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Cheap chinese horizontal wind turbine, an in depth exploration.

So that 3 phase meter, is not going to help you much. It will tell you voltage, but not watts as you need a proper load for the wind generator to send some power to, and you don't have one. It's like figuring how how much horsepower your car engine makes by sitting in the driveway revving the engine.
Also, it's designed to measure AC at 50-60 hertz, and the hertz on that wind generator is going to vary all over the place as the wind speed changes, and may never be near 50-60 hertz. So that meter may not be accurate at all. Or it might be. Never know with this stuff.

I know of no good wind generator like this. Not even the quality brands ones. They all died on me in high winds, and produced nothing worth it in low winds. Solar panels have no moving parts and last 25 years +, so I went that way.

6 months ago, a neighbor put up a small generator to charge his RV battery. On windy days, I could hear it from my place a half mile away, when I was indoors. But on the last wind storm, I didn't hear it, so I think it died. Or someone got tired of the racket it made and shot it.

The good part about it flinging off a blade, as they tend to do it in high storm winds. You generally are not outside then. However, it's still a game of lawn darts with anything in the area.

Chris above posted a great screen shot on how a 3 phase bridge rectifier works. You can built that with a few parts, and connect it to a 12V car battery and measure DC amps (assuming that meter does DC amps), while spinning it with a drill. That will give you a good idea on what it can make.
 
I must apologize that I can not give any more details. My houshold has a 3 x 25 amp grid mains connection. This enables us to to hook up more heavy loads like my eheater or my EV car which can draw up to 11kw.. the eheater at 15kw runs for a while but then as soon as I look at the oven (+- 3kw) one or more phases get circuit broken.

I will admit that my breaker panel looks like the inner parts of a Chernobil reactor.. To clean it up will be another thread.

From the style of breakers used, looks like Europe or rest of world, not U.S.
Sounds like you have 220/380V "Y" 3-phase service

I must admit you have lost me there :( I have no real grasp yet on how to interpret that.

Your heater is probably 3, 5kW elements, each running at 380V. You can connect 1, 2, or 3 each across 2 phases of 3-phase service for 5kW, 10kW, 15kW.
Possibly, each goes between neutral and one 220V phase.

Go ahead and connect the three elements in a delta across 3 wires from the wind turbine.
For less load, connect them as a "Y" with all three elements connecting one wire to each other, other wire of each element to the three wires from turbine.

There are other ways you could wire it to fewer wires, not loading all phases at the same time but presenting less load.

Measure resistance of each element first; then by measuring voltage you can compute current (volts/ohms) and watts (volts x amps)

Watts is also calculated as (volts x volts / ohms) which is why I used voltage squared to calculate wattage of the heater at 60V from alternator.

Consider getting a DMM with clamp AC/DC ammeter. You won't need DC for these first tests, but handy for DC after rectifier, battery, PV.
I paid $100 for one from Harbor Freight with 1000A/600A/60A scales. Resolution is 0.01A. It also has AC inrush mode for starting motors.
I've seen cheaper (even more) no-name models. The better names are more expensive.
 
I changed the title of this thread to "Cheap chinese wind turbine, an in depth exploration." as to make it more obvious to others what this thread is about.
 
From the style of breakers used, looks like Europe or rest of world, not U.S.
You are right, I am near Amsterdam
Go ahead and connect the three elements in a delta across 3 wires from the wind turbine.

regarding the eheater
eheater.jpeg

Shall I cut the grey cable and expose the wires?

Your heater is probably 3, 5kW elements,
I believe you might be right, I can see 6 heating elements inside.
eheater front.jpeg
 
This is what you need or something like it to hook the wind turbine to the battery. This would go near the battery. However the voltage is a bit high for Lifepo4.
just purchased that one, hopefully it is here on 4 november
 
today the wind is picking up in speed. wind season is coming ;)

I am considering getting another turbine and rewiring the stator to increase it's capacity. would that be done by using thinner (than the current copper diameter) emabled copper and using more turns than currently?
 
Shall I cut the grey cable and expose the wires?

Right where the wire goes into the plug is threaded on, just unscrew that and the 2 screws you see when you're looking at the pins. The pins and wires will slide out. No sense destroying something if you don't have to. :)
 
today the wind is picking up in speed. wind season is coming ;)

I am considering getting another turbine and rewiring the stator to increase it's capacity. would that be done by using thinner (than the current copper diameter) emabled copper and using more turns than currently?

No. That will increase the voltage, not necessarily current. I suggest doing some research on motor and generator construction as it's more complicated then I want to post here.
 
hahhaha yes indeed ;) good point

Can you get a socket for the plug to mate with?
That would keep the heater intact, so it could plug into the wall or the wind turbine circuit.

5 pins - could be "Y" configuration of L1, L2, L3, N with neutral at center of "Y", plus ground. Check it out with an ohm meter.

Since wind turbine will have just L1, L2, L3 but no neutral, only the 10kW and 15kW settings would connect at least two wires and present load.
Approximately 160W and 250W is my estimate. If wind doesn't spin it fast enough, slower and less wattage.

By rewiring internally the heater could be used for a few other wattage loads on the turbine, but probably not worth bothering with.
Unless you wanted to map out volts/amps depending on load, while testing with steady wind.
I used a few heaters as test load for PV panels, because I didn't have an electronic tester.
 
5 pins - could be "Y" configuration of L1, L2, L3, N with neutral at center of "Y", plus ground. Check it out with an ohm meter.
;) once I know how to I will if still relevant by that time ;) please keep the suggestions coming though. I really am thankful.

Can you get a socket for the plug to mate with?
That would keep the heater intact, so it could plug into the wall or the wind turbine circuit.
Right where the wire goes into the plug is threaded on, just unscrew that and the 2 screws you see when you're looking at the pins. The pins and wires will slide out. No sense destroying something if you don't have to.
I'll have to go with getting a female 380v plug as for the life of me I can't seem to figure out how to open that damned male plug. It looks like it is one solid thing yet I do believe my, RIP, elec engineer made this cable with both plugs.

If I can make it today that would be great, otherwise I'll do it tomorrow.

I'll keep updating
 
;) once I know how to I will if still relevant by that time ;) please keep the suggestions coming though. I really am thankful.

One pin is fatter than the other four. My guess that is ground.

With an ohm meter, measure resistance between each pair of pins. That'll be 4 + 3 + 2 + 1 = 10 measurements.
Measure from each pin to metal frame of heater (my guess is just fatter pin connects.)

I'll have to go with getting a female 380v plug as for the life of me I can't seem to figure out how to open that damned male plug. It looks like it is one solid thing yet I do believe my, RIP, elec engineer made this cable with both plugs.

Plug appears to have a threaded nut on the back.
It has two Philips screws on the pin side.

But easier to buy a socket (maybe)
It looks like #5 in this Museum of Obsolete Sockets


If not available, you might select a different mating pair of plug & socket. Could be as few as 2 contacts, but then you'd only get one power setting.
I could set up a circuit of switches between 3 wires from turbine, 4 wires from heater, and be able to present a variety of loads (plus short circuit for brake.)
 
I got the female plug in the meantime and 1m of 5x4mm2 cable (apearanlty using 2.5mm2 is not up to regulation ;) and they were reluctant to sell me that for this scenario.)

I can't continue right now as baby sitting time is due. One day I hope my now 3 year old will actually know more about this all then I ever will.

Anyway, I'll be sure to update once I proceed, which will be tomorrow. After that the wind will be much less and then it is like sitting on your d*$k unable to proceed ;(
But rest assured, more days with high wind to come.
 
I would not just buy 6 diodes and connect it to a battery directly.
this might be interesting indeed. with full bridge rectifiers would I be able to combine multiple AC wind turbines and create a much larger DC power? ahh no that would not make sense as I already settled upon an 48 volt battery bank. Or does the combining of multiple turbines using rectifiers produce more amps and not volts.

grrr. how I which I started learning about these things when I was still young and had more time ;(
 
this might be interesting indeed. with full bridge rectifiers would I be able to combine multiple AC wind turbines and create a much larger DC power?
I am Out of my league on that one. Not enough engineering classes.

I’m not sure if your Amazon has it our not, but this book:

"A Wind Turbine Recipe Book."

has a peek inside to see if its worth the cost or not. It the book I took the links from. It tells you perfectly how to build a windmill with everything you need to know including a question asked earlier about thinner wire, but after the turbine is built, touches on the rest like the charge controller and breaking.
 
this might be interesting indeed. with full bridge rectifiers would I be able to combine multiple AC wind turbines and create a much larger DC power? ahh no that would not make sense as I already settled upon an 48 volt battery bank. Or does the combining of multiple turbines using rectifiers produce more amps and not volts.

grrr. how I which I started learning about these things when I was still young and had more time ;(

With a rectifier on each wind turbine, yes. They would all be parallel at the battery, so it would be more amps.
You can make your own rectifier for cheap if you want to test. I would not do this long term.

 
great, I'll keep the going The DC route on the table then.

In the meantime I figured out how to remove the plug from my eheater and have the 5 wires exposed (green/yello, black, blue, brown and grey) so that trip to the elec shop for a female connector was not needed in the end :(

I have 3 wires coming from the turbine. To which of the 5 eheater wires shall I connect them?
I'll set the eheater in 5kw mode as I believe setting it any higher would be too much resistance for the turbine and it would never start rotating. Does that make sense?
 
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