THE
GREAT CONE CONTROVERSY
"TO
CONE OR NOT TO CONE?"
After spending over $18,000.00 in molds,
castings, jigs, brackets, tooling and 300 hours of testing labor
we can't justify trying to sell you a cone for the center of
your wind turbine hub!
WHY! Believe it or not cones actually CUT
Wattage output by .87% (Almost a full 1%)
The results where NOT what we had expected!
In fact, during the first week of testing
we thought we where all losing our minds so then we went out
and bought a whole new set of voltage and amperage meters just
to make sure our equipment was not malfunctioning. After determining
that a CONE KILLED POWER we THEN had to explain the loss! (Having
fun yet?)
This was an unexpected twist for what had
initially been anticipated as an exciting new product addition
that we hoped would INCREASE power!
The idea of a cone was to redirect all of
the wasted air that was blowing into the center of the hub area
thereby gaining extra thrust,,,,,,,,,,,, well that's NOT what
happened in the real world! The cone produced more drag than
power!! The cone has about 224 square inches of surface area
and it would seem that the spinning of this large surface actually
robbed power in the final analysis!!
HOW????
"Surface Drag",,, This is not what we had expected
to discover when we started this project.
Cones do indeed add that nice modern look,
giving wind turbines that exquisite space-aged guise.
However in the final analysis cones actually
just added extra cost, weight and a bit of lost power too!
In the final ratiocination it would seem
that at "wind turbine speeds" cones are at best a beautification
item,,, at best!
Perhaps at higher speeds cones could be useful.
For instance jet engines benefit from centered turbine cones
BUT having a cone on a wind turbine is a losing proposition since
at our company keeping performance high while keeping costs down
is job ONE!!! A cone is therefore not a justifiable component
for our wind turbines.
While this investigational chapter required
exploration and I am glad to say that our cone research annals
are closed!
On to more important research!
Sorry but that's the honest truth and this
is a true story. In all honesty after 20 years of turbine building
I would have to say that logic has failed more often then not.
You just have to build it and test, test, TEST until it works!
That type of ideology has always worked best for our company,,,
hard work, research, testing and logging the positive results!!!
I wish only the best of luck to our loyal
customers and other wind turbine tinkerers and enthusiasts!
I hope this info helps you save some time
and money.
More, Hub-Bub
In a wind storm you should allow your blades
spin free and very fast so centrifugal force can hold them outwards.
Never try to short the wires and try to stop PMA from turning
in storms as this could damage your stator coil and the blades!!
If the hub metal bends backwards towards the POLE it could hit!!
It is best to let these turbines just do their job in high wind
weather.
HOW CAN SPINNING HELP KEEP THE HUB STRAIGHT?
It is called centrifugal force,,, A self
straightening effect of any FAST SPINNING object.
TEST: We took a hub and bent it way back
almost 4 degrees (just about hitting the pole) on all 6 blade
points and guess what happened in testing. After a strong wind
it was pulled back into its preferred shape! The hub bent itself
back out to only a 1.1 degree back pitch angle.
Centrifugal force = Self straightening
outward force!
Fast spinning blades are self straightening
and self protecting
and thus and can't bend backwards in stormy
weather !!
SO,, allow your blades
to spin freely during storms IF you missed your chance to lower
your tower.
Hit 2729023-Times
b3090878.crawl.yahoo.net