Pre Checks:

The turbine itself is rated at 400watts, and arrived boxed, as shown in the above picture. It does require a certain amount of basic assembly of the blades. This makes sense, as you could not transport them with the blades attached for fear of damage. However, in thinking this through, there would be no point in me assembling the unit if I too could not place it in position immediately, so before doing anything with the turbine you need to:

• decide how and where the turbine should be mounted (standalone, connected to wall, etc)
• acquire a suitable turbine pole (20ft) from a local steelworks company. Cost will be appx EUR45 delivered.
• check that the shaft of the turbine will fit into the pole - if not you will need to obtain a pole bushel to reduce the diameter (required as I could only obtain a 48.3mm galvanized steel pole, not 45mm as in the manual).
• check you have suitable drill bits (3mm,4mm,5mm,6mm) as the pole will need to be drilled to accept the turbine screws
• check how the cables will be run from the turbine to the controller, size the cable run and get 4 lengths of 6mm square stranded panel wire - three can be the same colour and get one green/yellow one appx 30 feet longer than the other 
• check you have a tall enough extension ladder - I had to buy a new one!
• buy enough heavy duty guy wire, cable ties, ground pegs, cement and turnbuckles from a large hardware DIY shop (such as Woodies DIY) if you intend to stand the pole on its own. You will still need some guy cables anyway even if you are mounting to a wall, gable end etc.
• drive 2 earth rods into the ground in a suitable location, one to protect the batteries and inverters, the other to protect the turbine pole from lightning.

Positioning The Turbine:

For my project I intended to place the pole at the gable end of the garage wall. For this I purchased large heavy duty offset wall brackets - I was able to get 4 of them from a satellite installer, because I could not find them anywhere else. They cost EUR37 each, and are 18" versions to allow for the roof overhang. To fix them I used size 10M rawl bolts. I needed a 16mm masonry drill bit for this, but these bolts really do give the firmest connection. The sleeve of the bolt is pushed/tapped into the hole (very gently), and then you screw the bolt through the bracket into the hole and tighten. 

The manual that comes with the system does describe installing the pole with guy wires - if that is what you intend to do then you won't have to worry about offset wall brackets. Naturally every installation will be slightly different, depending on site conditions etc. The manual also describes how to assemble the blades so there is little point in reciting it here, save to point out that you need to apply sideways pressure when fixing the main blade holder to the shaft of the turbine otherwise the nut will not tighten!

Here are the pictures showing the offset wall brackets, the 48.5mm pole and the turbine itself secured by the 4 offset wall brackets and 3 guy wires. This may appear to be over engineered but given a turbine weight of appx 15kgs and well documented cases of tower collapse leading to turbine damage, I was being very careful to size accordingly.  You can see two of the guy wires are fixed to the wall and the third is ground fixed using six bags of gravel, 2 bags of cement and a lot of sweat and tears. You can also just about make out the close proximity of two offset brackets in the second picture - this was to ensure maximum support at the higher end, where most of the pressure will be.

Renewable Store Room:

I designated a storeroom in the garage as my "renewable room", and ran the 4 cables (3 for the turbine plus the earth cable) from outside back to the room. I used plastic rounded ducting whenever the cables were travelling outside. Then I aligned the turbine shaft into the pole and checked that it fitted, and marked and drilled the 4 holes for securing the turbine. This is well documented in the manual.

Final Turbine Connections:

Finally I ran the 3 turbine cables up the inside of the pole, and connected them to the turbine, pushed the turbine shaft down onto the pole and secured with the 4 nuts provided. I then covered the holes with silicone to prevent moisture ingress, and got 3 friends to help with the lifting of the pole into position. And believe me, with a pole weight of appx 20kgs and turbine of 15kgs, you need plenty of hands at the ready to hoist the structure. Once in position it was secured using the wall brackets, and I snipped a portion of the earth cable and used this to connect the pole to one of the earth rods using a jubilee clip. The remaining earth cable coming from the battery store was then connected to the other earth rod. Again I used plastic ducting to protect the cabling.

Inside, I crimped the 3 turbine cables to cable lugs and connected to the SP800w wind/solar controller, as instructed in the manual. For clarity here is a picture of the charge controller used with the system.  

The top three connections are the ~vac cables coming from the turbine. There is a brake button on the controller which stops the turbine blades from turning and while the system is being set up it is a good idea to have this brake in the "on" position until everything is properly secured. The middle connections are for the solar input, and the bottom connections go to the batteries.

Now lets have a look at how the solar panels have been installed next..