Well, better late than never I hope ... time for Mike to join the party! I've been up to my neck in Uni work and marking, organising student shows and assessing presentations. Its all great fun but I never figured how hard it would be to try and get AF together while doing a full time job. Hence the fact its so near the deadline! Reeally stressful but at last its all coming together.
I've got two of these large anemometers made, which I've called 'Arpeggi'. They have been fabricated by a company in Plymouth, using spun alu hemispheres from Braziers in Birmingham. They'll have speakers facing into each hemisphere, bouncing the sounds out to the audience as they revolve. I spent a long time thinking about ways to use MP3 players and loud amps: batteries, slips rings: and then I thought it would be more in keeping with the spirit of the project to use solar oscillators like I did on my previous work, but just amplified with small audio amps through speakers. So, I've got some nice 3.6W amps/solar panels and solar circuits which will sit on panels halfway down each arm. All the wiring stays above the hub then - easy!
The hubs are dual bearing shiny loveliness, and the structure revolves very easily when pushed - so I hope its ok in the wind. I'm going to guy it down but actually its more secure than it looks - we had it spinning quite fast and its well balanced.
Here are a few more pics - the structure, the hub and testing the solar kit
On Monday the metalworkers are adding the speaker brackets, the fixings for the arms (which will sort out the hemispheres' crazy lean) and the alu panels for the solar kit, which I'll collect and wire up on Tuesday. Its finally looking good!
I've got two of these large anemometers made, which I've called 'Arpeggi'. They have been fabricated by a company in Plymouth, using spun alu hemispheres from Braziers in Birmingham. They'll have speakers facing into each hemisphere, bouncing the sounds out to the audience as they revolve. I spent a long time thinking about ways to use MP3 players and loud amps: batteries, slips rings: and then I thought it would be more in keeping with the spirit of the project to use solar oscillators like I did on my previous work, but just amplified with small audio amps through speakers. So, I've got some nice 3.6W amps/solar panels and solar circuits which will sit on panels halfway down each arm. All the wiring stays above the hub then - easy!
The hubs are dual bearing shiny loveliness, and the structure revolves very easily when pushed - so I hope its ok in the wind. I'm going to guy it down but actually its more secure than it looks - we had it spinning quite fast and its well balanced.
Here are a few more pics - the structure, the hub and testing the solar kit
On Monday the metalworkers are adding the speaker brackets, the fixings for the arms (which will sort out the hemispheres' crazy lean) and the alu panels for the solar kit, which I'll collect and wire up on Tuesday. Its finally looking good!
They look awesome Mike
ReplyDeleteKeep that weight down on the spheres as much as possible to allow light winds to do te job
Good luck
j