Doug,
Be even happier that no AWE team is “clueless”.
Note that this architecture does not pull itself down rather than rope-drive, as you had feared about KiteMotor1.
It does not pull itself down because we transmit power at high rope speed resulting in a small torque transfer. Differential of tension due to torque remains always small compared to lifter pull
Yes, that was worked out at Portland Clown House in 2007, proven in three public demos, and explained to Doug multiple times since.
KiteMotor1 did pull itself down for its final public session in 2008 when the knot in the line loop caught in the groundgen fairlead. Very effective; could be a feature to bring everything back down, by braking the line. Kiwee runs a faster loop, which is good, but will not retract itself as surely.
It would be cool for the Kiwee to do direct mechanical work, like pumping water, as a system option.
Kiwee has an automatic retrieval mechanism, we use the ground gen as motor to retrieve. We have a great test bench that works well. Kiwee can retract around 120 m belt length under 2 to 5 kg pull. I shall make some videos to show you, that is really cool
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Check out our new website. Same URL : www.kitewinder.fr
And don’t forget to follow us on fb, first sailing boat kiwee test last week end www.facebook.com/kitewinder
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A nice website with detailed photos.
Everything looking smooth. Did you improve the castings?
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Yes Rod, we are slowly switching from 3D print to Resin molding. We have made an update on our extrusion machine. Mixing works better, parts are more homogeneous and we found a better colorant . all that had to the finish of parts.
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I think the product looks really nice…
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Thanks @tallakt. BTW, I am not an english native speaker , if you see something that can be improved on the writing, do not hesitate to let me know. I already made some updates @PierreB tell me about yesterday
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Much better! Congratulations! 
Looking forward to that sailboat test.
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Hi all, for frenchies only, so basically me and Pierre. 
Kiwee will be showcasing on France 5, la quotidienne tomorrow at 11h45, almost at the beginning of the show.but I will had that to our fb stream tomorrow for our followers
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The show is still available on https://www.france.tv/france-5/direct.html, la quotidienne, 3’30" from the beginning, Tuesday October 1st (pushing the button on the screen to go to the beginning, otherwise it is live).
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Now we can use the link on the extract about Kitewinder (see the picture of Kiwee):
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Not available in Norway it seems 
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We made a first online sell today on our website. French customer. Payment has been put online 2 weeks ago. An American customer tried to get a kiwee 2 min after being online. He tried 3 times but it failed. Seems something is wrong with banks.
We are now busy on programming and electronics issues. We will evolve to v2 kiwee electronic card to have all the features needed and solve thermal issues.
Generation function seems to be the most challenging part on programming as we take into account battery level, power output, charging current + à Mppt function to maximize production.
Hard to cope with the 6 months delay we had on electronics…
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Hy, an update on kiwee dev and delivery
I decided to switch delivery to march because of soft dev. I don’t want to switch month after month and upset customers.
We will have v2 electronic card in a month hopefully. still have to send the definitive board to production then.
Software is a huge challenge but thanks to our extraordinary electronic dev Cyril, an expert in brushless and battery management, I think we will make it.
v1 board is already really promising and software take a step today. I have a first working eletric generation program and battery management. Cyril’s lybrary and architecture are powerfull and allow efficient coding.
He will continue to help us along that journey.
Prod is going well, aliminium parts, resin parts, cabling (oh my god, 120 of them) , blades ( we losse 10g of mass on each , now weighing around 90 grams).
Still some orders to be made and find finals solutions, for life line packing for example.
Life line is an option on kiwee, you can set it or not. it also allow to tune the distance between kite and blades ( with a no node solution) . We discover something really great with life line is that if you pull on it, as it is link to the cockrolsh , it turn the blades off wind and stop the system. really nice features.
Rope life duration might improve a lot than our first test on test bench. break time on test bench was about 5 days ( multiplicator factor : 60) but we recently had dampers on the test bench which is really more representative of what we see in real test. I think we will double that number at least, tell you once we made the test.
Olivier
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A 'nice article in lefigaro. French only but I guess Google can help
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Congratulations Olivier, fine coverage.
We need our French practice as well.
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A complete article for both a nice product and a promising energy way.
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