Maybe best is to stop if before the wind starts pumping, although the charge controller is supposed to brake if the voltage goes over 60V.

28 minutes ago, plonkster said:

Rule of thumb: Fuses are there to protect the cable. So that tells you the upper end of the rating. I think the idea is to (mentally) make it lower until you get nuisance blowing and then just go one step back :-)

 

I'm not so worried about the cable, I'm more worried about the lightning getting into the battery room. Maybe surge arrestors are a better idea, so the lightning goes to earth at the turbine, through the local earth (the eskom conductor buried there) ?

If lighting strikes your turbine directly you probably will loose the turbine and a fair section of cable if you are lucky. The insulation of the cable will not be enough and the cable and surround soil will meld in to an artistic conglomerate. If you are unlucky you may loose batteries and inverter too and some other stuff in the house. Prepare for a surge due to lightning strike close by and become regular at church to protect yourself from a direct strike. There is protection for a direct strike but runs into big money.

Something else I have noticed is that if the solar panels are working like now and the batteries are in float or close to at 58V, the the wind turbine needs to get up to 41VAC before it will charge. Overnight when there is only power draw from the batteries and they are around 49V, the turbine only needs to get up to 34VAC before it starts to contribute. Just an observation.

http://www.midnitesolar.com/products.php?menuItem=products&productCat_ID=23&productCatName=Surge Protection Devices

Overnight a gust of wing caused a max W of 350W, producing 0.014 kWh! Funny I find myself wishing for windy days when normally I loathe them!

On 12/14/2016 at 1:57 PM, DeepBass9 said:

I can just hear it from my office. I can  hear why your neighbours complained though!

I have found a watt meter which I will pick up tomorrow, then I can see better what's going on : https://www.electromannsa.com/products/ft08-rc-150a-hight-precision-watt-meter I should then be able to then hear from the tone how much power its making!

From the video it looks like it will do the job, also records peak amps and watts which is useful.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tt2quF5JoiA

 

FYI, that watt meter lasted 4 days and is now kaput. The backlight comes on but the display is blank (no numbers). Back to the shop and they should replace it, but doesn't seem to be suitable for continuous use.

That is weird, why wouldn't it be made for continuous use? It has a log function if I understand correctly? Why give it a log function if not for continuous use? Probably just a dud.

On 12/17/2016 at 5:38 AM, DeepBass9 said:

Overnight a gust of wing caused a max W of 350W, producing 0.014 kWh! Funny I find myself wishing for windy days when normally I loathe them!

Hahaha.. Same happened to me. Had no wind for almost 2 weeks after installing it. This week has been real windy our side.

On 12/16/2016 at 9:46 AM, DeepBass9 said:

I'm not so worried about the cable, I'm more worried about the lightning getting into the battery room. Maybe surge arrestors are a better idea, so the lightning goes to earth at the turbine, through the local earth (the eskom conductor buried there) ?

You could try and put up a lightning rod next to the turbine, slightly higher. Run a nice thick insulated cable from it away from the turbine site and strip the insulation and bury it for about 5m. Attach the end to a steel spike and hammer it into the ground. The lightning should hit the rod rather than your turbine.

On 12/22/2016 at 1:42 PM, Johann1982 said:

You could try and put up a lightning rod next to the turbine, slightly higher. Run a nice thick insulated cable from it away from the turbine site and strip the insulation and bury it for about 5m. Attach the end to a steel spike and hammer it into the ground. The lightning should hit the rod rather than your turbine.

I think that is ulimately the way to go.

My father told me how he once saw lightening take out the small kameeldoring tree next to a much higher windmill. Lightening rods certainly work, you definitely should have one nearby, but lightening also has a mind of it's own :-)

Sent from my GT-I9195 using Tapatalk

I've seen that, lightMing setting a small stump alight, next to an eskom pylon

On 12/16/2016 at 8:49 AM, DeepBass9 said:

In case of a lightning strike, I would like to put fuses at the turbine

Lightning will probably jump almost any fuse, so I doubt that any fuse will prevent a lightning strike from causing harm down the line.

Your best bet is to divert the lightning with the shortest possible path with the least resistance directly to ground, but even if you do that it is not guaranteed not to char few things down the line.

On 12/24/2016 at 11:36 AM, plonkster said:

My father told me how he once saw lightening take out the small kameeldoring tree next to a much higher windmill. Lightening rods certainly work, you definitely should have one nearby, but lightening also has a mind of it's own :-)

Sent from my GT-I9195 using Tapatalk
 

I saw lightning take out a whole PC, many years ago. The PC power and phone line (still used a 14.4 modem) were both plugged out and lightning jumped the table, probably about 20-30cm. Fried the whole thing!

On 12/21/2016 at 11:12 AM, DeepBass9 said:

FYI, that watt meter lasted 4 days and is now kaput. The backlight comes on but the display is blank (no numbers). Back to the shop and they should replace it, but doesn't seem to be suitable for continuous use.

OK, so got my watt meter back again, replaced with a new one. Lets see how long this one lasts.......

And that's how you kill the wind! reading a big fat zero again! Next Tuesday looks like a good day for wind though.. That watt meter claims to be super accurate, but it reads 59.2V whereas every other bit of equipment that I have reads 58.0V.....

 

 

The wind generator is singing today with the approach of the cyclone!

Here's the forecast for the next few days. If the bars are light blue, that is enough wind to make some power.....

 

 

Interestingly I saw the braking function work on the controller for the first time. Seeing as it is sunny and windy today, at midday today my batteries were at 59.2V. I was wondering why the turbine was only turning very slowly in a blast of wind, when the sun went behind a cloud and it started spinning furiously again. Then the penny dropped that the controller was seeing the batteries as full, and applying the brake.

If the wind keeps up like this, I can have microwave popcorn as a midnight snack!

@DeepBass9

Hi DeepBass

Glad to see the turbine is working. I have a question about turbines, maybe you can help me. One of my friends bought a 600W turbine with built in MPPT controller. He has 8x crappy 100ah lead acid batteries and 3x 260W panels connected to an Axpert inverter. He lives totally off-grid, so he thought the turbine would be a good addition. Only problem is, the turbine is picking up the charging voltage coming from the panels during the day, so the turbine never works during daytime. And the little bit of wind at night is not enough to charge his batteries. Is there a way that the turbine could read the actual state of charge of the batteries? I know you get hybrid controllers with solar and wind inputs, but they are quite expensive. What do you suggest?

 

7 minutes ago, Johann1982 said:

@DeepBass9

Hi DeepBass

Glad to see the turbine is working. I have a question about turbines, maybe you can help me. One of my friends bought a 600W turbine with built in MPPT controller. He has 8x crappy 100ah lead acid batteries and 3x 260W panels connected to an Axpert inverter. He lives totally off-grid, so he thought the turbine would be a good addition. Only problem is, the turbine is picking up the charging voltage coming from the panels during the day, so the turbine never works during daytime. And the little bit of wind at night is not enough to charge his batteries. Is there a way that the turbine could read the actual state of charge of the batteries? I know you get hybrid controllers with solar and wind inputs, but they are quite expensive. What do you suggest?

 

Using those "hybrid controllers with solar and wind inputs" is pretty much the only way to use it properly. Unless the turbine MPPT has it's own Volt and current "sensors"?

Hi Silver

Yes it does. It is all built in. So the only option he has is to switch of his solar during daytime if it is cloudy so that the turbine can take over and switch it back on when it is sunny? Maybe connect a light sensor to a relay on the panels?

Can he not set the float voltage levels on the turbine controller and PV controller differently?

 

That way the turbine take over from the PV as soon as the PV gets to battery level of 52V for example....

Just now, Mark said:

Can he not set the float voltage levels on the turbine controller and PV controller differently?

 

That way the turbine take over from the PV as soon as the PV gets to battery level of 52V for example....

But then you run the risk of not fully charging the batteries on a nice, sunny, windless day. 

Agreed Silver.  It depends are you in a windy area (ie fully charge batts with turbine) or set the turbine to 52V and if there is sun it priortises PV.

I have 2 MPPT's and have to do this or they argue.  I don't like the idea of switching the turbine on and off.  Unless with a relay based on SOC?