Wind gen's & Marina Etiquette

Re: Wind gen\'s & Marina Etiquette

Exactly. They also say that the unit should be fitted with a waterproof cover if it is left tethered. A lot easier than taking the unit on and off all the time.

And I here apologise if my Rutland is causing annoyance at Burnham. I am the new owner of my boat and have only just reassembled the generator. She will be going out onto a swinging mooring soon but in the meantime I have been following Rutland's instructions closely and have no cover. I had so much trouble single handedly feeding the cable through the pole that I am very reluctant to disassemble the unit again. Perhaps a plastic bag over it will be better. Might rustle a bit in the winds we have been having though......

Michael
 
Re: Wind gen\'s & Marina Etiquette

Well Dang me! You got me dead to rights!
Its a fair cop - I've been making it all up - there's no such thing as brinelling - its all been a big wind-up ...

OR MAYBE ITS SOMETHING TO DO WITH THE PNEUMATIC VIBRATION ISOLATORS (ALSO KNOWN AS TYRES) THAT ALL THESE MACHINES SIT ON.

Incidentally cars run generally on roller bearings which have a larger contact surface and are less susceptible to brinelling.
 
Re: Wind gen\'s & Marina Etiquette

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I could go on... suffice it to say I wouln't tie a wind genny up (if I owned one) I'd take it off its mountings when not in use

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Excellent contribution Nick, I see you put a lot into it. /forums/images/graemlins/crazy.gif
 
Re: Wind gen\'s & Marina Etiquette

Well, what a can of worms! Thanks for all the comment but on balance I have to say I'm still rather tempted by TK's chicken / sea gull idea!

I will have a word this weekend, either with the owner or, if he's not around, the marina office and see where I get to.

Cheers

Mark
 
Re: Wind gen\'s & Marina Etiquette

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Well, what a can of worms!

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Sorry about that, all I offered was the rationale behind the "don't tie off" warning and all that I got was:-
One guy who hadn't heard of it before but was willing to venture that it wouldn't/couldn't happen.
Another one who thought he found a flaw in my cunning plan to mislead the forum.
And a third who reckoned that a laughing icon represented a useful contribution.
You get a lot of that "How many Angels does it take to brinell the head of a pin" kind of stuff here.
 
Re: Wind gen\'s & Marina Etiquette

Bearings are "as cheap as chips" - That may be the case, but until you have tried:
disconnecting and lowering the WG
Removing the blades
separating the magnets
extracting the old bearings
pressing in the new ones
reassembling . . . .

. . . . not a job to be undertaken lightly!
 
Re: Wind gen\'s & Marina Etiquette

Perhaps, to be fit for purpose, yacht wind generators should be capable of being locked?
This would certainly be a requirement for me to buy one, as I don't like the noise and would not want to inflict it on others.
In a non residential marina berth is one thing, but rafted up in visitors berths where people want to sleep it is completely out of order.
 
Re: Wind gen\'s & Marina Etiquette

Motorbikes sit on metal stands. Bikes rest against metal railings.

Interesting that something as simple as a tyre can cancel out the effect.

Though of course motorbike wheel bearings must be at risk when the bike is stationary in traffic with the engine switched on.

What about the effect on the steering head bearings on a bike or motorbike, surely the road vibrations should be creating flat spots ?

Or maybe, just maybe the phenomenom you describe occurs in extreme conditions, and the majority of ball race systems are engineered to take vibration (except of course wind generators) ? Just a thought.
 
Re: Wind gen\'s & Marina Etiquette

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Perhaps, to be fit for purpose, yacht wind generators should be capable of being locked?
This would certainly be a requirement for me to buy one, as I don't like the noise and would not want to inflict it on others.
In a non residential marina berth is one thing, but rafted up in visitors berths where people want to sleep it is completely out of order.

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whimps! /forums/images/graemlins/mad.gif

If you wanted a quiet night's sleep, stay at home..... or find a PROPER out of the way anchorage....

Complaining about wind noises in a marina or rafted up, is a bit like complaining about alcohol being served in a pub /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif
 
Re: Wind gen\'s & Marina Etiquette

In a word - No.

In more words, without getting too deeply into this.
Motorbikes stands have lots of elasticity in them (both side and centre stands) which will damp the instantaneous accellerations that are the root cause of brinelling.
None of the forces are directly coupled to the bearings like the vibration transmitted to the bearings from a vibrating fan blade would be anyway. (Or from the cast steel casing of a compressor on concrete to its bearings)
Most motorbikes run on pre-loaded roller and needle bearings, not ball bearings anyway.
A bicycle sitting against a railing will not have the full vibration transmitted to it unless it was welded or bolted to the railing!
Regarding bicycles - get your grannys old shopper out of the shed and tighten up the bearing cones until the wheel play at the rim is just eliminated. Now gently turn the wheel from near the spindle (or even better take the wheel off and turn the spindle) and that slight juddering you feel is the dents in the cones balls and races. With a bicycle you just live with it because the torques brought to bear on the axle are so large that dented races are hardly noticeable. On a modern sealed bearing bicycle you simply replace the bearing regularly, on grannys shopper you would re-adjust the cones.
As far as head bearings are concerned - on a bicycle = scores of small balls constantly moving (try locking off your bicycle steering and remain upright!) = no problem.
On a motorbike head bearings = (probably) taper roller bearings and/or needle roller bearings. Oh, - and constant movement.

Brinelling is not limited to esoteric bits of kit -
Bearing races have a finite life, ALL of them, it's called their L10 life, and depends on lots of factors, speed of rotation hours run, lubrication, maximum loading, temperature, environment, materials and brinelling amongst others.

We are now thoroughly off-piste and I apologise to the OP.
 
Re: Wind gen\'s & Marina Etiquette

If you wanted a quiet night's sleep, stay at home..... or find a PROPER out of the way anchorage....

Complaining about wind noises in a marina or rafted up, is a bit like complaining about alcohol being served in a pub


That's not a good analogy. You know that pubs serve alcohol. Marinas don't advertise noisy berths. Yes we all know it can be noisy when windy, but wind generators can be VERY loud. Had someone moor opposite us on a pontoon in the Fal, windgen made a hell of a racket. Luckily he turned it off before bed time otherwise it would have been a sleepless night, or an awkward conversation beforehand.
 
Re: Wind gen\'s & Marina Etiquette

Surely living in a marina is a bit like expecting to have a nice quiet picnic in Tesco's car park? People en masse are noisy. If you want peace and quiet they are best avoided.
 
Re: Wind gen\'s & Marina Etiquette

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It's not an "idea", its a fact.
It affects even (for example) industrial size compressors with high quality bearings sitting in storage in a warehouse with nothing more severe than the occasional train going by hundreds of yards away. We have to rotate them by hand regularly.
It WILL affect a little wind gen. Can you imagine the repeated point pressures brought to bear on the same points on the races?
The name comes from the Brinell hardness test that is the standard for measuring hardness in metals.
Are you suggesting he should repeatedly replace his bearings?

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I'm amazed - trains several hundred yards away affecting the bearings in your compressors unless rotated regularly! Something I had never heard of before despite 40 years in heavy engineering - which incidentally involved using Brinell testing machines.

Should he repeatedly change his bearings? Thats up to him, but consideration of others should mean that he either took that route or took down the apparatus whilst in harbour. Certainly I wouldnt hesistate to tie off his windmill if it was noisy and irritated me - not that I believe that tieing it off for a night or a week or a month would cause bearing problems requiring replacement.

If it kept you awake all night you would do exactly the same.
 
Re: Wind gen\'s & Marina Etiquette

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Complaining about wind noises in a marina or rafted up, is a bit like complaining about alcohol being served in a pub


That's not a good analogy. You know that pubs serve alcohol. Marinas don't advertise noisy berths.

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oh come off it... they serve salted peanuts in pubs too... and if I were a teetotaller craving for cheese and onion crisps I might just have to nip into one... and then go off to my local chapel and complain about the alcohol swigging masses.

If you go sailing and if you stay in a marina or rafted up you should be tolerant of noise, especially if boaty related:

frapping halyards
creaking fenders
humming chargers
rumbling chains....

A bit like complaing about the swell when rounding the Horn, or the midges when visiting the Highlands, or mud in the Eastcoast, or yobs in the Solent
(ducks for cover) /forums/images/graemlins/ooo.gif
 
Re: Wind gen\'s & Marina Etiquette

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If it kept you awake all night you would do exactly the same.

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ar you sure we are not talking about an excuse to explain ones' insomnia?

I find the hum of a generator quite soothing...
It is discos and loud drunken louts that keep me awake
 
Re: Wind gen\'s & Marina Etiquette

It's funny how at popular visitors moorings we pay good money to be crowded together beyond third-world densities. Mostly it works because most yotties are very considerate. Imagine if every yacht in a raft decided to listen to a different radio station as they would at home for instance.
Am I the only person who thinks this consideration is breaking down in the last 10years?
And I'm not just talking about Saturday night in Yarmouth.
By the way, from choice, I would take the anchorage or swinging mooring rather than the marina or town quay raft, but you don't always get the choice, unless you let that issue dictate your every move.
 
Re: Wind gen\'s & Marina Etiquette

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I'm amazed - trains several hundred yards away affecting the bearings in your compressors unless rotated regularly! Something I had never heard of before despite 40 years in heavy engineering - which incidentally involved using Brinell testing machines.

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Well there you go! Just goes to show you live and learn!

The journal bearings are hydrodynamic but the thrusts are SKF or equivalent paired pre-loaded angular contacts with a race diameter about 10" and ball diameter about 1,1/4".
In rotary screw compressors weighing generally a bit over 3 metric tonnes and accepted as industry leaders in reliabiility and robustness.
 
Re: Wind gen\'s & Marina Etiquette

frapping halyards
creaking fenders
humming chargers
rumbling chains....

<span style="color:purple"> People stomping over the deck in the early hours </span>

PS: Oh! and yapping dogs /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif
 
Re: Wind gen\'s & Marina Etiquette

[ QUOTE ]
frapping halyards
creaking fenders
humming chargers
rumbling chains....

<span style="color:purple"> People stomping over the deck in the early hours </span>

PS: Oh! and yapping dogs /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

[/ QUOTE ]

boom clunking in a roll
 
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