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Forum Index : Windmills : combined Wind Power and Solar Power
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ericvr Newbie  Joined: 24/11/2007 Location: AustraliaPosts: 37 |
Hi, I am new to this forum and would like to add my twopence worth of info and questions. I am helping my brother in law setting up a new wind generator system. The system is a 48 volt system with a 1000 watt wind generator and a 5000VA inverter, the battery bank is made up of 12 Volt 88 ampere hour batteries connected in series-parralell to obtain 48 volt at 480 Amphour capacity. I have made up a monitoring box with a couple of digital LCD panel meters for the voltage and the current monitoring. I will post some photo's on the site when I get the photo's done of the installation, (could be a couple of weeks though), I bought the LCD panel meters on E-Bay as well as the 200 amp current shunt, the meter s cost me about A$ 25 each including postage and the current shunt was about A$ 15 or A$ 20 each including postage . Money well spent!! I put it all in a plastic box from Jaycar. If anyone requires more info on the digital LCD panel meters I will gladly provide the info. The question that I have is: how do the home constructors of wind generators make sure that the cable from the wind generator down the pole does not get twisted up as the wind generator turns on it's horizontal axis as the wind generator turns through 360 or 720 degrees? Just watching the elections on TV 24/11/07 21:30 limited greenie |
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Highlander Senior Member  Joined: 03/10/2006 Location: AustraliaPosts: 266 |
Hi ericvr Did you make the mill or buy it? If your not in a wind turbulent area it shouldn't be a big problem. I have slip rings on mine but doing that makes it difficult to bring ac down the pole, particularly with 7 phase. Most guys don't bother. Central Victorian highlands |
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| ericvr Newbie Joined: 24/11/2007 Location: AustraliaPosts: 37 |
High Highlander, Thanks for your interest. My Brother in Law bought the wind generator from a firm in Ballaarat, A+ Imports, it is from China but looks well made. He bought a 500 Watt 24 Volt unit from Nighting gale Electrics in Spencer Street West Melbourne. He also bouhgt a 3500 watt Inverter from A+ Imports but the Inverter died and he took it back to A+ and they suggested the 48 Volt 5000 Watt inverter en a 48 Volt 1000 Watt wind generator, with a controller. Later on he wants to put up some solar panels (160 or 200 watt ones) but they are still to expensive. He is located in Dereel near Rokewook south of Ballaarat. When I get to his place I will take some photo's of the installation and post them on the site He wants to go and live up there and needs enough power to run a fridge and a freezer as well when he is up there during the weekenda at the momentso I calculated that at the moment thewind Generator will be OK for the time being but in the summer he does not get that much wind so he will need to supplement it with a generator and Solar. I have been looking at Solar trackers as well but they tell me that they still have some problems with it locking up so you have to be there to reset it and that is not really satisfactory. as he is not technologically savvy. I have also looked at regulators and the best one seems to be the Plasmatronics PL20 but they are expensive. I have spoken with "Energymatters" from South Melbourne and they have 24 volt panels of 160 to 180 watt at A$ 3390 per set so that gives you nearly 350 watts of solar power. They put out about just over 5 amps. But it is expensive. the regulators are about A$ 300 for the PL20 and A$ 400 for the PL40. The PL20 can handle 20 amps charging current, so enough for most small installations. I also bought a Power meter from Maplin in the UK but I have noticed that Jaycar now has power meter too now and you can use that to see how much power an appliance uses. I got two travel adapters to convert the UK plugs to the Australian plugs. limited greenie |
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| ericvr Newbie Joined: 24/11/2007 Location: AustraliaPosts: 37 |
Here are some photo's of the test setup of the monitoring panel and the current shunt. This test setup is with two 12 volt batteries, but the volt meter can measure 199.9 volt. The amp meter can read 199.9 amp. The current shunt is 200 amp 75 Mili volt. The volt mater, amp meter and the current shunt were bought on E-Bay from Hong Kong and China at very competitive prices. I also had to buy a couple of small DC-DC converters that have an isolated output,as the LCD meters require a power supply that is isolated from the measuring circuit. These DC-DC converters were about A$ 15 each including postage, it all took about 15 days to arrive. The small heatsink on the lefthand side of the monitor box is for a voltage regulator to drop the voltage from 48 volt to 24 volt, as the isolated DC-DC converters that I bought were for 16-30 volt input ( they were originally bought for the 24 volt system that we had) and I had the regulator in my box of bits, as I did not want to buy another set of regulators. The volt meter and amp meter information is as followes: The following is the information for a 10-16 volt The web address is: http://stores.ebay.com.au/Asia-Engineer All the wiring to the monitoring box is low current the volt and amp meters draw less than 50 miliamp and therefore do not put a drain on the batteries. When I get back up the bush I will take photo's of the complete installation and post them here. 
 limited greenie |
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| Highlander Senior Member Joined: 03/10/2006 Location: AustraliaPosts: 266 |
Looking good, that meter box looks very professional RossW has one of those turbines and he recons it supplies all the power he needs when it's blowing. I think he has a reasonable size family too. That inverter is the one I was looking at, have you used it yet? Is that made by the same mob as the one that died? Did they replace it under warranty? If your serious about a solar set-up talk to an installer as the solar rebate is on at the moment and the gov't will cover half the amount up to $8000 max. So you could get a nice regulator for your solar and plug your wind turbine in. Talk to an installer though as I think the rebate changes if it's an addition to an existing r/e set-up. Energy Matters in Melb are good, they have the best prices around, but don't buy any of their second hand panels. You could ring Sun Wind and Power (Trevor) he's very helpfull. Also how many batteries have you got, new or second hand? The standard of everyones work seems to be way higher than mine. I don't think I'll post photo's of my stuff any more, it makes me look like a caveman 
But if the shoe fits  Central Victorian highlands |
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| ericvr Newbie Joined: 24/11/2007 Location: AustraliaPosts: 37 |
Hi Highlander, We checked out the rebate system but it only applies if you live permanently on the premises and at the moment it is just a weekender. The whole system is designed so that techically unsofisticated people can understand it. In my life before retirement I was an electronics technician/computer systems manager in the Defence force at Laverton. We have not fired up the inverter yet as my brother in law does not have the technical expertise to connect the battries in the required configuration,and he is scared of electricity. The new inverter is made by a different mob and in essence is a 5 KVA UPS, it has a 30 amp charger build in so that when the generator goes of the inverter takes over and also if the battery voltage drops below a set value then with the right generator and connections it will automatically start the generator. But we are not using that facility. We have 20 x 12 volt 88 to 100 ampere hour batteries connected in 4 banks of 5 paralell sets to give us 48 volt at approximately 480 ampere hours. The batteries were second hand but they came up OK on the charger. Your photo's are fine it shows what you can do with minimal stuff I have the luxury of being able to spend time to make it look good. I have also been looking at the various posts on the site and it is very interesting to see how people do things, especially the recycling of F&P washing machine motors, but I do not have the facilities to do this. do you have phone number for Trevor (Sun Wind and Power)? The initial setup was a 24 volt system with a 500 watt wind generator from Nightingale Electrics and I am planning to see if I can modify the 24 volt wind generator to give 48 volt. hopefully it is wired in a Delta configuration for 24 volt and I will see if I can convert it to a Star configuration to give 58 volt. I rang the supplier but they do not know sh*t about that, When my brother in law put the 24 volt one up he broke one of the propellor blades so he had to cut the other ones down to the same size and weight by about 150 mm. It does not seem to have had an impact on the output. do you have MSN Messenger on your computer? If so we could talk My MSN is eric_vanrhijn@hotmail.com limited greenie |
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| Highlander Senior Member Joined: 03/10/2006 Location: AustraliaPosts: 266 |
Well it only applies if you live there permanently, Hmmm, you could do what the pollies do, bend the truth a little. You live there permanently when your there don't you? But that's only my view. If You're building it for permanent inhabitation it should still qualify legitimately. Sun Wind and Power details are: Ph: 1300 132 954 Fx: (03) 9444 1777 Email: sunwind@optusnet.com.au Trevor is a good bloke. But as always, buyer beware and do your research, shop around and see where the best deal is. Central Victorian highlands |
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| ericvr Newbie Joined: 24/11/2007 Location: AustraliaPosts: 37 |
Thanks Highlander, The url (web address ) for the inverter is: http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=2 20174575794&ssPageName=STRK:MEWA:IT&ih=012 A+ Imports took the faulty inverter back and credited the ammount towards the new one. so good service I would definetely buy stuff from him again, also my other brother in law bought a spot welder from him and it arrived Dead on Arrival (DOA) so I rang them and he said thay next time I wasi Ballaarat he would replace it. He did not want the old ones back, again good service and when I opened the dead spot welders the little transformers were ripped of the circuit boards probably happened in transit, dropped by the courier. limited greenie |
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| Highlander Senior Member Joined: 03/10/2006 Location: AustraliaPosts: 266 |
Well that's good service, what did the 5000 watt inverter set you back? Have you got an oscilloscope to measure the wave under different loads? Central Victorian highlands |
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| ericvr Newbie Joined: 24/11/2007 Location: AustraliaPosts: 37 |
Hi I do not know as I did not buy it but my brother in law did and he bought the wind generator and the inverter at the same time, but did not tell me how much he paid for them. No I do not have a cro to measure the waveshape. All the test equipment I have now are a couple of multimeters both digital and analogue, the Oscilloscopes were supplied by my employer when I was working. Would not mind having one though, but I cannot justify the cost of one as I would not use it very often. By the way where do they get the F&P motors from and do they have to pay for them or is it salvage from old washing machines. limited greenie |
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| Highlander Senior Member Joined: 03/10/2006 Location: AustraliaPosts: 266 |
Yeah mainly scrounged from council collections, I get mine from a scrap dealer, he never want's anything but I always give him $10 If I realised how cheap the Chinese ones were I never would have bothered building one, but it's been fun and I've learned a lot. Central Victorian highlands |
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Bryan1 Guru  Joined: 22/02/2006 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1502 |
Hiya Eric, Eh mate go delve into the asia traders ebay site, he has usb cro's for less than $200. Anyway thanks for putting the link to that ebay site, shortly I'll be investing in some of his things. But my next asia purchase will be for 50 or 100 825,000mcd led's as the ones I've tried sofar are the brightest led's i've ever seen. silly me got an eyefull of the led's turned on by accident and I had a bad headache for nearly 2 days after. Cheers Bryan  |
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| ericvr Newbie Joined: 24/11/2007 Location: AustraliaPosts: 37 |
Hi Bryan1, Where did you see those 8125 MCD LED on Ebay? Can you send me the URL ? Thanks Ericvr limited greenie |
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| Bryan1 Guru Joined: 22/02/2006 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1502 |
Hiya Eric, Here's the link to those led's I bought. If your after some perf boards checkout the extra's when you place an order, I got 20 of the 70x95mm ones and they look pretty good so I wont need to make circuit boards for awhile. Cheers Bryan |
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| ericvr Newbie Joined: 24/11/2007 Location: AustraliaPosts: 37 |
Hi Bryan1, When you get them could I buy some of you please so if we can combine the order and thus cut down the price of them and the postage Thanks Ericvr limited greenie |
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| ericvr Newbie Joined: 24/11/2007 Location: AustraliaPosts: 37 |
Hi Bryan1, here is a board to put the LED's on http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=3 30186226747&ssPageName=STRK:MEWA:IT&ih=014 It is prewired as well Ericvr limited greenie |
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GWatPE Senior Member Joined: 01/09/2006 Location: AustraliaPosts: 2127 |
Hi Bryan, I would look at the 5W Prolight LED's. These are wide angle and perfect for room lighting to replace STD globes. I am looking at putting in a 5V plugpak and rewiring my house lighting. You are right about the blinding effect. I find that the best way to use the led as house lighting is to mount like a down light. Up high on the ceiling. If you use them as a spot or highlight, you shouldn't be able to look directly at the LED. cheers, Gordon. become more energy aware |
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| Highlander Senior Member Joined: 03/10/2006 Location: AustraliaPosts: 266 |
These look good http://www.besthongkong.com/product_info.php?cPath=9_69&prod ucts_id=582 Hey ericvr if you want to make a clickable link, use the fourth icon which has a world globe with a paper clip. Central Victorian highlands |
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| dwyer Guru Joined: 19/09/2005 Location: AustraliaPosts: 574 |
Hi Everyone About Bright LED lights waves can produced by over exposure to ultraviolet (UV) radiation, commonly from the sun's rays. can damage anyone's eyes can cause blind in the dark room when turn on the bright LED that is other hidden information as l am sure of that so everyone be aware of this as one of my friend had experimet with 5 watts LED and place his hand got ray burn .As anyone confirm this problems ?? Dwyer the bushman |
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| GWatPE Senior Member Joined: 01/09/2006 Location: AustraliaPosts: 2127 |
Hi all, This is roughly what happens. the white light LED's are in actual fact a High intensity UV LED with a Yttrium phosphor that converts the UV into more usable White light. It is possible that the cheaper LED's use less of the phosphor and more of the UV is emitted. The similar process is used with a fluorescent tube. The low pressure mercury discharge emits serious amounts of UV. When the phosphor wears out the tube still consumes the same power, but the light consists of a higher proportion of UV. This can cause carpets, paint and curtains to fade over time. I have noticed some white LED's do appear blue. I have a 5W luxeon LED torch. The LED is driven by a regulated power supply in the torch and appears pure white. I guess unless we have access to a spectrophotometer we can't measure the light spectrum output. We have to rely on the manufacturers data sheets. I guess we should take care with using the superbright LED's anyway. Don't look directly at them. cheers, Gordon. become more energy aware |
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