Wind Turbine Day 17
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Day 17
Waiting for some wind………… Xmas Eve 2011. Although this would be a good time to show you some pics of the grid tie inverter that I have on test. It works really well & it is currently powering up the house with wind power. This particular grid tie inverter is purpose built for wind turbines, it has provision for attaching the dump load I made earlier. With the dump load it can control the input voltage by switching in the dump load to control the speed. I think this item is just fantastic, it works in conjunction with the mains power. This means that it is not suitable for use where there is no mains power. For those areas that have no mains power it is back to using batteries. I like this grid tie inverter that much that I've purchased a few more as the price reduces if I buy in bulk so let me know if you need one, approx $400 NZD or $300 USD. These are designed for approx 230V AC output only, so not suitable for the US market but good for NZ, AU & Europe/UK. I have many projects on the go at any one time which suits me as it keeps me interested & busy especially when I'm waiting for a part or the weather is not so good for a particular project so I just make a start on something else. Well below are the first pics of my home made solar panels. I have the materials to make 12 of these but have I only made 4 at present. It's been a very interesting project & far far simpler than building a wind turbine, these 4 panels give me at least 100w of power most of the day & they have some unique design features that have allowed me to make these for approx 1/10 of a factory built panel! I will share all these design secrets soon but for now I'm just happy to have finished the wind turbine, or (almost finished). I now have a metal detector to fix that I purchased at an online auction so I'm looking forward to that whilst I wait for some more wind. I hope you all have a great Xmas & I'll try my best to update you soon on the latest wind turbine changes & the next solar panel project. If you have any questions then I will be happy to help, I would like to encourage others to build there own but the project does cover many different skills so please contact me if you need help at a particular stage. Depending on my workload I may be able to sell the motors pre-wired ready to go or supply some of the other parts. I can be contacted via the contact us page or leave a comment on the blog page or email me directly: [email protected] My intention is to reply to all emails ASAP but if I get too swamped then this my not be possible. |
Update July 2012 Wow, this wind turbine is awesome, it's turned out to be extremely robust and it has been running flawlessly for 7 months now. Normal output is around 100w peaking up to 300W. It recently went through an extreme violent storm with winds approaching 100 kmh with no problems at all although many trees were uprooted which gives you an idea of how strong the winds were. At the peak of the wind the grid tie inverter automatically switched over to the dump load which also worked really well but most of the time the turbine was flat out creating free power. I don't recommend running this or any turbine in these conditions and next time I will electrically brake the turbine. I can't remember if I've already mentioned how to brake the turbine but if you short the 2 DC output wires together then this acts as a brake and will be enough to stop the turbine in very high winds. Adding the 2 output wires to a double throw/double pole switch would be the best way to switch the turbine from grid tie inverter to idle to brake mode. |
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