diy solar

diy solar

I want to play with the wind, recommendations?

If I went wind, I’d go with an AirPrimus. 100,000 units manufactured over decades, so the company must know what they’re doing.

I don’t think its an unreasonable goal to try to get a small percentage of power form wind, like 10%. Something reasonable, if your area permits it.

For my RV, I was in an area that had winds at night that could power a windmill, and my goal for what I tried (and DID NOT put together) was 150 wh - 250wh, something quite reasonable that could tide me through the night until the sun came back up in the morning. THat came out to be a wind turbine, mounted on a n elevated pole attached to a truck hitch. Pretending cost was not a factor, and it was pretty pricey, there were other things that stopped me like set up time, and something like that attracts attention and too many people to talk to.

THe cheaper kits you’re looking for, most of them are not original. Seems to be made by one manufacturer and relabeled with a different logo. Perhaps this is just normal marketing, but looking at reviews, I suspect that its not a good product, the company went under, and they reverted with a different logo. If you look around an E-Bay and Amazon you’ll see the kits I’m talking about.


I’d like to hear some of the stories behind this, like what broke them and how they got fixed.

I have not had the generators up in 10 years. I think one is an AirPrimus, or maybe what the company renamed themselves at one point. They look exactly like the ones I have. I did buy name brand units, not cheap ebay ones.

Generally, they just stop producing power. They will over speed and fling blades, or go into shutdown and spin slowly. The stator burning up was the common failure, but sometimes it was the regulator. I would climb the tower, bring it down, ship the entire thing off for repair. They repaired it and back up it would go, and die in the next storm with heavy winds.

With 3 of them up at one time, it became too much of a hassle to keep them going. When the last one died, I said screw it and took down the towers and just bought more solar.

I also didn't like the noise they make under heavy wind. It's loud and annoying. A neighbor got one of the same units last year to keep his RV battery charged. It's up on a 10 foot poll, a half mile away from me. I can still here it blowing the raspberry on stormy windy days. Even when I am inside. Thinking about it, it may have died as it was very windy last night and I didn't hear it.
 
I asked the question because its exactly the comparison I'm curious about.
That's my answer then. Running a gas generator a few times a year is less hassle then keeping the above small wind generators working, for my system.
I am in fact adding more solar so I don't have to run the generator. Used solar panels are cheap. I can get a full charge in 2 hours. That was very helpful yesterday as a storm came in the afternoon (lots of wind and rain), but I still managed to hit 100% full on the batteries.
 
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I have some resources I found along the way while tinkering with

As far as I understood from Rosie's video, who is an engineer in this field it seems.
VAWT of the darrieus (lift blade) type are the better choice over savonius (drag blade). Also a helix shape is superior over straight in terms of load distribution and reduced blade stresses. SHe goes into these aspect quite nicely in that video.
In the thread I posted (cheap chinese......) I dig into the alternator and my experiences with a horizontal one.

My conclusion is that one has to DIY an alternator and go for VAWT in an urban setting with high turbulence.

And that is exactly what I am going to do.

I'll make a thread in this sub forum about it when that time has come.
 
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the diameter of most VAWT seems small

*tan function agrees..
But a factor in it's potential is also the height. so if one has a 2 meter diameter (that is what is permitted by local regulations in my area) then one can still get more output if one makes it taller. I have about 3 meters to play with.

I think that with a proper alternator things can get very useful that way
 
Also I believe that VAWT are much less complicated in terms of shaft connection to the alternator.
Below is an image of my HAWT turbine nacelle and the hard to DIY nature of it. This is what one would not have when DIY'n a VAWT
1637734589273.png
 
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Looks cool , I’m in a very windy place and it would be great to have some over nite charging .
I can’t weight to see how it works out
 
So I was thinking, at my cabin I have an old TV antenna up on the roof that does precisely nothing, not even FM radio. I spend 6+ months at a time away from the camp and I was thinking to myself,

"Myself, I wonder if you could throw a small turbine up there to help keep the batteries topped up while you're at sea." (You talk to yourself a lot when at sea:) )

Now, I don't regularly deal with wind, and I'm going to be revamping my whole camp to a Real Size solar array and controller and wiring and such. My plan now is to use a couple of 100w solar panels that I already have up there and re-use my MPPT controller in parallel with the new system just to keep the batteries topped up.

If you were to recommend a Fisher Price My First Wind Turbine kit, what would you say I should go with?

The system is based on 24v FLA batteries, 360Ah "on paper" capacity if that makes a difference.

I figure a couple hundred watts would be plenty and small, and it would need the don't-fry-the-batteries-controller with it, but I have lots of wire.

Ideas? Be prepared for a LOT of n00b questions. :)
well here is my two cents.. worried about wind speed. go vertical .. this is 12v and in my mind pricey how ever no care needed once up

 
well here is my two cents.. worried about wind speed. go vertical .. this is 12v and in my mind pricey how ever no care needed once up

I strongly recommend against buying turbines if they do not come with a clear and upfront rmp vs output graph with warranties attached to it.
Also 2 feet is rather small and it does not specify how tall the turbine is.
 
I strongly recommend against buying turbines if they do not come with a clear and upfront rmp vs output graph with warranties attached to it.
Also 2 feet is rather small and it does not specify how tall the turbine is.
learning learning learning..
 
@Rednecktek I suggest you join my mission to create an alternator that does something useful.
 
Well there is reference to the Air 30/40 403 type units here. While ours are offline right now, we had a pair in service for fifteen years. They are nice in a better than medium low wind and helped recharge when solar was no use.
I must repair or replace now and am thinking of options...I read somewhere that you can't cheat the rule "most swept area wins"
 
I'm gonna resurrect an old thread here because my noodle got fired up again...

So, I've been thinking that small wind turbines are krap, and small VAWT's are krap compared to just getting more panels for most situations...

Well... I've been keeping an eye on RidgeBlade for a few years now, and watched videos about making turbines from junk and I want to re-explore this idea a bit.

Disclaimers:
Yes, I know it's not going to produce 1.21Jiggawatts between the trees at my camp.
Yes I know it's going to be a lot of work.
Yes I know there are products I can spend thousands of dollars and just buy.
Yes I know I need to explore what real wind I have to work with and run it through calculators to see what I could "reasonably" expect.
Yes I know it would be fun anyways so PTHBTHBTHBTHB!!!! ?
Yes I know everyone will say "Just get more solar!" but I'm over paneling my array by 20% now and most people don't understand just how worthless solar is in the PNW during fall, winter, and spring. Every watt helps!

So since treadmills and front load washers are pretty much free on Craigslist anywhere you go, I was thinking of cutting up a washing machine drum (since it has the heavier axle and bearings and I have grinders) and belting the pully to a DC motor from a treadmill (to get a nice gear ratio) then feeding that to an MPPT controller (not a Victron, I don't have that kind of cash) and seeing what I can get out of it.

Now, I guess my questions come into play if I wanted to make it "better". Would a PMG and rectifier be worth the $250 for a simple 12v/24v over the DC motor? What could I do to the housing to funnel the wind off a rooftop in better? At this point I'm thinking just a box with some flaps to help "scoop" the air in. If I buy a "48v PMG" can I still feed that to a "24v" rectifier? How would I size the PMG for the turbine? Is there a rule of thumb or some such?

I've got a basic 8-in-1 weather station coming tomorrow and heading to camp Saturday so I'll be setting the station up on various roof ridges to see what kind of wind I actually get VS what the maps all say. Yes, I have a generator backup but if I have to run that 90% of the time because the 2400w 3Kw 24v system can't get enough solar while I'm there, then why the hell did I waste all the money making it happen?
 
If you are cutting up a washer just get one with and F&P motor. All the bearings/cages/ shaft etc are already there. Use a sawzall to cut a circle around the drum base, remove the shaft and motor parts and stick the aluminum cage (and all the attached plastic you didnt cut away) in a burn barrel on a low heat, low fire. Comes out perfect. replace new bearings in the cage and its ready to roll.
 

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