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diy solar

My experience with wind... (not worth it)

  • Thread starter Thread starter Deleted member 109795
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yes there are many many many!!!! EDIT"Well I think there should be many as not so many moving parts when things are small scale"


reliable to keep operating yes many many

now the yield is what we are interested in. In that case I agree. Small scale is just not going to cut it.

Hence I am going well above "small"
Exciting to watch your journey, please keep us up to date, and publish your results here for future queries!
🍿
 
Can you provide links to some of them where someone can buy them?
this is the whole conundrum :(

there are not any. at least not to my knowledge.

No Brother. It is us against the status quo.







Sad yes?






Someone has got to try it. Hence here I am.

I'll keep one posted. Even if I have to sadly report I could not produce anything exciting :(
 
IDK if anyone here follows Kris Harbour but he got burned big time by seriously exaggerated claims on an Asian sourced alternator.

Lake District Hydro

He did an amazing job building a all new waterwheel to be installed on a site that had been a mill site for centuries. He got seriously embarrassed and it cost him a ton of money and time. Took the alternator apart, called out the seller until they admitted that they way overstated the power rating. Eventually rigged up a 3 phase induction motor as the generator.

And as far as return on investment - the customer looked to be pretty well to do - but I can't see it ever paying off grid tied. The system does produce power 24/7 as long as there is water and gravity - but as I recall it was a couple kW. Just the money they had in the sluice way, electrical, what they had to pay him....yikes.

Lesson learned.
 
Location

Location

Location
And height. Hundreds of feet and you are golden! Barely above average terrain, fools gold.
Yep.

At the end of the day it's a physics problem. Most people live in an area with an average wind speed of 13 mph or less. Very few can put up a 100' tall tower, either due to regulations or budget so they end up with a turbine mounted on the corner of thier barn or on a 30' or shorter used radio tower. Surrounded by trees of course.

Below is the modeled energy production of a 1kW turbine. Keep in mind it's the perfect turbine at the perfect site so it's production ratings are VERY optimistic. Assumptions:12.5 MPH avg wind speed, 30' tower

Study the "cumulative" column. Note that it will spend almost 50% of the time making 58 watts or less and only 1.5% of it's time making it's rated power and this is the perfect turbine on the perfect site.

What the below table doesn't illustrate is that 90% of that monthly energy will happen in the best 3 days of the month. I know it's a bold statement but still I must say it, small wind is useless for 99.9% of the population. The biggest lie people tell themselves is that they are in that .1%. People will argue but when asked for data they quickly disappear. I've been right here for years asking and still don't have a single taker.

1725624493212.png


If you like to tinker then check out Hugh Piggott's homemade wind turbine book. Every once in a while he does a workshop in the US but they are more common in Europe from what I can tell. https://otherpower.com/node/2540

There's been a handful of "success" stories posted here but not one of them provides any supporting data.

Not doubting them but they are so exceptionally rare vs. the qty of small wind turbines sold they really should be ignored when making a financial decision about small wind. Spend just a few minutes here or on fieldlines.com and see for yourself.

Small is way cooler than solar to watch, but as has already repeated, solar is your trouble free workhorse.
 
I have hooked up the electrical for several off grid wind turbines, only two are still operational and were manufactured by Bergey Wind.

The rest of the manufacturers didn't account for the stress imposed on the blades and towers from turbulence, blade failure lead to shutting them down as maintenance was to costly.

The rapid changes in wind velocity just beat them all to death.
The solution was a higher tower to get the turbines into the laminar air flow.
The problem was no one had the funds to build a stronger (larger) foundation required to support the taller more costly tower.

Kind of a vicious circle.

I have witnessed that tower extensions and larger foundations did work to get 1Mw turbines into the laminar flow region on several Re-Power projects I worked on, so the concept is proven in theory and praticallity.
 
There's been a handful of "success" stories posted here but not one of them provides any supporting data.
without data there is only a story. So it being a dead end or a success we can not discern only based on stories.

Mind you like the type I am posting. It is very much just an ongoing rambling, log book pages type of thing without hard data.

But here comes the kicker :)

I will get there. It is like this good old inspector gadget meme we all know and love.

I will get you next time gadget.. next time :)

Yet with the unfortunate difference that I will get this damned inspector gadget. for once :)

So Oz and I can finally have a swell sit down and enjoy some of the worlds finest cocktails while we marvel at the turbine spinning :)
 
Btw @OzSolar do you like your's shaken or stirred?

Vegan perhaps :)

hahah I am just pulling your legs.. You know I love you!!
Well... I guess I'd have to try one of each to be sure. Of course, while we're talking about data, I think no reliable study can have just one data point. 10 is the minimum right? :cool:
 
If you want to try wind, I suggest you go big. My brother runs a 17.5 Kw Jacobs for about 15 years now. He was selling upgrade kits on ebay for the problematic shaft/bearing problems.

He tips it down once a year for the oil change and other maintenance.

It works for him but he made several upgrades. You can find these units cheap all over because most broke the shaft and had the bearing problem. The 2 biggest expenses were the crane to take it down and having the pieces trucked by semi to his acreage. It takes 27 yards of concrete too.

Don't waste your time with small wind. Unless you want ornaments like this guy.

1727480340947.png
 
Does your brother track it's annual production? That would be some useful data.
Originally he received $0.10/Kwh for excess. That was changed to net metering with a bank limit of 500 Kwh. Once the bank is built up to 500 Kwh, he locks it down. No sense in wearing out equipment and give the excess away for free.

There is plenty of wind towers here with more on the way. Last farm was 66 towers, I see while I was gone on vacation another survey tower was put up just 1/4 mile from my house. On service calls this fall, I've found about 6 more survey towers within 20 miles. I think we will see about 300 more towers within 20 miles in the next few years.

These 2 counties do not have zoning. The supervisors in adjoining counties with zoning have begun banning more towers. I think these 2 counties should start limiting construction. I can hear the growl over 1/4 mile away when working out in the country near these towers.
 
gang. we still understand these are all jokes yes?

Now Oz is with me there in the hamocks and chillin.

Soon enough one of you might be joining us.

Maybe even outsiders that correctly state that there should not be feet. Only metrics :)

hahah yeah yeah Outsider never said that or even intended that.

But I just like to poke fun at times agreed?
 
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haha now I am getting a little insecure.

this is like the 3rd time I am accused of being a bot. or somehow in the way information is flowing can not deny that premise.

I have an actual phone number that one can call. Be sure though to hear profanity :) yess yess A LOT of it :)

So what is our status?
 

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