Long before the recent breakthroughs in vertical axis wind
turbine design, the basic idea was conceived independently
by many experimenters and worked up in several forms. One
such invention has been operating continuously since 1958,
and its owner was kind enough to send me the following
description. --MOTHER.
In answer to an inquiry from MOTHER about my family's
experiments with the vertical axis wind turbine: This
machine made its first appearance, to my knowledge, about
1921 when William H. Swett (my father) built such a device
and installed it on a well somewhere in the vicinity of
Lovelock, Nevada. The plant was a failure due to the lack
of a governor and was demolished by a strong wind.
We did nothing further with the concept until 1958, when I
built a small commercial garage and decided to install a
wind turbine to pump the water I needed for my operations.
I designed perhaps half a dozen governors all of them
either too easy to vandalize or too complex to construct,
with many critical parts that tended to wear out. Finally I
came up with a satisfactory solution: a hydraulic governor
of sealed construction, with two bearings that run in an
oil bath at all times and carry a very light load. This
device limits the speed of the turbine to 475-600 rpm and
has very little drag below 475 rpm.
The completed windplant has been in continuous service
since its installation in 1958 and has had its bearings
greased twice during the 16-year period. All that time it
has pumped water for the shop, and I've used it
simultaneously to charge batteries with the help of an
automobile generator and alternator.
The device attracted quite a bit of attention at first, but
no buyers. (There was no apparent energy crisis during
1958, you'll recall, or for several years thereafter.) Some
people did express interest in using a wind turbine for
irrigation or power generation but eventually they'd ask,
"What do you do when the wind doesn't blow?" and I'd answer
truthfully, "The machine doesn't work, of course." That
ended the matter, and the prospective customer proceeded to
install a diesel,gasoline, or electric-driven pump.