Furling – Protect Your DIY Wind Turbine

 

You’ve worked hard building your own wind turbine and you look forward to windy days. But a severe wind gust could rip the blades right off and long term high wind levels could burn out your alternator. You need an automatic (passive) furling system for your DIY wind turbine.

A passive furling system, will turn your blades out of the wind, once wind speeds reach a very high level. This still allows your wind turbine to produce power, but protects it from damage or burn-out. And this all happens automatically.

The most popular furling systems, turn your blades “sideways” (horizontal) as the wind becomes to strong. You basically mount the alternator and blades to one side of the tower (offset mounting). When the wind blows on the blades, it naturally pushes the blades sideways. You also offset the tail, to the opposite side of the tower. This tends to keep the blades pointed into the wind, until the wind speed is great enough to overcome the counter-action of the tail. One more “tweak”, often used, is to mount the tail fin in such a manner as to allow it to turn as the blades are pushed sideways.

Visit this page to see diagrams and videos of various furling setups: Wind Turbine Furling

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Filed under: Wind Turbines