Day 7: Our First Dabble with Design.

Today was a bit different as we got a chance to have a little more input on the design process of our turbines. After popping out the last set if coils and sanding them all down, we had a group chat about how we would attach the main body of the turbine ( generator, blades etc..) with the tower, while allowing free movement of the top - so the turbine can orientate itself in the wind.

We settled on a design which was a combination of suggestions from Dan and Tico, and involved welding 3 concentric sections of pole together for space and using a baring to allow for the free movement. While they got busy building a prototype, we got some more coils rolled and tried to get to grips with the some of the science behind energy generation.After lunch I stayed back at the house to watch the rest of the football and then put some hours in trying hard (and mostly in vain) to get some more of the science through my brain. While Dan and Trevor joined the others back at the workshop and powered through some coil winding, only 2 left.

Day 6: Setting the Rotor.

Trujillo's black market.

We are starting to get into a bit of a rythm in the workshop, atleast while we still have a pile of tasks that we are familiar with and can do with little supervision! We got in this morning to find that Dan's rotor (the magnets) had set really well and so, we popped it out the mold, cleaned it all up and and set another disk in the resin/carbon-firbe mixture.
Before lunch we had time to rolls some more coils, and chat about how the magnetic black sand will be utilised in future generator designs.

Dan's new friend.

After we had eaten Nino, Dan and I joined Micheal on a shopping trip to pick up some supplies. First stop was the black market, where all the stolen goods in Trujillo are taken to be sold, this gave Dan an opputunity to look for his camera and also to make some new friends. After we had got everything we needeed we got a chance to nip back to the workshop and set the last lot of magnets, aswell as check on the progress of the mold for the blades.

Day 5 : Lazy Day

Not much to report today, we all just chilled out at the house and watched a few movies in anticipation of a busy week ahead. One thing to say is that although Nino, Trevor and I didn´t take advantage of it this weekend there are opportunities to head to the workshop at the weekend. In fact yesterday and today Dan went in for a few hours and managed to make the mold and get his set of magnets in resin, so between catching up with that and coiling we have plenty to be getting on with tomorrow!

Day 4 : Surf competition in Huanchaco.

 After another late night we didn´t feel like doing much, we battled through though and went down to Huanchaco where the beach was packed with spectators for the final day of a surf competition. It was quite a big one, and is apparantly a qualifier for the pro tour and has a US$30,000 prize. Some of the surfing was pretty impressive, and afterwards there was a  big beach party, below are the best of Trevor´s and Nino´s pics.

Day 3 : Coils and Magnets.

We got into the workshop a little later today, mainly due to a pretty late night last night! Although we arrived at the same time as the others as they had spent the morning picking up various supplies. After rolling some more coils we got started mounting the magnets for the generator. In the smaller more compact design we are mounting the magnets on the same plate where we are mounting the blades.

The first stage was to pour a layer of resin over the plate so we could avoid scratching the coating from either the magnet or the plate, thus preventing corrosion which has been an issue in the past. Once that had dried we used a mold that we had prepared to ensure that the magnets where evenly spaced. Needless to say, the combination of superglue and magnets on a metal surface made it a bit tricky, in the end though we just about managed it! The next step is to build a mold to help us set the magnets in resin, but as its Friday evening, we will leave it until later!

In the meantime the mold building had been coming along, after the CNC ran its initial rough cut, Micheal and Jan covered it in a layer of fibreglass and resin, before the close cut to help give it a nice smooth finish.

Day 2 : Getting started in the Workshop.

The workshop

Today we got out the house around 9am and headed down to the workshop and had a good look around, while various bits and pieces were explained to us. The most impressive things being the CNC, a machine that you can use to create almost anything by using some software to build an image then program the cutting path, and the plasma cutter, that unfortunatly we didn´t get to see in action.

Some blades for the bigger turbines

As we are building a smaller turbine than in previous programs we are aiming to build one each, which means that we each get to take a turn at every aspect of the process which is cool. As the mold for the blades is still being made on the CNC, the first thing that we got started on was building the coils in which the electricity is generated. Each coil needs 90 turns and has to be tight, so the first few took us a while, but after getting the hang of it we were well on our way to the 24 we need.

We had a lot of fun playing around with the magnetic black sand that can be found on the beach at Buenos Aires, simple minds and all that....

Trevor and Nino making coils.

Dan, Nino and Micheal watching the CNC go.

Day 1 : An introduction to WindAid and meeting the other volunteers.

Coastal errosion at Buenos Aires

When I got back to Trujillo I made my way back to the house and was greeted by some new faces. Trevor from Seattle, who, like me studied physics, and Dan from Toronto, who is an electrician installing large scale wind farms back in Canada (I'm sure his expertise will come in handy, especially during the instillation phase), both of whom had just completed marathon plane journeys which put my bus ride into perspective. I also got to meet another long term windaid volunteer, Tico from Miami who has been working here since July.

Buenos Aires

Huanchaco

After a bit of breakfast Micheal gave us a presentation where he explained a bit more about windaid and it's aims. It was cool to see how far it has come, and get a little more information on how it achieves it's goals of using wind power to help people in Peru with little or no access to a reliable energy source. It was also exciting to learn that they have a franchise in Argentina which has just installed it's first turbine, and there are also tentative plans for windaid Mozambique and India! He also explained that their current aim is to drive the cost of a turbine down as much as they can, so to that end we will be building a ~250W turbine each!

Botanical Gardens

Next we took a trip to the coast to see the old testing sight at a town called Buenos Aires, and also got to see the coastal erosion that has been very aggressive in this are over the past few years. In the afternoon Tico took us to see Trujillo, we stopped at the botanical gardens then walked through the centre via the Plaza de Armas and went to the bus station where we met up with Micheal who was waiting for the last volunteer, Nino, an engineering student from Brisbane.

Tomorrow we get started.

Day v : More Maintenance, a Visit to Mancora and Another Night-Bus

Another part of the process of checking the park is to take voltage readings from the batteries and various other systems, unfortunately we didn't have a voltmeter so another trip to Zorritos was in order.

Unfortunately we couldn't find one there, even after 30mins of walking up and down the main road. But thankfully we had a breakthrough when one of Snr. Abel's friends in the town near to the hotel knew where we could find one.

After heading back and picking it up, observing various readings, I decided to leave the guys to it and head south to the nearby beach town of Mancora, beloved by gringos and Peruvians alike, before getting the night bus back to Trujillio in time for the start of the program.

It took about an hour to get down to Mancora, my first stop was an excellent Mexican restaurant on the recommendation of Fernando, the massive serving of beef enchiladas certainly hit the spot. After that I walked around the town full of bars, shops and of course a great beach - I will defiantly have to suggest a weekend trip up here to the other volunteers. Then, after killing a few hours with some beers and a trip to an Internet cafe I boarded the night bus back to Trujillo very keen to get started on a wind turbine of my own.

Day iv : Turbine Maintainance in the Sun

Today was an interesting day, we got to Zorritos in the morning and I got my first sight of a wind turbine here in Peru. The park consists of three 10kW turbines located on a hill above the "Cristoforus Columbus Hotel" which it also powers, which is convinient as it also provides us with a place to stay.

After dumping our bags and meeting up with another WindAid employee, Snr. Abel we headed straight up to the turbines where Fernando and Snr. Abel inspected some stuff on the control screen of each turbine, while I took pictures.

Then we ate breakfast and chilled by the pool while it digested, after which they used a hydraulic pump to drop one of the turbines to have a closer look. After opening it up we could see that there was a leak in the hydraulic fluid used in the turning and braking mechanisms of the turbine. The leak was a result of a poorly installed seal for one of the screws, so we headed down to Zorritos to pick up a replacement. After buying a few spares at a local hardware store we stopped by a cafe on the beach to grab a bite to eat, and drink some chiche - a local drink made from purple corn.




After walking the food off on the beach where we got to see birds and men alike out to catch some fish, we took a taxi back to the site, fitted the new seal, cleaned up the mess and raised the turbine. The next thing to check was a little house 200m from the towers where the batteries, inverters and distribution set up is housed. Here I got a valuable insight into one of the many challenges Windaid faces in Peru, as due to lack of checking and upkeep from the hotel, some of the electronics had been chewed up by what looked like rats. Thankfully it had still left the turbines able to operate, but showed the lack of effort made by the hotel to keep an eye on their energy supply - infact, the person trained by Fernando to maintain the equipment no longer works there, and no one had thought to replace him!

After that the rest of the day mainly consisted of resetting the automatic orientation systems of the turbines, and then observing if they aligned - which mostly, they didn't...

Day iii : A night bus to Zorritos.

Today was a pretty lazy day, it is Sunday after all! I woke up, not too early, to get my first experience of watching the football on the projector screen in the living room of the house. It turned out to be a good one with a good victory for (Manchester) United against Arsenal which keeps the pressure up on City, if (like me) you care.

Then I went to the bus station and managed to buy the last ticket for the night bus up to Zorritos, a town 60km south of the Ecuador border. Micheal suggested that I head up here for a few days with WindAid´s engineer, Fernando, who would be able to show me around Peru´s first wind park, installed and maintained by WindAid.

Before my bus I had a few hours to head up the coast to the nearby beach town of Huanchaco, where I had a couple of beers and enjoyed watching the local surfers practice for the up coming surfing competition.

Day ii: A Long Day´s Hiking in the Sun

Today I had been invited by Greg (one of the long-term volunteers) to join him and some of his friends from the Peace Corps on a walk to a nice waterfall, not too far from Trujillo. So crawling out of bed at about 5:30am I just about managed to make some eggs before meeting people at their hostel very close to the Plaza de Armas. From there we took some taxis to the bus station, then a bus to a place called Viru about an hour from Trujillo, where we joined some more people. Then we took a combi (minivan, sort of...) and a taxi to take us to the beginning of the trek, or so we thought. About half way there, and half way up a hill the combi broke down leaving us to walk the rest of the way to the waterfall.

The added journey time wasn´t so bad, despite the blaring sun, as it gave me a chance to chat to some of the others, and find out a little more about the what the Peace Corps does, and the sort of people that sign up. It was refreshing to talk to some people who are in a country like Peru, not just to have fun and take advantage of its rich culture (something I am certainly a little guilty of), but who also are making a real difference thought their various placements, and being placed here for 2 years a go will defiantly get to see  and experience many things well outside of the gringo trail.

After an extra 1-2 hours more than expected we arrived at the "beginning" of our hike. The path started out from a small village and roughly followed the path of a river, leading us up and down some small hills, through some farm land, and finally through a thick layer of vegetation pushed up against a sheer rock face. Finally we arrived at the waterfall, and although it wasn't what we were expecting, especially as the water ran to fast to jump in, it was nice to sit and chill for an hour or so. The walk back seemed a lot easier (as it always does), maybe helped by the fact that our ride was waiting at the bottom of the path. However we were disturbed to find that we were one person light when we got back, but, after a little panic and then walking back on the trail in search of her, she was found safe and sound by some local guys who pretty much ran half way back to the falls.

The journey back to Viru was just as eventful in the combi, we managed to pop a tyre and loose a hub cap, although we did arrive back in on piece, and in time to get a bus bas to Trujillo. It was defiantly a good day out, and a good initiation into the Peruvian sense of time, and distance, the sort of layed back attitude I´m sure I will grow into.

Day i : Arrival and a First Look at Trujillo.

So I arrived at about 9am after a very comfortable night bus from Lima, coutesy of Cruz del Sur. Micheal met me at the bus terminal and took me back to the house, giving me a very quick run down of how he ended up in Trujillo and a little bit of a primer on the city and the volunteer program ahead. After dumping my bag, a quick tour of the house, and some introductions, I headed out to explore Trujillo.


From the house it is roughly a 20min walk down the main road to the Plaza de Armas, where, I got a map and some information on the city's main sights from the very helpful staff at iPeru. After admiring some of the many colonial buildings around the centre of town I stopped off at the Archeology museum, which houses a number of different artifacts from the various cultures that have inhabited the region over the past 12,000 years. It was a very interesting museum although, as my Spanish still isn´t great I didn´t glean as much as perhaps I should, maybe it will be worth another visit towards the end when (hopefully) my Spanish will have improved.

Following my stomach I went down to the local supermarket "Wong" and stocked up on food and then headed back to the house to cook dinner, still enjoying the novelty of having a clean kitchen with a working oven. Then, tired from the excitement that follows a new day in a new city, I headed to bed early for some much needed rest.