Hi All.

I have had similar bad service from them. luckily i never bought anything from them. just a look at there google review's says it all. My experience i can say you get what you pay for from China, and in stead of purchasing direct from there, it is better to work with a local distributor, that actually picks up the phone when you call. Pay peanuts, get monkeys.

I have installed a couple of turbines to date. From what i can say is this:

• Wind is a great energy source if you have enough of it. the turbine needs to be set as high up as possible and a good controller makes the worlds of difference. 
• a Turbine will cost you 4 or 5 times as much per kwh compared to PV. But if you live in a place where you don't see the sun for 15 days, it might be an option.
• Turbine towers need to be strong, you can diy, but over engineer the hell out of it.
• there seems to be no clear info on lighting protection, so my course of action is as follows: at the base of the tower i install a combiner box with normal AC 3P lighting protection. and a couple of good earthing rods.
• breaking of turbine in high winds. this can be done by shorting the 3 phases out, but man don't do it while it is running away... i have seen some controllers that applies the break over an increasing resistance, and then making the short. the alternative is to go old school and buy a turbine with a manual cranking break on it like the old mills on the farms.
• Local dealers that know there stuff: i have found 2 that i can recommend. Jason from Pegasus (a true gentleman) and Mark from Wind and Solar. 

 

Good luck, hope you get your turbine up and running.

Thank you very much for this kind comment. Also a very good sum up of wind turbines. Thank you.

Jason

This is my first post, so please excuse any transgressions of forum/community rules.

I was looking at reviews about the TESUP Atlas wind turbine, when I stumbled across this thread.

I don't know whether I should be grateful or disheartened by the experience you had with your wind turbine. I was on the verge of taking my first leap into the renewable energy world by purchasing the exact setup you acquired. 

After everything you experienced I will definitely not go ahead with the purchase. This takes me, however, back to square one: Looking for a wind/solar combination to get started in slowly converting my house to be self-sustainable and eventually be able to operate completely off-grid.

From the comments about paying R33 000 for a starting solution as "peanuts", I am starting to think that this game is only for homeowners with deep pockets, as in my world this is a fairly hefty price tag. 

If this is not even suitable for a starting solution, I am pretty much out of this game before even getting started.

I hope someone with experience and knowledge can convince me otherwise?

Hi Wessel

 

All is relevant...if your energy usage is plenty, so will be the system needed to supply that energy.

a few tips on alternatives:

1. you save your money before you start with the system. IE: take a look at the electricity demand, and bring that demand down as much as possible. Solar geyser, stove and energy efficient appliances.
2. get a professional! Pasop for the bakkie builders. there are plenty of sharks out there. you can install a small system yourself, and ask for help on this forum, but for a true no nonsense solution, you will need expert advise.
3. not all systems are modular. a bit of a true and false. if you have your energy demand under control, you will know how much you need, and then design a system that will allow you to reach your goal in a modular way.
4. finance the system. if possible, get the right thing from the start, stop paying for eskom and start paying down a instalment on your system. this is the best way to get a good ROI.
5. wind turbines vs PV: pv is the first option. much cheaper and i am almost sure that tomorrow the sun will sine again. Turbines are about 4x the cost per kwh.
6. Batteries: if off grid, you will need something to store your energy in. dont buy cheap! it will cost you. Good Lead acid vs good Lithium. (Ek weet hier gaan ek pakslae kry) i like 2v Lead cells. but that is just me. Lithium is maintenance free, and about the same price.it all depends on DOD.

Stay on the forum and ask your questions here, there are plenty of smart guys that are keen to help.

 

Good luck.

On 2021/02/10 at 6:55 AM, Wildebees said:

Batteries: if off grid, you will need something to store your energy in. dont buy cheap! it will cost you. Good Lead acid vs good Lithium. (Ek weet hier gaan ek pakslae kry) i like 2v Lead cells. but that is just me. Lithium is maintenance free, and about the same price.it all depends on DOD.

Ja boet, I personally think the days of lead acid have come and gone... you cannot 80% discharge and expect life out of these, in fact taking 20% out of these will already mean 20+years life is unlikely, so I'd say LiFePO4's if you don't stress them, leave 20% in the battery and try and keep them below 90% charge (don't try and fill them to 100%) are more than likely a lot less expensive and don't require daily nursing of water levels etc. Maybe someone can come up with some numbers for, lets say a 10kWh usable lead acid vs LiFePO4 battery.

For lead acid you're looking at 24 * 2V cells with a ampere rating of 1000A/h. I think its around 170kR maybe.

For LiFePO4 you're looking at 48V units with a combined capacity of let's say 15kWh. Thumbsuck of around 100kR and 19k6Wh rated at 70% (20%>Usage limits<90%) it would be 13k4Wh and no daily top up.

Both scenarios should keep you in electron flow for 20 years, assuming you don't exceed limits mentioned, so, for an extra 70kR and slightly less usable capacity you get to do regular maintenance and have to organise loads of distilled water 🙂 yes, you can use your pee, but I wouldn't really recommend it. The smell around the cells wouldn't be too cool, then again, it may prevent theft 🙂 although, I'd imagine 1000Ah cells would be not so easy to move and run off with in the 1st place, so maybe that's why we all should go for lead acids of this magnitude and just get used to the maintenance.

Tesup finally came back and said that they agree the Grid Tie Inverter has an issue, But as yet, has not come forth with a resolution as to swapping it out or anything.

 

The Experience so far is very poor.

 

With no resolution in sight.

 

 

 

So 6 months after the ticket was opened they refer me to the manufacturer of the inverter, and that I should RMA the unit myself. The process itself is layer upon layer of registrations, that don't have any flow or guide, i am still stuck with that process (just the registration) as it seems their portal is for Distributors, as an entire process, this has been a failure of note! Pathetic, and i will never recommend this company to anyone, from piss poor manufacturing to shocking service.

 

So at the end of all of it, I may have ordered something from China, and hoped for the best, in my experience that has been a lot easier with returns, and service.

So i have requested a refund from them for this, i guess the installation and time waisted on this is my school fees.

to date 0kw generated.

Not sure if this has been answered in one of the pervious posts, but my understanding is that Tesup wind turbines are manufactured in Turkey (hence the rather coy blurb saying "Made in Europe")   

So after months of fighting it seems we are at a dead end.

 

The Ema portal wants an distributor login, and i am an end user for that unit. After then saying, that i am not having any luck with the portal:

 

Now i feel that if you resell something you make a markup, and that should cover client service, but i guess not in this case. So upon asking for a refund, i get this reply.

 

I also wanted to point out that I never received a video with the power generation, nor an report, nor an manual, and the Labels were paper pasted on.

So disappointed in this, and I would not recommend this to anyone.

And then in regards with the entire process, it took them from the 7th of December to 10th of March, to just tell me to RMA the unit myself? 

 

How pathetic.

 

I have now contacted Delta South Africa's representation, but now the unit is already more than 4+ months old (depending when they shipped it), so all in all its has not been great.

Another reason why I use a card for purchases where possible and institute a charge back with your bank. It does however take time. 

Did a charge back for flights with lastminute.com. They disputed the request by my bank and then I asked my bank to appeal which was successful and received the full charge back refund after 4 months from submitting the charge back request. 

Not sure if you paid using a card and if you could pursue the charge back option with your bank. 

On 2021/01/20 at 10:24 PM, Cybertza said:

The Response on 15 Dec for reference:

 

Got another response today for reference:

The D3000 is a fine inverter. However, it will start up by +30 volts for at least one minute. This the atlas 2.0 will never reach. The only way to start up the inverter is to use additional solar panels. Then the atlas will produce a very tiny bit of power. I have installed it, and it is a scam.

Jeez I'm so glad I read this. I was basically with my finger on the "order" button from Tesup. That's why I love this forum so much!!

So if not Tesup, which wind turbine can you guys advise to use with a 48V Victron system with PV? I only 400-600W extra for times when PV is not sufficient. I live in the Karoo and lately we've been experiencing a lot of wind. I have a T105-RE 48V battery bank (225Ah) which I only cycle to 80% SOC. I do have the luxury of grid power as backup and also a 5Kw Silent diesel generator (for those unexpected grid failures). Grid-tied is not an option seeing that we've got one the most corrupt municipalities (and soon one of the most indebted) in the country, which refuse to reimburse electricity fed into the grid by any means. 

I just need some way of generating a little extra power during overcast day and nighttime to make up for my relatively small battery bank. I know getting a proper battery bank and extra PV is more ideal but I am not at any stage to spend major $$ on current battery technology. I'm sure energy storage technology will rapidly change in the next 2 - 5 years so I need to get as far as possible with my current Trojans.......

If I may. I will be happy to help. I get very excited about wind. Pegasus Systems.

Will happily contact you tomorrow.

Sincerely.

Jay

Thanks Jason,

I'm between wind turbine and vertical E-W PV at the moment. I'm currently using a 150/70 Smartsolar MPPT with only 1980W PV connected, all facing North. I've got A LOT of roof space in N, E & W directions. Even still, every time the wind picks up (mostly at night) I'm dreaming of harnessing it for some additional charging. I need only about 400W to cover my base usage....

Not a problem. I feel for 400W it will be much more effective and more cost effective to add more solar. If it comes to not having any further roof space / wind could be an option. Hope this helps.

Sincerely

Jay

59 minutes ago, Energy-Jason said:

Not a problem. I feel for 400W it will be much more effective and more cost effective to add more solar. If it comes to not having any further roof space / wind could be an option. Hope this helps.

Sincerely

Jay

Have you installed any wind turbines in the Pretoria area? Or does the lack of wind make this a non-starter?

11 hours ago, Energy-Jason said:

Not a problem. I feel for 400W it will be much more effective and more cost effective to add more solar. If it comes to not having any further roof space / wind could be an option. Hope this helps.

Sincerely

Jay

That's what I'm thinking as well. If I would consider a wind turbine I would like to have it linked to the rest of my Victron system and after doing some homework most advice is against using a victron MPPT for wind for obvious reasons (not designed for it, no storm brake, etc) but I guess with some fiddling one could make a wind turbine, generating 3ph AC 60-130v work through a Bridge rectifier and the put the DC into a 150/35 Smartsolar mppt? I like to experiment but this is going to be an expensive experiment. Maybe I should mount a 110V generator to a treadmill and let the family charge my batteries every night before going to sleep?😉

Back to curiosity. What would a turbine cost that would have a 110v AC output? say around 600-1000W?

43 minutes ago, Czauto said:

That's what I'm thinking as well. If I would consider a wind turbine I would like to have it linked to the rest of my Victron system and after doing some homework most advice is against using a victron MPPT for wind for obvious reasons (not designed for it, no storm brake, etc) but I guess with some fiddling one could make a wind turbine, generating 3ph AC 60-130v work through a Bridge rectifier and the put the DC into a 150/35 Smartsolar mppt? I like to experiment but this is going to be an expensive experiment. Maybe I should mount a 110V generator to a treadmill and let the family charge my batteries every night before going to sleep?😉

Back to curiosity. What would a turbine cost that would have a 110v AC output? say around 600-1000W?

Have a look at Erastus' thread on the turbine he is building.

As far as pricing for a turbine, that very much depends on your available wind. Turbines are rated at their max power, but that requires crazy wind. The power decreases with the cube of wind speed, so that for an effective 1kw under normal wind conditions you probably need about a 4kw turbine