Well, I took the contraption down to the Port, where there was a solid 15+ knots of wind oscillating through about 15-20 degrees. I'm sad to say, that the brake cable linkage friction almost completely prevented the system from functioning at all. It would "move"...when the blade was practically perpendicular to the wind, if you waited 10, 20 seconds for it to finally slip and GO. The wind vane itself is phenomenal. It's extremely sensitive and I think significantly more powerful than the old vane on my Naviks. However, the cable friction...no.
Not acceptable. OK, so that's the end of experimentation with the bicycle brake cables. Now I have extra cables and housing for my bike. **eyeroll**
I was down there from 1:00 - 2:00
Attachment 5368
This iteration of the linkage uses half the cable housing of what I had originally concocted, but that wasn't enough. I was right in guesstimating the amount I wanted, to allow for rotating the vane though 360 degrees without binding the cables, but it didn't matter.
Attachment 5369
Next up...PTFE cable housing liberally sprized with Tri-Flow teflon, with .080 in wede-whacker monofilament running in it. There are two, 6 foot bits of it hanging on 15 pound weights in my garage right now, to "assist" them in "forgetting" the tightness of the spool they were sold in.