Wind Generator blows up

Marcellus Jacobs, quite THE pioneer of wind generators used Stika Spruce for his blades, straight grained, he covered them in an aluminum and pitch paint, of course his versions had automatic counter weighted feathering propeller blades,. Some of his units are still running save for some replacement brushes made from a dual carbon stack to knock down R.F noise. His machines were the conventional DC type but had high output at low speeds. Brakes on units do not take the load off the blades

I think one of the blades actually hit the tower. The blades 'flex' when the wind hits them. Combine that with excessive wind and failed brakes, and... boom!

steel is too heavy, and aluminum is not strong enough. fiberglass is the cheapest of a very limited number of substances that are light and strong enough too make the blades possible. what elkvis said about the generator is true. the brakes most likely failed and the rotor lock(which grips the gears on the brake) was most likely stripped and that resulted in the uncontrollable speed. also when the wind gets above 15 or 20 m/s the generator shuts down and wont spin. but im no expert...

take that hippies!!!

say the special on this the breaks that keep from excerting speed malfunctioned

It broke

omg what happened to it? overload?

Gives new meaning to blowing in the wind lol ha ha ha
uh... never mind.

They put governor units on these things that vary the pitch of the blades according to wind speed, but as I understand it, the governor on this windmill failed and allowed the rotor to spin out of control.