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Do 200w wind generators exist?

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wopachop

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Was hoping to find a cheesy little 12v wind turbine in the 100-200w range that would be physically small in size and could go on the roof of an RV.
Not finding very many options at all. Smallest i can find is 400w and its a bit too large for what i was picturing in my head.

I have solar and plan to add more. I need to start researching where to buy panels here in socal. Eventually plan to use this awesome site to build my own battery bank. I love to solder and used to mess around with lithium batteries for racing drones. Mostly its the cost why i havnt done it yet. I thought a $200 wind turbine might be a good option for now. Its windy almost every single day. Lots of people installed windmills for their homes 15 years ago before solar took off. Damn things are loud we hate them. Yet here i am looking to buy one now!!! The vertical turbines look interesting. Just wish there was a mini version of that.

Or maybe 100-200w is kind of pointless? Its sort of leaning that way. Especially if a 200w turbine doesnt exist. Getting a small charge at night would be nice in the winter so i can wake up and crank an electric heater before the sun starts charging. Or just build a large enough battery bank where that doesnt happen. Again its just the cost. I dont really "need" all that stored energy. Currently have (2) GC2s about 4 years old. Be fun to eventually switch to lithium and move the batteries inside.
 
Geez i searched amazon and alibaba several times.
Thanks will have to find some youtube vids and see how loud it gets.
 
I think a 100 watt or 200 watt wind turbine could have its uses, but I'm also convinced this could not be mounted to the rooftop of an RV.

I spent a bit of time looking at a wind RV install for my 5th wheel. A couple places I boondocked had winds that would be strong enough either a couple hours before dawn or a couple hours after sunset to generate electricity. My goals were 150 wh - 500 wh per day, which is realistic. My plans were to mount a pole through the trailer hitch on my pickup to hold the turbine. The thing that worried me the most about this project were the "lookey lous" and the curious that would come a little to close to the spinning turbine.

I also recommend going to a forum fieldlines.com to their wind section. This is the most active wind site I have found. As for the vertical wind turret, they don't seem to work as good as a normal wind turbine, so that's why there are not many.



I have only seen one small wind turbine for an RV, and this was mounted on a 4 foot pole wired about 20' from the RV, and the owner was not around to ask how the project was going.
 
Good point about getting clocked by the blades.
I need someone with 3D printer wizard skills to make an RV friendly wind turbine. Something that folds down easy for driving or if super high winds are predicted.
Totally guessing here. But if a 400w turbine was 1/4 the physical size that might just be small enough to roof mount.
 
You don't see many because in order to get useful power, they need to be 20 feet high no matter what.
 
This video was interesting. I dont think its unreasonable to mount one of these on an RV roof.
I skipped through it. I dont think he ever got usable power. Not sure why since the darn thing was spinning.

Sharing this because i think it proves there is not an insane amount of wind drag. Dude is awesome and used what looks like cheap thin tie downs and some plywood onto his Ford Exploder roof rack. High five to that guy!!!!

 
wopachop said:
I need someone with 3D printer wizard skills to make an RV friendly wind turbine. Something that folds down easy for driving or if super high winds are predicted.
Click to expand...
If you want to go build it yourself, the "A Recipe For a Wind Turbine" is a good step by step. Seems to require an insane amount of work though.

I hope you get something to work. For me, a few hundred watt hours a day would get me buy on the one or two times a year we get five very cloudy days of weather in a row per year in the cooler time of year I boondock at.
 
wopachop said:
This video was interesting. I dont think its unreasonable to mount one of these on an RV roof.
I skipped through it. I dont think he ever got usable power. Not sure why since the darn thing was spinning.

Sharing this because i think it proves there is not an insane amount of wind drag. Dude is awesome and used what looks like cheap thin tie downs and some plywood onto his Ford Exploder roof rack. High five to that guy!!!!

Click to expand...
Any energy gained from driving with a wind turbine on the roof is actually just burned gasoline. It would be more efficient to connect to the vehicle's electrical system directly.
 
Yeah to back up a bit i dont really plan to drive with a fan blowing in the air. Seemed cool until it didnt.
 
CoolWill said:
You don't see many because in order to get useful power, they need to be 20 feet high no matter what.
Click to expand...
Ive been thinking about this. Is there a density to wind? Does a 10mph windspeed at 20 feet high have more direct and forceful air molecules than a 10mph windspeed at ground level? I wonder if close to ground level you get wind bouncing around sideways and it slows down the blades.
 
That is a great video about wind power. In a hurricane you can only produce 5W. You can do better with a VW solar panel. Even just 20mph is a hell of a wind and most places don't have even that.
 
My 400watter will output 228w under gale force winds for a few seconds at a time. I think there's more value in adding another battery of equal cost to help "get through the night"

wopachop said:
Or maybe i might. Not sure. I want to buy one just to play with it.
Click to expand...

That was my plan, your mind won't rest until you do it, it brought a lot of delight to my young son who liked watching the blades spin. I would actually really like to try a 5-10 blade turbine, just for kicks
 
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I don't get why wind power is so non predictable. Run the system backwards and the power consumed to turn the blades is consistent right?
How can the wind turn the blades and not produce consistent predictable power for the RPM its spinning?
 
A really cheap one (and a great learning experience) can be had by building a turbine from an old direct drive washing machine motor. I have 7 blades on mine (to start at lower wind speeds, but drilled my hub to accept 5 or 3 for the summers) and it can run from late September to early April on windy days. Not sure of how many amps it can produce, but on a windy day it is throwing 15-105 volts at the controller. It is mounted very low (right now) at only 12 feet, but is located in a "wind funnel" so it runs on north-south winds but not east-west winds. It get up to 300 rpm and the blade diameter is just under 6 ft. It is charging two AGM batteries sitting in the barn that power a pond aerator and a 9w water heater during the winter. Our summers are usually pretty windless unless there is a storm, so it doesnt power anything in the summer, although I am ordering a few 100w solar panels to allow it to operate over the summer.
 
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