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Lakota Turbine is Flying! |
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Written by Daniel A. Bergamini
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Thursday, 28 June 2007 |
 Wow, there have been a lot of serious accomplishments since the last update. First and foremost the Lakota wind turbine has finally been installed and has been producing power for the last 3 days. Not a lot of power, but it does get going during steady breezes (movie!). We saw it spin up a few hours each day for 9 out of the first 10 days.
This turbine is rated at 900 watts but in extreme wind, wired properly people have seen spikes over 1500 watts! We don't have any wind measuring equipment at the top of the tower so we can't give quantitative analysis but we see a few amps (under 100 watts) in a light wind and have seen over 10 amps (over 250 watts) in a moderate wind. I believe the major limiting factor at this point is the fact that we purchased a 48 volt turbine because we planned to eventually upgrade to a 48 volt system.
What is happening now is the turbine spins up to the point where the 24 volt battery bank provides resistance and that stalls the blades at about half the speed (RPM) it generates power most effectively. Just like a car alternator, power generation is very poor at lower than designed RPM. Hopefully we'll see a 2x increase in power from the same wind at the new battery voltage and I don't think it's unrealistic to hope for 4x.
Now that we have the turbine up and running, we've prioritized the purchase of the new equipment to get us to 48 volt! Stay tuned for the pictures and review of the new equipment. |
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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 18 July 2007 )
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Yankee Barn Homes has featured our plans! |
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Written by Daniel A. Bergamini
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Tuesday, 05 June 2007 |
Our house is plan 03117 on this link. They describe it as:
1485 sq. ft., plan 03117
Great room location: Center
Master bedroom location: 2nd Floor
2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms
elevations (pdf) floor plan (pdf)
Now tell me it doesn't look familiar:
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Last Updated ( Sunday, 12 October 2008 )
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Abandon all hope, ye who enter here! |
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Written by Daniel A. Bergamini
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Tuesday, 17 April 2007 |
So we have been having quite the unseasonable weather here lately. It snowed about 9 inches and then changed to a wintery mix and then rain. The winds were pretty unbelievable, stayed above 40MPH I would guess with gusts into the 60s at times. It wasn't worth risking the ride in yesterday, especially since both of our offices were without power. We decided to try and make it in today and we literally couldn't get there, all 4 roads out of here were completely closed.
 Pulling out of our driveway, we found this Jeep to the left. The road closed sign between the cones had blown over, but I think the crushed Jeep did a good enough job of letting you know you shouldn't try and pass. |
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Last Updated ( Friday, 27 July 2007 )
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Read more...
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Written by Daniel A. Bergamini
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Monday, 26 March 2007 |
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We have a lot of exciting things going on. Northeast Renewables has gotten some recent good press in Kearsage Magazine. Oxymoron Communications (oxymoron.net) has gotten off the ground with the goal of bringing wireless broadband to the mountains. I setup my Uncle Jack with a web site for his company JDG and Sons (jdgsons.com), our friend Jenna with AnsteyDesign.com and my brother Ben with PokeHelp.com for all your Pokemon questions. I'm also using oxymoron.net to do some low cost web hosting, which helps facilitate all the side projects. Let me know if anyone needs hosting! |
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Last Updated ( Friday, 27 July 2007 )
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Written by Elaina R. Bergamini
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Wednesday, 21 March 2007 |
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Today I learned that the country is just a bit worse off than I thought. A student at my alma mater beat and tortured a sweet dog named Princess. |
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Last Updated ( Sunday, 28 October 2007 )
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Written by Elaina R. Bergamini
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Sunday, 04 February 2007 |
The newest addition to our family is a mutt from Kentucky. |
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Last Updated ( Friday, 27 July 2007 )
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