Wind Vanes

[Orion]

Looking good Gina

I am very pleased with the mod that I did (Pic in earlier post) my plots are much better now, but because of my location surrounded by trees and houses no wind vane will ever be able to cope with the amount of turbulent wind here.

Latest plot

[nking]

I am very pleased with the mod that I did (Pic in earlier post) my plots are much better now, but because of my location surrounded by trees and houses no wind vane will ever be able to cope with the amount of turbulent wind here.

The results speak for themselves, great improvement over your previous plot - well done

[Gina]

Yes, a good result

[nking]

Orion - It will be interesting to see how the bearing holds out with the additional weight /forces? It's certainly a mod I might consider if the bearing stands the test of time.

[Gina]

I'm using a bigger bearing on mine but that's more a matter of where the vane is situated than the load. Bearings are designed to take high loads and I think it should be fine - even though they're rated more for radial than axial loading.

[Orion]

Total weight added was about 100g hopefully the bearing should be OK
I trimmed down a 2oz bomb shaped lead fishing weight inside some 15mm tube to make it balance
all glued together with Alradite

[Gina]

Put mine up outside temporarily in a turbulent wind position and the vane was moving around quite a lot but it didn't overrun and seemed over damped if anything.

EDIT... I was just connecting the cable when the end with the damping magnet fell off and caught me in the mouth! I've now got a slightly swollen bottom lip Evidently the force of a turbulent wind trying to move the vane around and hence a strong damping force, was too much for the joint between the front arm and the hub. Anyway, it's now sitting up there at 3m above ground swinging about merrily. In fact, it's just done a complete 360!! The damping definitely works (when it's there!).

I'll take it down and repair it later - I don't feel inclined to touch it ATM! Maybe I should consider the vicinity of a weather station as a "hard hat" zone

[nking]

Total weight added was about 100g hopefully the bearing should be OK
I trimmed down a 2oz bomb shaped lead fishing weight inside some 15mm tube to make it balance
all glued together with Alradite

Thanks for the details I'll keep them to do the mod later this year.

[MickinMoulden]

Slightly different topic, but I have noticed a different minor "problem" with the standard setup.
In very light winds of around a Knot or so, if the wind direction is directly E (or W depending upon the set up), i.e directly from abeam the wind vane, such that the anemometer is in it's "shadow" then wind speed can show zero due to the masking effect of the wind vane as they are at the same level.
Easily cured of course by raising or lowering one or the other.
Not managed to prove if the opposite occurs and the anemometer interferes with the wind vane.

Yes, I've just done tests see https://cumulus.hosiene.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=4004 .
I had constant wind gusts of 27kmph and the draft from the wind vane stoped it, and made it go backwards! The wind vane didn't have much at these wind speeds. Put the anemometer higher! I did, by 500mm.

[rollo]

Hi Gina, - Rollo has a nice description and photos in the thread "Yet another wind vane mod".

Yes I have an apology to make - I should have acknowledged his contribution - it was that that gave me the idea. Thank you Rollo

Gracious of you to say so. I've been away from this forum for 6 months or so and its a pleasure to see what a splendid job you have made from my germ of an idea. Congratulations.

My original prototype modification is still working -- pretty-much untouched. I removed the skirt of the fryingpan (to relieve my neighbors fears of a frying saucer ). Sorry I did since I lost some rigidity and buckled the plate slightly so that I had to increase the separation between magnet and plate and lost some drag. Even the push-on fit of the Bic-clic cap survived till two months ago!

Actually most of the problems of windmilling that I had experienced disappeared when I raised the vane 2 meters above my roof apex, as you suggested.

[Gina]

Welcome back Rollo

[The QCC]

Yet another modified wind vane.

I used "Keyz" windsock method with a lightweight plastic drinking cup on the vane. Wide end facing backwards. I added one .6gr weight to each side on the van as ballast. Thinking of balance, I added one 1.5gr weight to the nose. I am not sure if the added weight is necessary, but it is there for now.

Preliminary reports indicate the windsock is doing a much better job than the original unmodified vane.

The graph shows the results after a few hours. Winds have been light and variable.

Carl

[uncle_bob]

Here's a low tech mod I've done to my TX20 on a La Crapp WS 2306.

I glued a "idler wheel" to the side of the TX 20, just to give a slight resistance to turning. As it happens the wheel was a tray slide guide out of a dishwasher with a sliver of rubber dishwasher waste hose slide over it. The "wheel doesn't have bearings, it just slides on the stainless spindle that it came with.

It now takes around 5 KM/H wind to move it, which is a little high for my liking but it certainly has stopped the turbulence swinging the vane in all directions.

I'll post up the wind trend graph once I get a good set of data.

[uncle_bob]

Here's the before trend graph...


And here's the after..


I think the results are pretty good, with a lot tighter grouping and a lot less "scatters".