Balancing your wind turbine blades is the most important thing to do because unbalanced blades can cause very severe damage to your wind turbine and vibrate its structure. It does not matter whether your wind turbine is a do-it-yourself type or even the turbine has been installed by professional, balancing of the wind turbine blades need to be done. If your wind turbine vibrates aggressively, it can also damage the rotor and generator. You can easily balance your wind turbine blades just by using simple materials without the need to spend much on your money. Once you have balanced the wind turbine blades, it will also help balance the whole unit of your wind turbine.
To balance wind turbine blades, you need:
- Flat sheet of lead flashing
- Flattened fishing weights
Balancing Wind Turbine Blades
How to Balance Wind Turbine Blades
- First thing that you need to do is to take the wind turbine inside a covered work area or do the task on a non windy day.
- The next step is to gently spin the wind turbine in order to know which blade ends up on the bottom and mark the blades with numbers.
- The wind turbine blades need to be marked as number 1, 2 and 3.
- Once again you have to spin the turbine again and check again which blade is at the bottom. If the same blade continues to end up on the bottom, the blade is definitely much heavier than the rest of the blades.
- The wind turbine blades need to be marked as number 1, 2 and 3.
You must always take note which blade is on the bottom. If none of the blades ends up on the bottom, you do not have to do any balancing on the blades.
- In order to balance the heavier blades, you need to raise the blade to 3 o’clock position before you start to screw some of your lead flashing or even use the flattened fishing weight onto the heavy blade.
- Make sure it is placed at the 9 o’clock position whether on or near the hub.
- If you feel that the turbine is still not balanced, you can add more weight until you can confirm that the blades are balanced.
- Make sure it is placed at the 9 o’clock position whether on or near the hub.
Some of the materials that you can use for balancing the wind turbine blades include pieces of lead flashing commonly used by roofers. This is the most suitable material to use as it is soft, dense and easy to screw in any place. The material can be purchased in flat sheets from your local builder’s merchant. Another material that you can use is the fishing weights that can be hammered flat.
- To test and see whether the blades are balance or not, you can spin the wind turbine a few more times.
- If the blade stops at the same position, you need to repeat the above mentioned steps one more time. These methods should be used until you see that all the blades are balanced and the wind turbine does not stop at the same position anymore.
Always remember that if you want to balance wind turbine blades,
- Always exercise caution around wind turbines and never do any maintenance work on wind turbine especially when you are having strong wind.
- If the blade stops at the same position, you need to repeat the above mentioned steps one more time. These methods should be used until you see that all the blades are balanced and the wind turbine does not stop at the same position anymore.
