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How to Break your Kite Turbines

A project log for Portable Kite Turbines

Kite Power for your adventures

roddy-rags-readRoddy "Rags" Read 04/27/2022 at 12:570 Comments

Flying a Kite Turbine looks a breeze on some of my videos. 

There's nowhere better to be than a warm kite test field with a good wind...

And with the motivation of maybe making a massively scalable and much cleaner energy solution... Why wouldn't you do this?

In this Project Log Entry, I'm going to try put you off making a Kite turbine.

It's not always fun and games. 

Making a mechanically autonomous Kite Turbine by prototyping came with a lot of mistakes and crashes.

We tested ~70 variations

As you can see, a lot of these models weren't perfectly balanced and neat.  That, combined with - flying in turbulent wind fields, combined with the energy transmission and generation interfacing, combined with the mix of lifting and generating kite types... It wasn't always easy.

But they have come a long way.
And I still crash them


A TV crew was on site to show this crash.

Usually if you're going to goof up it's because you don't have a strong and steady lift kite.

That's the first thing you launch and first thing you should test. I'd suggest steady 10kg line pull minimum.

This is the main reason we have to move to automation . . . It's too easy after laying everything out on the ground to convince yourself there enough wind in the small lifter you launched. doh.

If you want to be safer and you have time and a spare windsurf mast... This won't crash and it's handy for power testing ... But the mast bit won't scale well so it's not where my focus is.

Can still be scary testing on a mast if you're in the wrong spot

Again, if the lifter kite is low tension... Even if the turbine doesn't crash , the turbine head bearing could twist the backline...

At the other end of the spectrum of crash types  - TOO MUCH POWER

You'll have noticed we're transmitting torque axially along a set of rotating lines which are held apart by rings.

That's all a bit novel.

If you have this turbine spinning at high speed and your control system is asking too much of the regeneration current when a Lull or gust hits... This is my favourite warning video. You do get to see one huge safety advantage of the backline here

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