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Major life dream score this week! I finally got a buddies families 1930's - 40's Parris Dunn Model 44 wind generator!
The back story has two parts. First me and how I came to know of it and when and where it's been for the last ~70 years.
Back when I went college the first time right out of high school in 1993 I met a guy who became a lifelong best friend and sort of second brother to me and his parents my second set of parents to me as well.
Anyway, way back then I often went home with him on weekends to hang out and help out his family. Even then I had been playing around with wind power for a few years and had a fascination with the old wind generators of days gone by. Every time I visited we talked about his wind generators and the farm history of using them.
His family farm had been established in the ~1920's - 30's and up until the mid to late 1950's ran off of the old 32 volt DC power system. Their primary power came off of a Parris Dunn two blade wind generator until the late 40's when they put up the three blade one. His Grandpa was a local mechanic/fabricator of sorts so back in the day he had every 32 volt device ever made. Welders, motors of various sizes, household appliances, lighting, engine driven generators, the works. All of it tied to a 32 volt ~1000 AH 16 cell LA battery bank made of 16 huge glass battery cells.
About 20 years ago I managed to acquire the older 2 blade unit and reconditioned it to where I had that flying for about 10 years until an ice storm broke the blade. Now, years later the tower the second unit had been on and parked in the upright position for some 65+ years was falling apart and I finally talked them into selling me that one. (I pestered them for the whole 24 years I have known them to sell it to me.)
I paid them $500 cash this spring plus $300 more to have it taken down so that I could bring it home this fall when I went back there to drive truck for sugar beet harvest.
It's a Parris Dunn Model 44 which was rated at an extremely conservative 40 VDC 30 amp output at 500 RPM. The blades are redwood or cedar but weathered beyond function and two of the three got broke off when they took it down.
The whole unit is complete and still spins but is going to need a major overhaul being the bearings are dry and the tower got hit by lightning several times over the years it sat so a rewind will likely be needed as well.
Now the thing is given the extremely limited online info I have to believe these are now pretty rare units to have and I now have two of the larger ones!
I haven't looked at them side by side yet but they might be the same units but with different blade sets. Not sure yet really.
This guy has a video of the pair I have so you can see what they look like when running.
The back story has two parts. First me and how I came to know of it and when and where it's been for the last ~70 years.
Back when I went college the first time right out of high school in 1993 I met a guy who became a lifelong best friend and sort of second brother to me and his parents my second set of parents to me as well.
Anyway, way back then I often went home with him on weekends to hang out and help out his family. Even then I had been playing around with wind power for a few years and had a fascination with the old wind generators of days gone by. Every time I visited we talked about his wind generators and the farm history of using them.
His family farm had been established in the ~1920's - 30's and up until the mid to late 1950's ran off of the old 32 volt DC power system. Their primary power came off of a Parris Dunn two blade wind generator until the late 40's when they put up the three blade one. His Grandpa was a local mechanic/fabricator of sorts so back in the day he had every 32 volt device ever made. Welders, motors of various sizes, household appliances, lighting, engine driven generators, the works. All of it tied to a 32 volt ~1000 AH 16 cell LA battery bank made of 16 huge glass battery cells.
About 20 years ago I managed to acquire the older 2 blade unit and reconditioned it to where I had that flying for about 10 years until an ice storm broke the blade. Now, years later the tower the second unit had been on and parked in the upright position for some 65+ years was falling apart and I finally talked them into selling me that one. (I pestered them for the whole 24 years I have known them to sell it to me.)
I paid them $500 cash this spring plus $300 more to have it taken down so that I could bring it home this fall when I went back there to drive truck for sugar beet harvest.
It's a Parris Dunn Model 44 which was rated at an extremely conservative 40 VDC 30 amp output at 500 RPM. The blades are redwood or cedar but weathered beyond function and two of the three got broke off when they took it down.
The whole unit is complete and still spins but is going to need a major overhaul being the bearings are dry and the tower got hit by lightning several times over the years it sat so a rewind will likely be needed as well.
Now the thing is given the extremely limited online info I have to believe these are now pretty rare units to have and I now have two of the larger ones!
I haven't looked at them side by side yet but they might be the same units but with different blade sets. Not sure yet really.
This guy has a video of the pair I have so you can see what they look like when running.
