I am looking into an older used turbine and am trying to find some information about it.

What I do know is:
It is an Oak Ridge 40kw, and the model is a Venture. They were made in Battle Lake Minnesota in the middle 1980’s. It is an up wind, single phase, 240 volt, grid tie, hydraulic mechanical break, 18 foot wood blades, and 100’ foot free standing tower with 3” pipe legs.

I have a few more small bits of random information but what I would really like is some data sheets, reliability reports, if some one has one in operation that would be great, or if there are any parts out there.

This is my first project and would really like to get this up and going but without any information I can not take the risk of buying a dead horse, so any information or insight will be greatly appreciated. Please feel free to call or post any comments.

Thanks, John Easterday
701-799-2020

Hello John,

I've asked around of my small wind turbine friends and we haven't come up with anything about that perticular model.

One place where you might try to find more information about the machine is the American Wind Power Center and Museum, located in Lubboc, TX. I've pasted their website below so you can check them out:

http://www.windmill.com/

If you click on the contact link a form comes up that you can fill out. They may have something on file about that machine to help you out.

Please let me know if the museum is of any help to you and thanks for the difficult question,

-Brian

I would really look into a newer more efficient model.
the old ones might be nothing but a headache.Almost
every old one I see in someones field is not working.

Hi John,
A couple resources that might be of use may provide you with further contacts to find the data you wish to review about the Oak Ridge 40kw. While I don’t have any data specific to your turbine model, I might suggest the article “Apples and Oranges” by Mick Sagrillo, which is a great resource for comparison of small wind turbines. Windustry’s Small Wind System’s website has a link to a PDF version of the article, http://www.windustry.org/SmallWind/turbines.htm. Another great article by Mick Sagrillo is in the current issue (#119) of Home Power magazine. Found on page 34, the article talks about small scale turbines currently available. I would suggest contacting Home Power magazine and requesting a purchased print version, PDF or CD-ROM of the article.
Hope this helps,
Ingrid

I found this conversation interesting: "You're right about the other type turbines, they spin so fast they howl, moan and perform, the carbon fiber blades also shatter with the cold and ice. The windblue let go at -20. The ametek's have metal blades and are still spinning, but the blade noise is not pleasant, they'll be coming down in the spring. I haven't seen ice build up on the ARI blades. If you've seen the weather, we've really bad weather, high winds, freezing rain, with bad wind chills and over three ft of snow so far. Our wind has been gusting over 90 km/hr for the last 2 weeks and no change is expected for December"

"The car type wind generators I have, (hornet and wind blue and ametek) froze up with freezing rain, the ARI kept generating. We have also had winds gusting to 120km/hr here and no problems from ARI."

"The ARI turbine is indeed running quite well. I am surprised how quiet it is. I observed it during 50-70km/h winds today. In this kind of wind my previous rotors would spin and whistle like a jet engine; eventually disintegrating into a thousand pieces."

"I have some bad icing conditions where I am now, and all my turbines, except the ARI, have iced up and don't work properly. The ice gets into the inside on the generators and stops the generators from turning, also, the carbon fibre blades ice up and lose balance. So far, the ARI hasn't given any problems and keeps the batteries from freezing."
Fritz and Lars (a professor from Alberna Univ)
It seems that ARI is the newest tech and also cheapest, being it is manufactured in China. Arisolarwind.com