's a monster.
Spanky

[Shaina Gray]

In regards to the slip ring, United Equipment Accessories (UEA) custom designs thousands of slip rings for wind turbines a year. The post at the top that contains photos uses a UEA slip ring; see the 3rd photo. If you have any questions or need any help determining what slip ring is right for your turbine, call us! www.uea-inc.com

[Spanky Tree]

I'll try to upload a pic of the relay. the relay makes it all come together. Since the leaves have come out on the tree's, the air went from dirty to nasty. REAL turbulent, but it still keeps on going. At times the windmill will go online and off probably 6 or 8 times in 10 seconds. The relay keeps a nice and smooth transition. There is a 1 second delay when the micro controller tells it to come on.

It's a Crydom 240v 90 amp soft start relay with as little as 3 volts to actuate. Real high tech if you ask me.
Spanky