Wind Suits UsOur Family Adventure with Wind Power | |
Update: June 2018 | |
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The first trouble in paradise happened last month. The first thing I noticed was that the turbine wasn't turning into the wind like it should. It was still generating when the wind swung the right way, but that was still a bad sign. The a few days later, the unit started reporting faults related to the line voltages. After some research, it seems these units are prone to brush and yaw bearing failures, typically between 25,000 and 40,000 kWh (ours has about 28,000.) I found that the company that now supports the unit is Xzeres (www.xzeres.com) Jay, their tech support person was very helpful and responsive. He gave me names for several places that repair them, unfortunately the closest one is 3 hours away. I finally went with Iowa Energy Alternatives out of Camanche, IA. He came out last week (June 7), lowered the unit and took it apart to replace the parts. The yaw bearing was indeed shot as were the brushes. There was also evidence of arcing and a little water infiltration. He put it back together and tested the alternator bearing and found it was bad too. We could have run with it, but when it fails, the result is usually fatal. So we opted to have it repaired. He took it back off the tower and took back with him to Santa's Workshop. He'll be back later this week to put it back up. June 14, 2018 Todd came back down and had it up and running by the time I got home from work. He didn't find any further problems and said we should be good for at least another 25,000 kW. -DCS |