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#82
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Littleboy wrote:
In article , says... "Littleboy" wrote in message anews.com... In article , says... "Mark James Boyd" wrote in message news:405fd12c$1@darkstar... LOL. I've never seen as much overengineering anywhere than on RAS and in the government. Two winches? Does the wind shift that often? How about one winch, right next to the existing power lines (at least for the darned prototype)? You guys crack me up with your "glider winch and power station industrial complex" designs. If you're that rich, good for you! ;P http://www.glidingmagazine.com/Featu...cle.asp?id=293 covers just the kind of thing you guys are re-inventing. By the way the unit cost them 56000 Euros and that was a year ago, at the time they considered it cheaper than the alternatives. www.elektrostartwinde.de has details on commercial availability. Some details up to 20kw draw from the 3 phase mains supply 200kw launch power 850 kg max glider weight 1 g initial acceleration Euro 1.90 per launch including cable, winch and battery replacements Electronic motor control There is a fixed multiple drum electric winch somewhere in Germany too. Ian Thanks for the link. A very nicely done installation, quite professional. I knew that my idea was not original enough for someone not to have done it. It appears that one of the features liked most is the electronic control of the motor. That was the point I was trying to make. Modern electronic control of an electric motor just make so much sense. Some of the units I need conversions for especially a "daN", I know, read assume, that it is a Newton but am unfamiliar with the prefix "da"). There has been a big change in SI units since I was in college and we insular Yankees haven't done a good job of keeping up. Thanks again. That confused me for a while too. daN = DecaNewton. 1 Newton x 10. Do us a favor and price out the electronic controls. Costs new, to contractor. Not the list price, but what I figure the "street price" is. I could be off, but these are the figures I personally would use for an engineering estimate. 1) VFD, Square D Altivar 66 drive, 460v, 100HP, well optioned $12,000 2) AC Motor, 460v, 100HP general purpose, totally enclosed $4,000 2a)AC Motor, 460v, 100HP inverter duty, totally enclosed $6,000 The DC motors used on the dragsters go for $1400 One such motor at http://www.go-ev.com/motors-warp.html WW |
#83
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Mark Zivley wrote:
This project should probably be moved to a slightly different forum like a yahoo group where people interested in participating can do so without filling up RAS. This also allows the sharing of files and even voting on ideas as the project starts to take shape. We're definitely onto something here, lets get started. We should start by doing some deciding as to what will be designed. 1 or 2 or more drums..... Now you are talking! Lets get the fundamentals right. We want a design that is easy to build, not too expensive, simple to operate, easy to maintain and with safety standards to meet current best practice. Performance should be capable of launching a glass 2 seater trainer to a hight not less than 1/3 of the runway length in zero wind conditions. I vote for a big block V8 petrol motor powering a double drum winch. For the guys who want to talk about exotics electric winches and diesels with modified ECU's - go for it but lets separate the threads. I think the successful 'one design' winch is going to run on petrol and will be made from readily available hardware. If we have any spare cash left in the budget we will spend it on plasma rope. As a starting point, lets get some specs on winches that have been built already together with performances achieved. We need to start off with parameters like engine capacity and size, drum dimensions, final drive ratios, gearbox/torque converter details and the source make and model of the components used. Then we need detail engineering drawings for the clever bits. Winch drum axle mods, guillotines, guide pulleys. These should best be based on proven designs. Details for a Skylaunch like throttle control would be nice. Good engineering detail for the safety items like the operator's cage and cable guards might save a few home builders from unexpected injury. The engineering should accommodate a choice of cables. Single strand, multistrand or plasma. We need to spec those too. We should also put together a "bill of materials" for anybody planning on establishing a winching operation. I am thinking of a comprehensive list of things like weak links, rings, 'chute, snake, signal lights, radios, cable retrieve vehicle... That in itself would at least allow for drawing up a proper budget. As for a forum - if we are going to move off RAS, Al's gliderforum.com might be a good home. If we want to run off an e-mail list, I can probably make a plan to host it. We will also need a repository for information - a web site - perhaps a "wikki". Finally we need to establish some ground rules regarding copyright and ownership of the design. My vote is to follow the "Open Source" model used by Linux etc. Publish everything and allow anybody to use it - but under the condition they publish details of what they build and how well it works. Who's in? Ian |
#84
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"Littleboy" wrote in message Costs new, to contractor. Not the list price, but what I figure the "street price" is. I could be off, but these are the figures I personally would use for an engineering estimate. 1) VFD, Square D Altivar 66 drive, 460v, 100HP, well optioned $12,000 2) AC Motor, 460v, 100HP general purpose, totally enclosed $4,000 2a)AC Motor, 460v, 100HP inverter duty, totally enclosed $6,000 100 HP ain't gonna do it. We need 250 HP anyway to equal a 350 - 400 HP Diesel. 250 HP is going to be $20,000 and the frequency converter control box is going to be another $15,000. When I went through this, I stopped counting at about $60,000 just for the power source. Diesel is going to be a lot cheaper I think. Bill Daniels |
#85
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Some years ago when our Ford V8 and straight Jaguar
engines were falling apart someone suggested we went on to Chevrolet engines 5.7l. These were originally sourced from ex US Airforce buses, like the typical US school bus. We bought the bus took the engine out then scrapped the remains of the bus. They were cheap even with a bus attached! As far as I can recall they engines went straight in the winch and then as they got tired were given a 'stock car' tune and with heavy duty pistons etc. Over about 15 years the engines have given excellent service.The automatic gear box that came with the engine is used for the drive and the drive lever fixed so the winch driver can only engage neutral or drive. The drive to the prop shaft can be tailored to any axle with a bit of skilled welding. Our main winches are a Skylaunch and Tost with the Chevrolet engine. The engine in the Tost sits on a sledge with gearbox and radiator attached, so if anything breaks it can be easily removed and a spare slid in. The current engine runs on gas and will launch A DG 500 with no problems. We went for this engine because it is readily available, either new, from a bus or re conditioned. Spare parts are also available. It can also be easily tuned and played with to produce extra power Not sure what the full description of the engine is but this US site found by a simple internet search http://www.automotix.com/engines_by_...-engines_t---C HV-350RLB-4.html This looks like the engines we use. The prices also look very reasonable. Dave |
#86
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Skylaunch already have developed, trouble-shot and
built 30 or so examples of the big V8 petrol/LPG twin drum, controlled launch power winch design you seem to be re-inventing. It sems sensible to use this experience so why not just buy one, investigate building them under licence, get a kit from them, or get Mike Grove's advice on a consultancy basis? As one of a sub-committee looking at the Supacat replacement we have decided to recommend a Skylaunch to the Board of Directors of our club as the only realistic option available worldwide to improve on our current Supacat diesel 180hp winch. The cost will be about £60,000 including options for the 8.2 litre LPG GM marine V8 version. The Supacat made a profit of £29,000 last year and £16,000 in 2002 - after paying the cost of full time professional winch drivers, maintence and depreciation (from about 8-9000 launches I think). The new winch will be paid off within a very few few years. Busy, reliable, modern winches are just a license to print money. It is worth having a look at the Skylaunch german text site as it has a whole lot more useful information than the UK site about the various kit forms of the Skylaunch and prices etc. It also has pictures of the more basic Skylaunch 3 version. http://www.skylaunch.de/ http://www.skylaunchuk.com/ John Galloway At 22:18 23 March 2004, Ian Forbes wrote: Now you are talking! Lets get the fundamentals right. We want a design that is easy to build, not too expensive, simple to operate, easy to maintain and with safety standards to meet current best practice. Performance should be capable of launching a glass 2 seater trainer to a hight not less than 1/3 of the runway length in zero wind conditions. I vote for a big block V8 petrol motor powering a double drum winch. For the guys who want to talk about exotics electric winches and diesels with modified ECU's - go for it but lets separate the threads. I think the successful 'one design' winch is going to run on petrol and will be made from readily available hardware. If we have any spare cash left in the budget we will spend it on plasma rope. As a starting point, lets get some specs on winches that have been built already together with performances achieved. We need to start off with parameters like engine capacity and size, drum dimensions, final drive ratios, gearbox/torque converter details and the source make and model of the components used. Then we need detail engineering drawings for the clever bits. Winch drum axle mods, guillotines, guide pulleys. These should best be based on proven designs. Details for a Skylaunch like throttle control would be nice. Good engineering detail for the safety items like the operator's cage and cable guards might save a few home builders from unexpected injury. The engineering should accommodate a choice of cables. Single strand, multistrand or plasma. We need to spec those too. We should also put together a 'bill of materials' for anybody planning on establishing a winching operation. I am thinking of a comprehensive list of things like weak links, rings, 'chute, snake, signal lights, radios, cable retrieve vehicle... That in itself would at least allow for drawing up a proper budget. As for a forum - if we are going to move off RAS, Al's gliderforum.com might be a good home. If we want to run off an e-mail list, I can probably make a plan to host it. We will also need a repository for information - a web site - perhaps a 'wikki'. Finally we need to establish some ground rules regarding copyright and ownership of the design. My vote is to follow the 'Open Source' model used by Linux etc. Publish everything and allow anybody to use it - but under the condition they publish details of what they build and how well it works. Who's in? Ian |
#87
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In article ,
says... "Littleboy" wrote in message Costs new, to contractor. Not the list price, but what I figure the "street price" is. I could be off, but these are the figures I personally would use for an engineering estimate. 1) VFD, Square D Altivar 66 drive, 460v, 100HP, well optioned $12,000 2) AC Motor, 460v, 100HP general purpose, totally enclosed $4,000 2a)AC Motor, 460v, 100HP inverter duty, totally enclosed $6,000 100 HP ain't gonna do it. We need 250 HP anyway to equal a 350 - 400 HP Diesel. 250 HP is going to be $20,000 and the frequency converter control box is going to be another $15,000. When I went through this, I stopped counting at about $60,000 just for the power source. Diesel is going to be a lot cheaper I think. Bill Daniels No doubt about it. The broader engineering question is, does the increased value of ease and sophistication of control inherent in an electric winch, plus its lower life cycle costs, offset the lower first cost of an engine driven winch. This is a perennial engineering issue, first cost, value and life cycle costs. As has been shown by the numerous winching solutions used by various clubs presented here, everyone will have to make there own decisions. The chassis mounted winch from Germany, http://www.beepworld.de/members28/onkelmaggus/ shown here, indicates they expect a winch life of thirty years. It appears that these individuals have voted for life cycle costs. And given the winch duty cycles presented here, I am far from convinced that diesel is a viable economic solution. I would be more inclined to go to spark ignition using lpg as fuel. Anyway, I've beat this horse all I'm inclined to do. I do appreciate everyones feedback. |
#88
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"Ian Forbes" wrote in message ... Mark Zivley wrote: This project should probably be moved to a slightly different forum like a yahoo group where people interested in participating can do so without filling up RAS. This also allows the sharing of files and even voting on ideas as the project starts to take shape. We're definitely onto something here, lets get started. We should start by doing some deciding as to what will be designed. 1 or 2 or more drums..... Now you are talking! Lets get the fundamentals right. We want a design that is easy to build, not too expensive, simple to operate, easy to maintain and with safety standards to meet current best practice. Performance should be capable of launching a glass 2 seater trainer to a hight not less than 1/3 of the runway length in zero wind conditions. I vote for a big block V8 petrol motor powering a double drum winch. For the guys who want to talk about exotics electric winches and diesels with modified ECU's - go for it but lets separate the threads. I think the successful 'one design' winch is going to run on petrol and will be made from readily available hardware. If we have any spare cash left in the budget we will spend it on plasma rope. As a starting point, lets get some specs on winches that have been built already together with performances achieved. We need to start off with parameters like engine capacity and size, drum dimensions, final drive ratios, gearbox/torque converter details and the source make and model of the components used. Then we need detail engineering drawings for the clever bits. Winch drum axle mods, guillotines, guide pulleys. These should best be based on proven designs. Details for a Skylaunch like throttle control would be nice. Good engineering detail for the safety items like the operator's cage and cable guards might save a few home builders from unexpected injury. The engineering should accommodate a choice of cables. Single strand, multistrand or plasma. We need to spec those too. We should also put together a "bill of materials" for anybody planning on establishing a winching operation. I am thinking of a comprehensive list of things like weak links, rings, 'chute, snake, signal lights, radios, cable retrieve vehicle... That in itself would at least allow for drawing up a proper budget. As for a forum - if we are going to move off RAS, Al's gliderforum.com might be a good home. If we want to run off an e-mail list, I can probably make a plan to host it. We will also need a repository for information - a web site - perhaps a "wikki". Finally we need to establish some ground rules regarding copyright and ownership of the design. My vote is to follow the "Open Source" model used by Linux etc. Publish everything and allow anybody to use it - but under the condition they publish details of what they build and how well it works. Who's in? Ian Ian. I admire your enthusiasm and support your ideas, but the economics need a bit of discussion. Winches are VERY profitable. The operational cost is less than $2US per launch and most people will find $10 is a reasonable launch fee. That's a 500% profit with a volunteer crew in a club setting. The Return On Investment for a $30,000 winch is just 63 operating days figuring an average of 60 launches a day. A dual drum winch in a training environment can do a LOT more than 60 launches a day. After the club has its ROI it can buy a new glider every year with the profits. That's the REAL secret of how those European clubs own all that nice glass. They put their money into gliders instead of air tow fees. My concern is that by focusing on the "build it cheap" aspect, the productivity of the machine will be lost. That's where American winches have gone wrong in the past. Just a couple of weekends lost to winch repairs is significant. If the "Hassle Factor" is too large, people will go back to air tow. Build it right, make it reliable and as productive as possible no matter if it costs more to build. If a diesel engine is more productive than a spark ignition engine then pay the extra money for one. If Spectra improves the operation by reducing cable breaks and tangles then pony up for it. The ROI comes very quickly. Almost ANYTHING that increases the number of launches per day or makes the whole operation easier and more pleasant is worth the investment. Bill Daniels |
#89
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We all know "cheap" is a relative word. Cheaper than a Skylaunch leaves
a lot of ground. Just like any design project, we need to start with some goals. Reality is that a 2 drum winch probably is the peak in operational efficiency coupled with simplicity of design. Piggot's book recommends multiple 2 drum winches over winch designs with more than 3 drums. Safety for the operator is paramount and clearly we need to be providing enough power to handle a glider on a Black weak link. In general this design should keep cost in mind, but surely as any club or group starts to embark on construction they will have a lot of latitude as to how they control costs. Do they buy a crate motor for $3-4k or buy that little old lady's Cadillac for $500. However, the first thing needs to be a forum off of RAS where we can work. Ulrich started this, so I'll defer to his preferences. The Yahoo groups are free, offer file sharing (I think) and it's easy to set up topics to be voted on by the members. With that, we can start nailing down the design goals. Bill Daniels wrote: "Ian Forbes" wrote in message ... Mark Zivley wrote: This project should probably be moved to a slightly different forum like a yahoo group where people interested in participating can do so without filling up RAS. This also allows the sharing of files and even voting on ideas as the project starts to take shape. We're definitely onto something here, lets get started. We should start by doing some deciding as to what will be designed. 1 or 2 or more drums..... Now you are talking! Lets get the fundamentals right. We want a design that is easy to build, not too expensive, simple to operate, easy to maintain and with safety standards to meet current best practice. Performance should be capable of launching a glass 2 seater trainer to a hight not less than 1/3 of the runway length in zero wind conditions. I vote for a big block V8 petrol motor powering a double drum winch. For the guys who want to talk about exotics electric winches and diesels with modified ECU's - go for it but lets separate the threads. I think the successful 'one design' winch is going to run on petrol and will be made from readily available hardware. If we have any spare cash left in the budget we will spend it on plasma rope. As a starting point, lets get some specs on winches that have been built already together with performances achieved. We need to start off with parameters like engine capacity and size, drum dimensions, final drive ratios, gearbox/torque converter details and the source make and model of the components used. Then we need detail engineering drawings for the clever bits. Winch drum axle mods, guillotines, guide pulleys. These should best be based on proven designs. Details for a Skylaunch like throttle control would be nice. Good engineering detail for the safety items like the operator's cage and cable guards might save a few home builders from unexpected injury. The engineering should accommodate a choice of cables. Single strand, multistrand or plasma. We need to spec those too. We should also put together a "bill of materials" for anybody planning on establishing a winching operation. I am thinking of a comprehensive list of things like weak links, rings, 'chute, snake, signal lights, radios, cable retrieve vehicle... That in itself would at least allow for drawing up a proper budget. As for a forum - if we are going to move off RAS, Al's gliderforum.com might be a good home. If we want to run off an e-mail list, I can probably make a plan to host it. We will also need a repository for information - a web site - perhaps a "wikki". Finally we need to establish some ground rules regarding copyright and ownership of the design. My vote is to follow the "Open Source" model used by Linux etc. Publish everything and allow anybody to use it - but under the condition they publish details of what they build and how well it works. Who's in? Ian Ian. I admire your enthusiasm and support your ideas, but the economics need a bit of discussion. Winches are VERY profitable. The operational cost is less than $2US per launch and most people will find $10 is a reasonable launch fee. That's a 500% profit with a volunteer crew in a club setting. The Return On Investment for a $30,000 winch is just 63 operating days figuring an average of 60 launches a day. A dual drum winch in a training environment can do a LOT more than 60 launches a day. After the club has its ROI it can buy a new glider every year with the profits. That's the REAL secret of how those European clubs own all that nice glass. They put their money into gliders instead of air tow fees. My concern is that by focusing on the "build it cheap" aspect, the productivity of the machine will be lost. That's where American winches have gone wrong in the past. Just a couple of weekends lost to winch repairs is significant. If the "Hassle Factor" is too large, people will go back to air tow. Build it right, make it reliable and as productive as possible no matter if it costs more to build. If a diesel engine is more productive than a spark ignition engine then pay the extra money for one. If Spectra improves the operation by reducing cable breaks and tangles then pony up for it. The ROI comes very quickly. Almost ANYTHING that increases the number of launches per day or makes the whole operation easier and more pleasant is worth the investment. Bill Daniels |
#90
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In my experience, one drum is pretty adequate.
Most fields in the US are limited in length, so the launch height is usually just enough for a pattern. I find with one drum I can launch a ship, retrieve the chute, and have be back at the launch point just as the glider lands. We turn the glider around (usually lands cross wind), and we're ready to go with another. We achieve about 6-7 launches per hour this way at my field..until two or three other people turn up (with little experience but they're BS'ed the membership into thinking they know what they're doing) and our rate goes down to about 3 an hour. Jim Vincent CFIG N483SZ illspam |
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