White Pointer AXFX

Author	Message
Trev Guru Joined: 15/07/2006 Location: Australia Posts: 676	Posted: 11:04pm 09 Jul 2011       All three steel bars were bent. Two blades were bent in the middle. All 3 blades were damaged where the steel bar goes in. The steel bar was bent and the guage on the press went up to 10 ton to straighten them. I tried the blade under the press but the thin trailing edge looked like it was just going to roll over so did not put much pressure on it. I hammered the bends in the blade. Cut them back to a length of 1600mm. So would be close on 3.4m diameter now. Re assembled in the hub with 3 bolts through blades and steel bar. The two blades that had the bends still have the bends in them and now with uneven spacing between blades, balance would not be right. To balance, I just ground the end off the blades appearing to be heavier. Refitted to White Pointer AXFX. The wind was blowing, but not real strong. We pulled up the tower and some rough weather had come in quite quickly. Note the change in sky colour. The wind had picked up and while we got the tower bolted in place (scary as I did not know how the blades would handle it), Dale (son) was watching the amp gauge - 30 amps! As soon as I could get to the gauge I saw 25 amps! I went for the wind speed guage. I measured up to 20km/hr, but I am sure the wind had dropped off some by then. There was quuite a lot of wind speed fluctuation and consequently amps too. I can't check wind speed and amps at the same time, so I don't really have any solid data. The best I had seen with wind up to 20km/hr was around the 14 amp mark with the 2.9m diameter fibreglass composite blades. The next morning the blades were still on. Back to quite wind and beutiful blue sky. Another lot of cloud came up quickly and the sun was shining on the White Pointer F&P single motor 2.5m machine and looked great with the dark sky background. So I took a photo of it too. On most days since, the AXFX may be doing 1-2 amps while the F&P 2.5 is sitting still. When the wind picks up and gets the F&P 2.5 running, they both do 1-2 amps each. When the wind speed ramps up the AXFX ramps up amps quickly and outstrips the F&P 2.5 easily. Trev @ drivebynature.com