Charge and dump load controller for DIY wind turbine

[lufihengr]

I’m coming up with not many options for a wind turbine controller. Many recommend either a Midnite, Xantrex or Morningstar controller, but all seem to be not really available in europe. At least not without a huge markup.

I don’t understand why I couldn’t use a victron solar MPPT charge controller and have it control a diversion/dump load via the load or virtual load output.

So wind turbine -> rectifier -> victron mppt ->battery/dump load

I can wire up an arduino to sense voltage or rpm to lock up the turbine if wind is too much, but it doesn’t really get that bad here.

What am I missing?

Edit: I will be using 24V LFP battery, so those cheap chinese controllers also aren’t an option, as they seem to have a non-programmable charge voltage and cycle for lead batteries.

 

[OzSolar]

I don't know that answer for sure but I believe it has to do with both the variety of wind turbines and how quickly thier power and voltage can change. Whatever the answer is it probably has to do with wind being such a small market that Victron and others see it wind as more trouble than it's worth than what they'd get back in sales.

AFAIK the only way to do true MPPT with wind regardless of price is with a Midnite Classic and Clipper.

I don't think Xantrex and Morningstar are able to do MPPT charge controlling with wind. They can be used as dump load controllers so rather than limiting how much the turbine is producing they turn on a dump load at a programmable voltage to prevent the batteries from being overcharged.
Perhaps a Victron MPPT can do the same but I've never tried with it.

Also, it's important to understand if your turbine can freewheel in highwinds or is reliant on a dump load controller for overspeed protection. Lots of stories about wind turbines self destructing because the batteries are full and the dump load has no where else to put the power.

 

[lufihengr]

I don't know that answer for sure but I believe it has to do with both the variety of wind turbines and how quickly thier power and voltage can change. Whatever the answer is it probably has to do with wind being such a small market that Victron and others see it wind as more trouble than it's worth than what they'd get back in sales.

AFAIK the only way to do true MPPT with wind regardless of price is with a Midnite Classic and Clipper.

I don't think Xantrex and Morningstar are able to do MPPT charge controlling with wind. They can be used as dump load controllers so rather than limiting how much the turbine is producing they turn on a dump load at a programmable voltage to prevent the batteries from being overcharged.
Perhaps a Victron MPPT can do the same but I've never tried with it.

Also, it's important to understand if your turbine can freewheel in highwinds or is reliant on a dump load controller for overspeed protection. Lots of stories about wind turbines self destructing because the batteries are full and the dump load has no where else to put the power.

Thanks for the reply.

MPPT isn’t a requirement, PWM is fine. Power need is minimal, just some LED lights.

My design isn’t complete yet, but an RPM sensing brake is not too difficult to implement.

 

[Hogheavenfarm]

I am using something like this - cheap, but working fine. https://windandsolar.com/digital-440-amp-charge-controller-divert-relay/ I know there are 12v and 24 v versions. I run the dump into two 300w resistors. I programmed it to dump at 14.7v due to interference from my PowMr solar mppt, which also feeds that bank in parallel.