We Are Solar and Wind Powered

[Solar98632]

We are Now Officially to be wind and solar powered with less of dependence on the PUD Grid.

As you know my family has been hard at work creating our own grid.
We Just recently Purchased a 400 watt wind turbine. which will tie us over until we can afford the 1,000 watt unit that we really want.

We get some good winds through out the day Or I should say we did..Now that we purchased the turbine, they seemed to have..Vanished .

[Solar98632]

I am unable to Post the Pictures of the 2 charge controllers.
It comes with one but there are 2 different styles.

And Who knows it may not be any of these Shown?
a Third Charge controller does not match the description of a "black" MPPT Charge Controller

[Solar98632]

I think I can safely rule out the First Picture as it is not "Black"

[Solar98632]

We got the system up and running, well sorta, it seems that after putting it up, the wind has all but vanished, what Video I got on You Tube of it Working was from a few rare blasts we got that had lasted 1 minute each.

it seems that the "Nacelle". "Beeps"
These beeps seem to indicate that there is a smart circuit inside the turbine its self which controls the breaking and other electronics it uses to communicate to the controller.
Once the batteries are fully charged, the Nacelle's Circuits activate a breaking mechanism to prevent an over charge.
in high winds it will slow the turbine's Sails.

So in Winds of at 110 MPH, it breaks and cuts power to the charge controller so it does not over spin.

It is a very effective breaking system. The breaks are released once the batteries drop below a certain point.

Today, I had the turbine take off but then it applied its breaking system as it sensed the batteries were charged.

it came to a stop pretty fast in the low winds.

I am in the midst of "Breaking in the bearings"

The machine is a bit tight and a tad sluggish so it takes a pretty good gust of 10 to 12 MPH to get the blades to maintain a spin after hand starting.

This is something that people may want to take in to consideration before thinking something is a failure or not.
This unit came with a 2 year warranty from the manufacture.

The bearings are made in Japan.

This is the Marine unit which means it is built to remain out doors and is weather proof.

From what I read, some turbines are for temporary use for like camping and do not have a marine coating.

This is designed for the elements.

I have also been researching YouTube, apparently ; PVC type blades can explode, Metal blades are ok but there are issues with them as they may corrode.

Then you have the different blade shapes, some do better in low winds.

This is a Tri blade, which means it sails are designed to for winds 7 to 28 MPH for normal run.

its max out put I think is 400 watts at winds speeds of 28 MPH.

One thing I know I do not need is a dump Load as it uses 3 phase A/C.

the Charge Controller gives you a read out in Watts.
The Charge Controller in its self is second brain of the unit.

when the batteries are topped off the blade goes in to stop mode and the red light flashes slowly.

this is to let you know that hey, the blade is not spinning or is in low spin mode.

a Steady red light, that is something to worry about. means something has failed some where.

its max rotation speed is 14,000 rpms.

Now you might want to think about that for a sec .
14,000 rpms is about 1/4 of the speed of a helicopters tail rotor..I think..Feel free to correct me if I am wrong.

At any rate, those carbon based blades will slice and dice you with out any issue
they are black and difficult to see when they spin up.

the blades have a 2.5 feet or 3 feet radius.

Yes this Turbine does have "Slip Rings." so it can spin in any direction.

I had to warn two people standing my yard, they had better step back in case that "Turbine's sails catch wind".
Because it will amputate.and if not, it will leave a pretty good size gash.

not to mention the mess it would leave behind for me to clean up.

[Solar98632]

I would like to talk about a weakness no one seems to talk about in MPPT controllers.
Well with regards to wind turbines.

I have noticed on days where winds are fluctuating between 0 an 15 mph, it appears that MPPT controllers have a hard time.

Yesterday was just such a day.

While we are breaking in the bearings I figured I'd keep it low for now as it is a bit stiff and won't spin up in 7mph winds.

So, let's say we get a gust of wind at 15 to 20 mph but it only lasts for...oh let's say 2 seconds literally.

The MPPT can not seem to get a track to start charging.

I know noticed as the blade rotation comes to a rest, it will beep in the nacell.

Yes, this thing has an audio beep.

Not as to why it beeps..what good is a set of beeps when it is 10 feet or higher in the air?

At any rate...so, I am awaiting for a wind storm to come...before I post any thing more.

Also, we have one victim that fell pray to the turbine. ..A ....Wasp..yup..seen 8th as it happen.
Sliced right in half.
It did a nose dive and hit the grass.

You could hear the strike..

What is more interesting is it looked like it tried to correct it's path before hitting the turbine..but it was to late.

[Solar98632]

I would like to post an update:
We have en using our wind turbine for a while now.
We have brought in 253 watts once and that was due to some gusty winds.

We are now adding to our battery bank.

I noticed an odd thing with our charge controller.
I guess MPPt units are a tad touchy as to with other charging units.
This unit blinks as it senses other charger unit..well it senses any charger and the green light starts flashing..wierd.

We're able to power 300 watts 9 our 6 he panels. On full sunny days.

And that is at temperatures of 96 to 100+ .

We can run off grid for 4 hours a day .
We just got a security system installed so we may mount some panels in the front yard.

Troy, I am not sure what is happening to your channel.
Not sure if you been hacked or not but there has been some comments like "I been dreaming of that saw"..I mean some comments that aren't you or doesn't seem to be you.

Unless you knew it was coming lol.

I also haven't seen many of the old subscribers visiting like molly dolly.

[techman]

Hi,

I have not been hacked. There are multiple copycat accounts that look just like mine. I have filed complaints with YT but they are slow and dont seem to care since they now allow exact copies of a channel now anyway.

I think that an MPPT charge controller may need a steady wind in order to track the voltages. It may not be able to handle short spurts and gusts of wind. That is my guess.

And you will realize that you may never see the full rated output of your wind turbine. These are absolute maximum values in super high and steady winds in a lab.