The recent storms here in the UK has prompted us to provide some guidance to those with a LE-300 wind turbine. We had a call this morning from a customer in Scotland who had wind gusts of 87 knots - the turbine was fine but the stay on his turbine tower was bent!
The raw power in high winds is immense and the stresses placed on the turbine are magnified by gusty and turbulent conditions. Where wind speeds of 60 mph or more are forecast we advise you to protect your turbine by tethering it. This will decrease the wear and tear on the machine and will help to avoid a failure.
Either swing the turbine to 90 degrees away from the wind or better still tether it. However if you can't get to your turbine in time then just let it run. As you can tell from our call this morning the LE-300 can survive storm conditions.
To tether the turbine tie a piece of thin rope round the blade attaching the blade to the mast and then through the hole in the tail fin ? the hole is for this specific purpose (see photo). This will stop the blade from rotating.
You can use the Run/Stop switch slow the unit prior to manually tethering the turbine but only in low wind speeds. But whatever you do NEVER use the Run/Stop switch to slow down the turbine in wind speeds of 40 mph or more. If you do you'll do more damage than good.
That's because in strong wind conditions the rotor can overpower the electromagnetic braking activated by the Run/Stop switch. High currents are produced in the stator coils and if this situation continues for prolonged periods the turbine will be damaged.
