Nylon versus Metal
21 April 2016
Bill/ sunny and a bit of a breeze
Nylon versus Metal. That's what's inside of a DuoGen wind generator. To keep it quieter, so the manufacturer claims, they use a set of Nylon gears to mesh with a set of Zinc gears. Between the two, you get a quieter machine and it is quieter than many others that we have heard. The problem is that the Nylon can't stand up to the metal and it gets eaten away, sometimes quiet quickly. Cost of a new gear-- about $100 US plus postage. There is no way to get the gears from anyone other than DuoGen. It's a lot like Garmin electronics. As you can see from the attached photo, there aren't many teeth left on the gear. Being a good cruiser, when I need one, I ordered two. I had a back up in our parts box under the stern bunk. A few minutes with the instruction manual and we were set to go. The one I installed was one we had used before but it had gotten swapped out as the teeth didn't seem to mesh well and it made more noise than usual but you use what you have. At leas t it's up and running again. Sometime when we were towing the generator arm we must have hit something as the metal bracket that the entire assembly fits into at the top of the vane was torn apart. Most of the top of the bracket was sheared off. Long ago when we were in Mexico, we found that the wind vane on the unit was bent. DuoGen sent us a replacement for free. At the top of the vane was another bracket to hook it all together. I stripped it off the old one and have had it in storage since 2010. Knew I'd use it eventually. The DuoGen is now spinning again on the stern making a bit more noise but she's at least making some power for us. We pulled up the mainsail this morning to shake out the reef we'd installed for the trip down. Up it went and then down, stacked on the boom, tied down and covered. She's all stowed till we get in the yard where we will have it sent to a sail loft for inspection and have repaired what ever needs to be done. It's a lot hotter here than in Grenada so the tarps have been pulled out and installed covering most of the deck. We pulled the bow on Puff up so we can open the forward hatch to get more air inside Zephyr. What ever it takes to keep it cooler inside the boat. It was a quiet night here in the anchorage with us being the only boat. We did have some pests come to visit. Mosquitoes buzzed me as I typed my last post on the computer. The kids were out on deck having a great time till I went to bed. Then had to wake up Snowshoe and encourage Blue to go below. They are never allowed to spend the night out. We want to make sure we have both kids on board when the Sun comes up. Tracy made a Chipotle encrusted pork tenderloin for lunch along with a Waldorf salad. Being closer to the US, we are finding things we haven't seen in years. Celery for one. We now have a nice bunch of it stowed in the fridge. A great lunch! More later. --------------030604000003060003020903--