Breamlea Wind Generator Update Sunday 27th October 1996 After a week of considerable activity overhauling and repairing the air brakes in Melbourne, a team of ATA members has today taken the air brakes back to Breamlea and re-installed them. This procedure was quite difficult, on account of the severe imbalance present in the rotor whenever there are only one or two air brakes attached ( each air brake weighs 22 kilograms). Reassembly was achieved only by attaching long ropes to each of the blades without air brakes, and using these ropes to manoeuvre the rotor into the correct position for the next blade to have its air brake reattached. In a 5-6 m/sec breeze, the rotor was allowed to free-wheel to about 55 rpm, at which point one air brake deployed. Rotor speed then reduced so quickly that the other two air brakes did not operate. However we are sufficiently confident of the new well-lubricated thrust washers and overall adjustment, that the machine was put online and left running. It was producing 10-15 kilowatts when the team returned to Melbourne at 4pm. The wind generator has thus just had another 7 days offline, of which 4 days had good winds. Average power output for the month of October up until Sunday 20th had been 10.2 kilowatts. It is anticipated that average power for the whole of October will be only about 7 kilowatts. With regular maintenance, and some further fine-tuning of the air brakes, it is expected that there will be no long periods of downtime for many months to come. The overall condition of the rotor blades is good and many more years of reliable operation should be achieved. The only potential problems are a crack in the leading edge of one blade (to be repaired in November), and the previously known problem of internal damage to the worm wheel in the slewing gearbox. A spare set of brake pads will be obtained this week, to cover the now low risk of gales causing another brake burnout.