Today was a beautiful day. Absolutely perfect.... for some WIND TURBINE TESTING! The Weather Channel said by 1PM the winds would be a steady 20 MPH, which is pretty darn fast (according to my earlier research, that's about DOUBLE average wind speed). We had a group meeting at 11AM (so the winds were still a tad less than 15 or so) and went out to Ross Ade parking lot to see how fast she spins w/o a gearbox at ground level.


I know it's a still photo - so it's hard to see how fast it's spinning. But trust me, it's fast:
A) Look at Kevin's face (the guy in blue) - he's scared shitless he's going to get a mouthful of propeller.
B) I tried to take Quicktime videos of it in action, but the blade was spinning so fast that the video frames were aliasing. Which, I guess is also partly due to the fact that my poor little Nikon is a few years old...
C) The DMM Wes (guy in black) used to measure the generator output said 11-12 volts, which (from experimental data on the generator) means it was spinning 300 to 400 RPM. Wow.

We were all anxious to let it go full speed, but right now the only thing holding the propeller blades on is an auto hose clamp...not exactly a bulletproof temporary solution (in fact, Kevin made an AMAZING catch when the thing flew off and almost hit the ground. whew.). So, I guess we'll have to wait until more of the superstructure is finished in the machine shop for more complete testing.

Anyway, that was cool. That's all, I guess. Just wanted to share. The cookout last night was a success, I have a ton of tasty leftover food, and plenty of cold beer for later. No complaints, here.