I put a video introducing the W&I 2018 Ground Station on Youtube
This video shows how an airborne wind turbine ground station works.
This kite turbine ground station was used over a series of tests with various different kite turbines from 2018 to 2020
I describe how it was made and how it works.
The video is primarily for a design engineering student group.
Will be a helpful intro if you are considering making a kite turbine.
Some peopleā¦ Douglas Sprigs Selsam
Thereās a warning on the box
It clearly says
āNot Ice-cream and Not Chocolatesā
Cake
They just keep making better idiots
Fair enough the controller is housed in a recycled chocolate box
My previous controller box had been an ice-cream tubā¦ Youāre probably right.
Next up should be something more robust and moisture resistant like a cake box.
The way I connected the load cells looks dodgy at best
It wasnāt all that bad. The batteries were standard bike 36V housings with their own switching and onboard BMS so not too much to go wrong. The junction box with 2 hefty enough switches just allowed connecting and disconnecting them in parallel to swap out full ones. There was also a Voltage and current meter to keep me aware of the battery states.
There was one battery set I built which wasnāt BMS protected. not wise.
Iāve seen worse.
Where are you seeing lots of friction on rope?
Are you implying the Aero drag? The shaft is a very small diameter as compared to the rotors.
The ability to work a smaller diameter shaft at ground level helps to keep the ground station small.
Grind Station? Really? oh myā¦ One day Iāll be scripted, directed and edited
OMG Iām dense.
Yeah ok I know what a load cell is everyone okay!
That rope was a fairly good easy way to get the tension load cell in kinda the right alignment .
Iād probably thought by load cell you meant batteries doh