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Why why why does my wind turbine not spin

T

texasjames

New Member
Joined
Jul 16, 2023
Messages
23
Location
Austin, texas
This is going to sound rediculous.....i bought a brand new 400 watt wind turbine and set it up. The thing NEVER turns. I can very lightly push it with my finger and it rotates just fine. But up on the pole it never turns. He's a video of it in heavy winds:

Will not spin

suggestions? Thoughts?
 
1715931463995.png

Wow.... @sunshine_eggo nailed it.

You could unhook the wires, cap them off an reinstall it, then see if it spins.

I have a similar wind turbine at my place. Didn't even bother to run wires to it but it is in a wide open area. It spends most of it's time struggling to even be decent wind vane let alone spin. But to be honest I really enjoy watching it spin when it does so it was $115 well spent.

During some super high wind days I've driven my 36v golf cart up next it and played around with charging 2 of the 6V batteries (12v) and the most I've even seen it do for more that a few seconds was 3 amps but even that's limited to 20 seconds or less. Every once in a while it would hit 7 amps but that was less than a second.
 
the proximity of the roof is causing turbulence. I have the same issues, and a taller mast is in its future. Placement should not be near any buildings, Mine is between two barns, so I use the funnel effect of the wind between the buildings to spin it, but that only works for winds coming from the south or north, a strong westerly wind wont budge the blades at all. Your sloped roof is deflecting wind from that direction and 180 degrees from that as the wind builds up and over the building, higher than your turbine.
 
another really dumb question....
After your battery is charged and you disconnect it....what happens with the energy being produced by the turbine with no load connected?
texasjames said:
This is going to sound rediculous.....i bought a brand new 400 watt wind turbine and set it up. The thing NEVER turns. I can very lightly push it with my finger and it rotates just fine. But up on the pole it never turns. He's a video of it in heavy winds:

Will not spin

suggestions? Thoughts?
Click to expand...
 
texasjames said:
another really dumb question....
After your battery is charged and you disconnect it....what happens with the energy being produced by the turbine with no load connected?
Click to expand...

For wind, you need what is called a dump load, otherwise, the blades can over rev and destroy the unit.

Likely not an issue for your installation though.
 
Solar Guppy said:
For wind, you need what is called a dump load, otherwise, the blades can over rev and destroy the unit.

Likely not an issue for your installation though.
Click to expand...
I believe that turbine and many others are a clone of the original AIR 403. 400 watts 3 blades.

Their literature did state that they didn't need a dump load due what they called "acoustic speed limiting". I may not be getting the wording exactly right but what it meant is that at high wind speeds the blades could deflect enough this spoiling thier lift which made them really noisy. Noise = energy being dumped

My little turbine has been running for months not hooked up to anything. I guess we can't upload videos here but I've got a 3 second video of it spinning wildly with those trees in the background bending way over.


1716058426851.png
 
sunshine_eggo said:
Some have brakes as well. IIRC, shorting the output leads together notably limits the top speed of the turbine.



:ROFLMAO:
Click to expand...
I have it hooked to a small controller that came with the unit and the output from the controller runs to a car battery. I've tried it connected to the battery and also unconnected. The thing never, ever turns. Is it possible the controller is doing some kind of "brake"? I'm about to give up trying to get the wind to turn this thing.
 
sunshine_eggo said:
Not necessarily a good analogy. The load on a wind turbine limits the speed of a wind turbine. In high winds, without a dump load or rotor brake, the wind turbine can overspeed.

Extreme example:

Click to expand...
Brake failure. Almost none of these large scale wind turbines use diversion loads (other than dumping into grid and shutting down other power stations). It's very good for small turbines though.
 
texasjames said:
I have it hooked to a small controller that came with the unit and the output from the controller runs to a car battery. I've tried it connected to the battery and also unconnected. The thing never, ever turns. Is it possible the controller is doing some kind of "brake"? I'm about to give up trying to get the wind to turn this thing.
Click to expand...

Disconnect from the controller and see. I'm still sticking with a poor installation that prevents quality airflow to spin the turbine.
 
texasjames said:
Very windy today. I thought "at last....i'll see it spinning..."

Click to expand...

Why? It's clearly in horribly turbulent airflow installed at too low a height in a horrible location. It would probably perform better INSIDE the house as at least it's not getting periodically whipped around, and you can have fun spinning it by hand to generate some mW.
 
Howdy neighbor.

There is only sadness in wind.

A single panel is going to dramatically outperform that turbine.

Day in/day out. No moving parts. Better in almost every domain.
 
Looks like it's spinning.... about the yaw axis. Sorry, couldn't help myself. That thing has got your number.

I'm going to tie a piece of fabric like that on mine and see how it acts when it's spinning. Good idea! It certainly does tell the story in your case.

There's a quote by Marcellus Jacobs saying something like his "wind turbines were so efficient at catching all the wind you could stand behind the rotor and smoke a cigarette". I don't think that's what your little turbine is doing.

The below link will take you to a great article on small wind.

Wind Power History: Marcellus Jacobs Interview​


1716927086655.png
 
Last edited:
sunshine_eggo said:
It looks like you have it nestled in an area where it doesn't actually get much wind, or where the wind is so turbulent, it never drives the turbine.

They need to be installed at least 30' above ground and outside of the influence of structures, trees, etc.
Click to expand...
More than just that, the rule of thumb is 30' above the tallest obstacle within 200'. So it needs to be above the tops of those trees....
 
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