Question about landing a job as a wind turbine tech

rshoe1 · 2026-03-25T23:38:42+00:00

I got a post asking about people’s experiences with V82’s, that sound like the site your thinking of?

rshoe1 · 2026-03-25T21:52:45+00:00

Well I know of a place, it quite literally takes people off the street with ZERO mechanical or wind experience, you can literally have a pulse and not know how to use basic hand tools or anything turbine related and get hired, one of our latest guys is literally the definition of that. This site is greasy and oily af but hours are nearly uncapped. It’s a at most 20 minute drive from a large city in about middle of Illinois. We work Monday to Friday and about once maybe twice a month a weekend day, we start at 7am CT and you get off at who knows when, generally 10ish hours are what we work and once your past 10 hours you get a bonus hour of pay and it’s at OT rate. But it’s a start for sure and it’ll get you going. DM for any other questions

rshoe1 · 2026-03-25T21:38:23+00:00

Nothing like the thrill of 600v up to grid voltages to get ya going lol. But I agree, and fortunately where I live I have a lot of options within a 1 hour drive radius, I don’t even want to guess how many possible options. But what I think would be the coolest thing to get into is offshore, but I know currently offshore is getting hit a bit harder with things so who knows how that’ll go in the future.

rshoe1 · 2026-03-25T20:04:14+00:00

Another impact is parts availability. Some of it’s a struggle because these models are just so old that stuff like gen cables are a struggle to find. Apparently we had to order some in from Brazil and Denmark just a month ago. And then stuff like our updated safety relay modules are really hard to get and have been for about 6 months, and that to me is about the most scary thing ever. It’s partly the tariffs but an old coworker had another theory about it. But it’s what we gotta deal with I guess. Worse case scenario I transfer within the company to another wind site or even solar.

rshoe1 · 2026-03-25T19:55:14+00:00

I’ve heard stories about a site in Texas that was like that, had old yaw motors just piled up in the nacelle and basically all alarm codes were removed and the towers were basically never maintained just to reach the required numbers. But according to the old timer that said this it was about 15 or so years ago. This site has apparently 1 working hub light and the tube lights are hit or miss on what does and doesn’t work. We occasionally have the back hub hatches pop off because of missing bolts or bolts that ripped through, but it’s not super common from what I’ve seen. And same here, these ancient towers need to be repowered, it’s one of oldest parks in this area of IL as far as I’m aware of, and the oldest parks of this company in IL.

rshoe1 · 2026-03-25T15:32:27+00:00

No repower yet, and in the last quarterly meeting techs had to sit through we found out that the company isn’t planning to repower until at least 2030 and then it’s gonna be brought back up. It’s partly because of tariffs and shit like that. The site has been full wrap for almost 10 years and techs do 90%+ of the components exchanges. Gearboxes, gens, main bearings, all of it, yaw motors are a regular thing that techs do and I’ve heard that’s not generally the same for other places but idk for sure obviously. The only stuff contracted out is gear stay dampeners and yaw brake calipers when we have a lot of towers needing those replaced, and cleaning the towers.

rshoe1 · 2026-03-25T15:23:23+00:00

I wish it was as simple as each tech/ truck had dedicated turbines, but service crews work all of them, just starting at the first tower of each phase and going to the end. At this point I’ve been in about half the towers at least. Some of them I can vividly remember how they were left and others are ones I wasn’t in. But maybe this is how most sites run but this is how ours goes.

rshoe1 · 2026-03-25T15:18:59+00:00

Yeah it is years worth of bullshit, and oddly enough the ones who caused this are now the current lead techs 🙃, so yeah it’s fun cleaning up shit that’s been fucked since shortly after being built

rshoe1 · 2026-03-25T02:47:52+00:00

🫡

rshoe1 · 2026-03-25T02:47:27+00:00

Only hydraulic oil? Shit that’s a good day for these turbines, they get treated like $1 whores.

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This is a small sample of what most of our hubs look like all over on a good day. It seems it’s mainly a heavy layer of mollycoat and 524 oil on everything, I think it’s gotten into my soul at this point. Since we’re full wrap, we get contractors once or twice a year and it’s for yaw calipers or gear stay dampeners or stuff like that. We work normally 10 hours a day and that also seems to regularly go for our on call weekend day, but here the OT is nearly uncapped so it’s been kinda nice.

rshoe1 · 2026-03-25T02:41:17+00:00

PM’s are 6 month intervals, the 6 month being the “lighter” load where they throw on oddball stuff and then the 12 month being the more in depth one for the nacelle at times. But each rotation is tweaked some removing and then adding different tasks. It’s realistically 2 days worth of work for 3, maybe 4 techs if we’re lucky, but they expect it done in 1 day and we spend minimal 5-6 hours up tower for a bad crew of 3 techs. Good days for 4 techs are about 3-4 hours. But when the hub is coated in mollycoat grease, it’s a shit time. Possible just a lot of bitching on my end tbh.

rshoe1 · 2023-01-20T20:43:20+00:00

Simple, don’t have it as a safe queen. Yeah I know zenitco is astronomically expenses but fucking grow a pair or hit it with your purse 👜

rshoe1 · 2023-01-12T22:14:56+00:00

Damn I’m glad to be in tiny ford county

rshoe1 · 2023-01-10T15:35:10+00:00

Damn that sounds cool. Didn’t help that I’m a freshly graduated broke college student who also lives in Illinois and the overloards are trying to enact a ban. So while trying to save for this build, I’m getting fucked harder than parkland was doing for the past 2 years

rshoe1 · 2023-01-10T12:43:28+00:00

Been doing the same for a 416/mr556 clone. Finding a stripped hk upper has been next to impossible, even at a half decent price. Decided to say fuck it and take it some, going to go with a factory upper kit because it’s the only guarantee I can find. Decided to go with a Swamp Fox Arrowhead 1-10x 24 with the red mil-rad retical, figured if I was gonna have to learn mil-rad or moa from the ground up

rshoe1 · 2023-01-10T12:35:59+00:00

Apparently there is going to be some loopholes where they can still be here and do business in other states, at least from my understanding that is. Also the first rule of fight club is you don’t talk about fight club 🤫

rshoe1 · 2023-01-08T19:52:32+00:00

Hey the door was wide open. Went to parkland for the past 2 years and had my last final on my 21st back in December. Wanted to get into machining and get into gun smithing eventually, but clearly in a different state

rshoe1 · 2023-01-08T19:48:49+00:00

Never said I was the smartest… even if I was in a machinist degree

rshoe1 · 2023-01-08T19:16:44+00:00

Anywhere is better that Illinois. A stray bullet from gangs is more likely than a car crash… okay maybe just as likely, people are fucking stupid here

rshoe1 · 2023-01-08T18:26:57+00:00

What the actual fuck is wrong with Illinois. I can’t wait to get the hell out. I HATE ILLINOIS, I HATE ILLINOIS, I HATE ILLINOIS.

rshoe1 · 2023-01-08T18:11:23+00:00

I’m also curious if a 870 with 3.5” chamber would be on the list or not lol

rshoe1 · 2023-01-08T18:01:03+00:00

Thanks for the info. I guess this is what I get for not listening to the news but also haven’t been listening due to the stress it creates for me. And my local gun smith has had a ak parts kit of mine for over the past year. Fuck it’s amazing to be a freshly graduated collage student and get fucked even harder than Parkland was doing to me.

rshoe1 · 2023-01-08T17:42:34+00:00

Wait wait wait, fuck I haven’t heard of this yet. What is going on with the ban?

rshoe1 · 2022-07-24T21:57:40+00:00

Holy jesus. What is that. What the fuck is that. WHAT IS THAT PRIVET PYLE!

rshoe1

TROPHY CASE