Soma 1 kW 24volt wind generator

gactrx

Hi, I tried the Soma email but no reply. I am replacing a small wind generator with the one above which I bought secondhand. I didn't realise but I only have two 25sqmm cables going the 50 meters to the old one and the Soma is three phase. i don't want to run another cable so am thinking of mounting the three phase rectifier at the base of the generator and running DC on my existing cables. I'm not sure of the DC volts and current output of the Soma in relation to wind speed but guess at lower wind speed the voltage produced will be affected by voltage drop. Or does the voltage rise very quickly to 24 volts? I'm just wondering if any one would know how this setup would work? If it will have a problem with charging a 24 volt battery bank, I can use the Soma output to heat my water using a 24 volt element instead. I do have PV for the battery bank.
Thanks,

BB.

An old article about Soma--Perhaps some answers to your questions:

https://archive.org/stream/Home_Power_Magazine_018/Home_Power_Magazine_018_djvu.txt

-Bill

Ethan Brush

gactrx wrote: »

Hi, I tried the Soma email but no reply. I am replacing a small wind generator with the one above which I bought secondhand. I didn't realise but I only have two 25sqmm cables going the 50 meters to the old one and the Soma is three phase. i don't want to run another cable so am thinking of mounting the three phase rectifier at the base of the generator and running DC on my existing cables. I'm not sure of the DC volts and current output of the Soma in relation to wind speed but guess at lower wind speed the voltage produced will be affected by voltage drop. Or does the voltage rise very quickly to 24 volts? I'm just wondering if any one would know how this setup would work? If it will have a problem with charging a 24 volt battery bank, I can use the Soma output to heat my water using a 24 volt element instead. I do have PV for the battery bank.
Thanks,

Your voltage will rise pretty quickly at a fixed volts/rpm ratio up to cut in at which point it becomes "inductively clamped" to the battery voltage. Note that voltage drop in the system just makes the turbine spin a little faster before it hits cut in. This would be a small amount especially considering that at cutin/low winds it will make making very little current thus low voltage drop. It's at the higher end of its output that the voltage drop may become significant enough to effect efficiency a bit.

Aguarancher

It appears that Soma was bought out by Central West Solar. You might try contacting them for some info: http://somawindgenerators.com.au/
Central West Solar: http://centralwestsolar.com.au/wind.htm

Aguarancher

Upon looking a little closer at their site, these 2 links are a bit more specific to your turbine:
http://somawindgenerators.com.au/soma-1000/
https://somawindgenerators.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/soma-wind-generators-manual-battery-charging-6-2.pdf

gactrx

Hi, thanks for the info. It sounds like my cables will be ok so will go ahead with the plan.
Cheers,