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Forum Index : Windmills : New Farm mill ready to go ~1KW.
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KarlJ Guru  Joined: 19/05/2008 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1178 |
OK a weeks data (6days anyway) 18.6KW on the PVE1200. wind have been average, with a couple of stiff breezes and a day or so with very little wind. Observations -brakes in any kind of meaningful wind -useless!!! In fact turbine speeds up...... Diode feeding into the batts barely gets warm. Dump load systems work a treat -when PVE shutdown main dump comes on and runs well, throw the breaker and voltage goes up a few notches and the 2nd dump works a champ too. both of them I have 100% trustworthy system. PVE looks after the batts better than I thought, holding them at 52-55V well -on to the next bit... Topping out at only 660W, she's furling out of the wind, next week going up again, (was too windy to take it down) will still hang on to the 100Star and 100Delta until I get more out of it. It seems 3m/s I'm still getting power out of it anyway (albeit not much!) and the top end still needs exploring. I'll crank the offset back and let her really rip! BTW lower section of tower is 125mm x 9mm thick and top section is 100mm x 6mm thick, it is going no-where, slight movement in 15m/s wind as it is getting flogged! Furling is a delight to watch from the NW or SW winds where it is smooth and beautiful, the west is more messy as that the direction from the house, so she spends a fair bit of time looking for the wind. Oh and lastly, took some video with the digital camera of her furling, hoping to get it up on youtube tonight with some luck, frame rate is terrible so looks like she's going backward and forward but you'll get the idea. Frame rate is 30fps so i make it ~600rpm. if it looks stationary ?? Karl Luck favours the well prepared |
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GWatPE Senior Member  Joined: 01/09/2006 Location: AustraliaPosts: 2127 |
Hi Karl, this is inductance limiting in action. Gordon. PS. work out how many hours, the really strong winds occur per month, and this will give some indication if it is worth persuing more peak power. become more energy aware |
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| Jarbar Senior Member Joined: 03/02/2008 Location: AustraliaPosts: 225 |
Karl,I'm available if you need help. Anthony. "Creativity is detirmined by the way you hold your tounge".My Father "Your generation will have to correct the problems made by mine".My Grandfather. |
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fillm Guru Joined: 10/02/2007 Location: AustraliaPosts: 730 |
Karl , I agree with Gordon on this as you know about going for the big output figures , I am not sure your caculation on RPMs is correct at 600Rpm @ 30 fps , at this speed I would expect the 2 x 100s stators to be getting close to the 1kw output mark . You might need to check wether you may have lost 1 phase or there are other losses or connections that might be giving trouble . How long did it take for the batt voltage to rise until the first dump load came on ? But 18.6 Kw for the first 6 days or averaging over 3000 Watt Hrs a day , if that was feeding into my grid inverter you would not be able to wipe the  of my face . PhillM ...Oz Wind Engineering..Wind Turbine Kits 500W - 5000W ~ F&P Dual Kits ~ GOE222Blades- Voltage Control Parts ------- Tower kits |
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| KarlJ Guru Joined: 19/05/2008 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1178 |
I got it up the you tube stuff Farm mill running hard eFarm mill other sides Going for it BTW the one where you hear me say coming up on a big furl now, the wind is somewhat turbulent, you can hear her spin up fast and then another puff comes through, pushing the tail out -very enjoyable to watch, would be better if it was pushing 1100W though 
Dad tells me the wind at the farm generally has two speeds LOTS and none BTW here is his solar set up Lots o panels 
BTW, I'm guessing that 30fps and a three bladed prop would appear stationary at 600rpm. All four brake switches do something so if there is something dodgey going on, it isnt from the mill to the caps. You can see the offset i'm running in the pic and it certainly doesnt sound like its running that hard but without a tacho, who knows?? Diode losses are starting to add up i'm sure, and the 80m run to the batts probably doesn't help either. All the rectifiers I assume to be working as they are all getting similarly warm when she's going, nothing getting hot though. When I take it down I may pull the rectifiers and voltage doublers out and solder all the connections instead of the plug terminals I'm using now. Also think I'll add some grease to the connections to the stators too, just to keep the water out. Phill, I noticed the batts "like" 52-54V anything over that (when the output drops) they will return quickly to the sweet spot. I tested the dumps when it was running 400-600W input power and the voltage goes up pretty smartly to 58V, like 30-60S or so, then another minute per volt. Up around 60V I was checking the batt temp with my hand as there is a fair amount of popping and fizzing going on! they kept their cool though. I backed off the Alarm voltage to 61V for a couple of reasons, A) when feeding to the grid I cant see it ever getting there B) As Gordon suggested its very slow to decide to turn it on anyway -still got to 62V+ before it turned it on. and dropped it off again at about 55V. Maybe as I'm only running 650W but when connected to the grid batt voltage sits at 52-53V and at this I can see them living forever  Luck favours the well prepared |
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| GWatPE Senior Member Joined: 01/09/2006 Location: AustraliaPosts: 2127 |
"Up around 60V I was checking the batt temp with my hand as there is a fair amount of popping and fizzing going on! they kept their cool though." Hi Karl, Am I right in assuming these batteries are AGM, or possibly GEL type lead acid? You can operate flooded types at the voltages you reported above. Can you confirm the battery type? Unless you are operating a power inverter from the battery as well, you could replace the battery with a sufficient sized cap. This is a significant component in the TC48, but allows a batteryless system. I don't operate my AGM battery much above 59V. Occasional spikes do occur above 60V, but there is really no energy. Certainly not enough to cause electrolysis or fizzing. Continued operation of a sealed type battery with fizzing, and popping will reduce the service life. Flooded cell batteries need to be gassed, to prevent electrolyte stratification. Check that the battery settings are within the manufacturers specifications. Gordon. become more energy aware |
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| KarlJ Guru Joined: 19/05/2008 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1178 |
They are AGM, these are the voltages you recommended to run in a previous post and yes they will survive. Next time i will do a few things differently! TC96 and PVE 2500 and a 2KW mill. Karl Luck favours the well prepared |
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| VK4AYQ Guru Joined: 02/12/2009 Location: AustraliaPosts: 2539 |
Hi Karl If I may thjrow in my comment on the battery situation, and as I am not familia with the inverter you are using it may not be relivent, it seems to me that to muck power is being diverted to the batteries causing the bubbeling you are getting, bad for batteries, Could you lower the cut in voltage to the inverter a few voltsto make it absorb more of the energy as at 300 watts a day you are not using the potential of the generator. example and please correct me if I am making wrong assumption. Wind at 50% 12 houtrs a day. Power generated average 500watts hr x12 = 6000 watts a day. Time 6 days 36000 watts If i read your entry correct All the best Bob Foolin Around |
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| KarlJ Guru Joined: 19/05/2008 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1178 |
Only reason batts were getting hammered was Dump load testing, ordinarily the power gets siphoned off by the inverter. I just had to make sure they worked. Apparently if you are thumping 1KW+ into the batts the PVE will let the voltage rise up to 60V or so, thus the dump load cant be operating below that. All safe and good. I would estimate based on my corrupt wind data logged we have 6hrs a day of 8m/s+ and then another 6hrs a day where its 6-8m/s remainder would be 6hrs of 4m/s and 6 hrs of nothing. If I can run it harder get 1KW at 10m/s. I'll get a couple of hours most days at full output. I'll get another 4hrs at 80% output thats ~5KW / day plus 12hrs at 100W. so I should be able to get it to meet the benchmark on that site of 5.5KW/day or 2000 KW/year. In solid wind from the right direction (site was optimised / picked for these directions). we get months on end with 10hrs a day of 8m/s+. I cant wait for that! Luck favours the well prepared |
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| VK4AYQ Guru Joined: 02/12/2009 Location: AustraliaPosts: 2539 |
Hi Karl Sorry i misunderstood what you where doing with the dump loads, just a little point on that instead of dumping to the heater elements how about one of those chinese piggyback GTI 48 volt 1200 watt at about $400 pretty reasonable, bring it in at sayy 55 volts and leave the dumpster at 60 volts. That is if you have time to play further before the move. Also I noticed on the video that it is furling much to early and a bit erattic may need some sort of damper on the furling as it is responding to gusts to much. I gave mine the first serious run today, it is a chinese 500 watt I have modified a bit and it is going to 800 watts without furling so far, it is in a terrible position on top of my shed with trees all around so is hard to get smooth airflow. Ill post a photo if you are interested. All the best Bob Foolin Around |
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| KarlJ Guru Joined: 19/05/2008 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1178 |
yes furling too early and unfortunately wind from the wrong direction that day, quite unusual. Inverter has the capacity to outstrip the mill, any type of GTI requires the grid, simply testing the dumps in case of good wind and grid down (unusual secenario but to protect batts from mini hiroshima). got about 14hrs of 200W today, 2.8KW on a bad day
Had some family friends to the farm today "you're the talk of the district Damien" (Dad) "Is that an f&p?" "-she's the best F&P mill I've ever seen!" Engineer from down the road -"I know nothing about windturbines but the paint job is great!!! -welds suck" in all great feedback from the locals -should get a few more with enough interest to put up some turbines. Luck favours the well prepared |
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| VK4AYQ Guru Joined: 02/12/2009 Location: AustraliaPosts: 2539 |
+Hi Karl Thats what we need to generate interest in the general community as a lot of drops make a storm and we might just get enough people interested to start and make a difference. Its funny how the clock turns as years ago I was maintaining about 200 32 volt farm units, good quality heavy duty clunkers that went for years and provided power to farm families for nearly nothing, then came rural power and nearly everyone got rid of old faithful and was happy to pay the pittence for power now we are all going back the other way. If not for the cheapness but also for the independence from the blood sucking utility charges. Keep up thhe good work All the best Bob Foolin Around |
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