Noise, technical hitches and delays

We apologise to those who had expected us to sell turbines in the third week of April. We hit a technical hitch with vibration and some noise as a result. Because our turbines don’t have an iron core, they have much sharper pole changes as the magnet passes the coil, and this seems to cause a vibration.

On our experimental turbines, this was no problem because we weren’t using a tapered tower. However, when we put the turbine onto the tower we are actually using, the tower amplified the noise from the vibration like some sort of horn.

We could switch to a normal iron core turbine, but the turbine we are using has huge benefits – zero cogging at start-up, and very high efficiency – up to 94%. It is important that we get this right, and take the time to do so properly. We want to maintain a high level of efficiency with a turbine that will work in low wind speeds. Unnecessary noise from vibration is something that can be and must be eliminated.

So we are working on various ways of mounting the turbine with rugged vibration mounts to resolve this issue and expect to be back on track in another few weeks.