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Forum Index : Windmills : AWP back up & Flinders Is. weather
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oztules Guru  Joined: 26/07/2007 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1686 |
Well to keep Dinges happy, the stator has been drowned in mineral varnish (nothing else suitable I'm afraid) over the period of several days. It consisted of heating up the stator next to the fire (Jamies wife refused to have it in the oven) until it was toasty warm, and dipping it into a bucket of warm varnish for an hour or so to get the bubbles get out of the windings, letting it dry next to the fire's heat, and doing it all over again. It came out looking like this: 
It was time to put it up, and so I took a few pictures to allow you to see where this mill is situated. It would have to be the plum position to place a mill anywhere. Here is the head assembled ready for the blades: 
Jamie decided to use silicon as a spacer between the drum and the blades... I shuddered. At least we liberally spread grease all over the drum, so in theory we will be able to get the blades to release next time.......the jury is still out on this one. Here are the blades mounted with one of my axial flux discs on the front to clamp the blades. Originally they had only those triangle things, but the flexing up in this position kept breaking the studs. This 8mm plate stopped that from happening any more thankfully. 
Here is a side on look at the gin-pole system.Some people may not have seen this ready to go so you have now. (this was before the blades went on): 
Ok time to lift up a bit: 
and more still. It can be seen how the gin pole system works from this: 
I lost the all the way up shot somehow... never mind. The tower lifting and scenery shots are all within 10 mins. Note the change of weather in that short time span. This is marine weather in the middle of Bass Strait. Where are we? Well my place is over there to the north east a 1000 feet lower near the coast. 
Looking North we see Jamie winching it up Note the change in weather from starting the lift to 5 mins later: 
Straight east is Babel Island, great fishing there: 
Looking south gives us the extension of the mountain range (Darling range) South winds are rare. 
Looking west gives us a rain squall and the sea over that side of the island: 
And thats why it generates such an enormous amount of power for a 3.6m windmill... plus the transformer coupling to the 48v system.. As you can see, life is tough over here.... but someone has to do it. Hope you liked the background pics. I find it interesting to see where the turbines are. ...........oztules Village idiot...or... just another hack out of his depth |
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| Dinges Senior Member  Joined: 04/01/2008 Location: AlbaniaPosts: 510 |
Thanks Oz, you indeed made me happy. (or was it that hot chocolate milk I am drinking now ? Hard to tell...) Strange wife Jamie has. Wouldn't let him cure the stator in her oven. Geeze... I bet she only uses it to cook cakes too ? Silly. (about a year ago I found an old pottery oven that I still have to fix a little (new thermostat) so it can be used for melting aluminium and baking out stators and drying/curing motors after varnishing. It's 3kW so not suitable for off-grid purposes, though Jamie's system would probably have no difficulty running it  )
The local motor rewinding shop use both varnish and epoxy. They reserve the epoxy for rush jobs, but I expect epoxy would be better than plain varnish for this particular job. The downside is standard epoxy can't stand temperatures above 60 deg. C much. Perhaps heat the stator a little (40 deg. C or so) so the epoxy will become thinner and flow better in all the nooks and crannies. Anyway, I think I would have used epoxy to varnish, not varnish. It may make little difference in the end though, as the epoxy used by motor shops is a pretty different animal from your & my run-of-the-mill epoxy. It is supposedly able to withstand much higer temperatures but isn't as durable as real motor varnish. Apparently primer and paint are unavailable too in Flinder's Island... 
Enjoyable read, as usual. |
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| oztules Guru Joined: 26/07/2007 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1686 |
Dinges, We have discovered through trial and error, that if you leave the yuckky white paint stuff alone, you eventually end up with a rich red/brown coating uniformly distributed over the ferrous object in question. Flinders Island red (from the local paint charts..... it's everywhere here.) Given time and the correct amount of marine environment and suitable neglect, we can even get to call such objects rustic..... it's all the rage you know. In fact we coat the local shipping in this color as well, this is the Farsund which we keep in similar condition just off Vansittart island here. 
http://www.vision.net.au/~jennings/flinders/flin9.html If you follow that link above, you will see the rest of the ship has managed to get that colour scheme well embossed all over. One interesting side effect though, is the dematerialisation of the object. Given time this ship will be completly covered in the invisible paint that seems to follow the rustic red colour, and will not be visible to the naked eye.... yes we are Hi-Tech over here. I think the Hotwater unit is 3kw, so he could run the stove no problems. .........oztules Village idiot...or... just another hack out of his depth |
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vawtman Senior Member Joined: 14/09/2006 Location: United StatesPosts: 146 |
Hi Oz Back in the day i got up early(wife still sleeping)to cook a stator for removal of the windings.
Women and ovens seem to have inbrained sensors.Got it out in a hurry. 
Good luck with the turbine and another good job. Rust is good. |
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wdyasq Newbie  Joined: 29/07/2008 Location: United StatesPosts: 21 |
Tules, Fine work as always. Dinges shamed me into reading and finally registering here. So, if anyone feels insulted by my posts, I can blame Peter. At one time there was a complete Liberty ship painted as you have shown on a reef in the Southern Bahamas. There must have been good fishing - or something there, as it didn't move for several years. Perhaps you can get an industrious Dutchman to apply a new coating on the island's ferrous structures at an inexpensive rate. Ron Adventure is just bad planning." -- Roald Amundsen |
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| oztules Guru Joined: 26/07/2007 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1686 |
Welcome downunder Ron, I knew Dinges was good for something (just couldn't put my finger on what it might have been)
Yes that ship seems to be on a darn good fishin hole, as it hasn't moved for near a 100 years. If we wait for the Dutchman in question, there will be nothing left to paint  .
Still having fun at 40 deg south. ..........oztules Village idiot...or... just another hack out of his depth |
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| Dinges Senior Member Joined: 04/01/2008 Location: AlbaniaPosts: 510 |
About that brown stuff: I think I've seen it once over here. Was on an upmarket car. Apparently only the most luxurious, expensive cars have that kind of paint job as it takes a lot of time to develop (a bit like a good wine). Good to see you have plenty of it in Flinder's island though. Have been looking the past few weeks for this link (was about to ask Vawtman who originally found it) till, in a last heroic google attempt I finally found it again: http://www.uiitraining.com/b51a/level200.htm This is one of the best motor repair resources on the web, makes for a few evenings of reading. Shows, amongst other things, the exact procedures for drying, varnishing and baking. Not sure if you're familiar with the link but it covers things my 1946 copy of Rosenberg doesn't. |
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