Pictures forum?

boisblancboy

First off if this is in the wrong place, pleaes move or delete.

I was just curious if we could have a place to post some pictures and show everyone our systems.

I know I always enjoy looking at everyones ideas and being able to see exactly what they did, even for the most advanced systems as well as some of the most basic.

Thanks

BB.

Re: Pictures forum?

You may post your pictures anywhere here that is roughly appropriate (off-grid, grid tied, beginner).

If you are asking for a sub-forum for pictures/installation examples, that is something the Admin (WindSun) would need to setup.

There have not been a lot of system install pictures posted yet--I am not sure that it would get a lot of posts/traffic...

Anyone else want post some examples to this thread to seed a sub-forum?

-Bill

halfcrazy

Re: Pictures forum?

sure here you go and i need more letters 18 character minimum

halfcrazy

Re: Pictures forum?

here is a pic of our generator uses about a gallon of fuel in 4 hours

boisblancboy

Re: Pictures forum?

Thats pretty cool, solar panel on the jeep. What kind of generator is that?

halfcrazy

Re: Pictures forum?

its a power line lister clone 6 horse power diesel check them out here http://www.generatorsales.com/order/lister_engines.asp

homerramirez

Re: Pictures forum?

This great idea... everybody has something diferent and could be original....here goes my .10cts.

p.s. still need to add condut...this weekend finishing task....to eager to try it.

homerramirez

Re: Pictures forum?

Halfcrazy....it does look like a 10000 w Harbor Freight gen., the enginne looks awesome...and I'm very sure it does perfom as well as you maintain it :cool:...congrats....by the way what's the maker?....

H.R.:cool:

niel

Re: Pictures forum?

i did sticky a place for pics and such so as to centralize a place that beginners primarily could see what people have done and get a general feel by sight as to what this is about. it would be for all to see, but i thought that area would've been best for it. i don't see anything wrong posting it elsewhere in the forum too, but limit it to one other place besides the sticky area i created.
http://forum.solar-electric.com/showthread.php?t=3389

Windsun

Re: Pictures forum?

You can upload picture albums here, but the link is not real obvious, it is under "Quick Links".

http://forum.solar-electric.com/album.php?u=1

Not sure how well it works, since I am the only one that has uploaded anything :roll:

If people want to upload to them, can make a sticky or a new section to list just those.

icarus

Re: Pictures forum?

halfcrazy wrote: »

its a power line lister clone 6 horse power diesel check them out here http://www.generatorsales.com/order/lister_engines.asp

Anybody interested in a 5kw Lister (real lister) Sl2? Send me a note!

Tony

halfcrazy

Re: Pictures forum?

Tony log in over hers www.listerengine.com and put it in the market pace they have a great forum for listers

HR the maker of the engine is powerline and the gen head i do not remember the maker of but the generator place told me it was one of the better 2 pole units and it is 5kw. i do need to clean up all my tools and such and get a remote fuel tank and make a guard for the flywheel. But i love that thing it will start and carry u huge load for 6hp those flywheels will carry it thru a tremendous surge

icarus

Re: Pictures forum?

HalfC,

Been there,, thanks. Mine isn't going anywhere soon, as shipping is going to kill someone. I can only get it off the island during a small window of time in March!

T

boisblancboy

Re: Pictures forum?

Hey guys, since I started this thread I thought I have better should my simple TINY system that I have built. More for fun and educational than functional I guess. Just a 65w panel and charge controller. At the moment just charging up/topping off a bunch of our Heavy Equipment (regular lead acid) batteries.

niel

Re: Pictures forum?

i don't think the prostar is meant to be mounted outside exposed to any weather so you may wish to consider either remounting it indoors or place some kind of weather protection on it.

boisblancboy

Re: Pictures forum?

Its not outside, its on the inside of my basement wall.

niel

Re: Pictures forum?

my mistake then. sorry about that as the pic almost looked like an outdoor shot.

boisblancboy

Re: Pictures forum?

No problem at all! I know that the charge controller I have is also way over rated for the one panel I have, but I do love the digital meter on it so i can always see what is going on.

Bob McGovern

Re: Pictures forum?

A long shot of the house and shop in SE Wyoming. Plenty of wind and (on a normal day) sun. View looking North:



The wind turbine is on its "winter pole". I shortened it 15ft to reduce the hammering it receives from November to March. Doesn't seem to be affecting output. Not much ground clutter!:D

halfcrazy

Re: Pictures forum?

what is it for a turbine?

BB.

Re: Pictures forum?

Bergey XL1 (1kW) turbine (from Sig)?

Do you have any month by month output numbers?

-Bill

icarus

Re: Pictures forum?

Who stole all the trees?:-)

T

niel

Re: Pictures forum?

bobmcg,
i always liked the bergey, but it was getting bad reviews along with many other turbines from some that came here to the forum. i don't think we've had somebody that had one of them though. i would love to hear of some stats from your install on its performance and maintenance.
as to the trees, maybe he got a buck per tree from the tree fairly?8) either that or the grinch stole them.:p

Bob McGovern

Re: Pictures forum?

When we first bought this land, my friend came out & looked around, said "Notice there isn't anything taller than six inches as far as the eye can see? There's a reason for that."

The chief reason is wind. We live in one of best inland wind corridors on earth -- 350 commercial turbines within an hour's drive, & Phil Anschutz is about to drop another 1000 near Rawlins. We average 14.5 mph year round; about 11 mph in summer and 16 mph in winter.

The Bergey XL1 normally lives on a 65' tilt-up tower, tho I took out one and a half sections this winter as an experiment. Sustained Chinook winds of 60 mph are common; I've clocked winds of 119 and 106 mph on this property. Now, those numbers really ought to be de-rated by 20% since we are 7500' above sea level.

Bergey. Whew -- where to start. First, it's a very good company with good people trying their best in the face of difficult engineering compromises and pricing pressures. When I bought it nearly five years ago, the XL1 was the best of a rotten bunch. I knew this going in. But I bought into the company more than the product as such -- and they have never disappointed, even though warranty repairs long ago exceeded the original purchase price.

In five years, the turbine has suffered (IIRC) thirteen major failures. These include five melted stators, three dead rectifiers, zorched slip rings, two cases of blade loss (thought we might have another this morning!), one guy wire failure/tower collapse, and one complete dismount when the (poor Chinese steel) yaw shaft fatigued through. A few pics for your amusement:







A dry sense of humor is useful among Bergey owners.;)

As for output: That's not easy to measure exactly, since we are off grid and our batts seldom dip below 20% DOD. Both PV and wind spend much of their time kicking their heels. Unfair test of output potential. Based on observations when batts are thirsty, I figure 7 kWh/day in winter and 4 in summer. That's well below Bergey's projections, but I sorta counted on that in the planning. Our PV on trackers really picks up the slack in the summer.

BTW, the Bergey did not come with a dump load, and the controller's provisions for same are garbage. So most of the melted stators came from the turbine trying to alternator-brake in high winds. Since I changed the PV controller to an MX-60 with relay-triggered dump load, the wind turbine's coils are much happier. Now if only we could keep the blades attached....

BB.

Re: Pictures forum?

Wow--more failure modes than I could even have guessed... And I thought Bergey was one of the better companies (maybe they are).

Perhaps I was too optimistic when I was telling people here to run away fast from wind (or at least, make it a last resort)--low output and lots of maintenance issues would kill them. :roll:

-Bill

niel

Re: Pictures forum?

bobmcg,
thanks for your input on it. if you could ever get it to stay in the air in 1 piece maybe some of the stuff boB has in the works would be interesting for you to try at your local in the future. i never thought those tubular towers could hold up to high winds with such resistance that wind generators would place upon them. these are expensive enough without needing to replace them due to failure and i think i'd have considered a 3 legged tower, but this ups the price considerably especially for those that can tilt over or crank up.

Bob McGovern

Re: Pictures forum?

niel wrote: »

i never thought those tubular towers could hold up to high winds with such resistance that wind generators would place upon them. these are expensive enough without needing to replace them due to failure and i think i'd have considered a 3 legged tower, but this ups the price considerably especially for those that can tilt over or crank up.

Tower was fine until the windward top guy snapped. It's common for the wire rope to fray at the anchor bend; this one failed at the top cable clamp, for reasons not yet understood. That NRG tower is actually overkill for the turbine, with safety factor of 3 at 120 mph sea-level winds. Unless a guy wire fails, then it's just yard art.:p

I'm sticking with wind power. Its lower installed cost is certainly canceled by higher maintenance and shorter service life than PV, but when you really need power, esp. in winter, nothing juices up the batts like a wind turbine running 600 RPMs day and night. Can't ignore our winds; may as well put them to work. Noisy bugger, though -- IMO the chief cause of blade & mount failure is the side furling design. Words cannot express the violent shaking the turbine undergoes when it furls at 30 mph: blades head alternately upwind and down. Sounds like a police helicopter. Elegant idea, but untenable at high RPMs. (When not furling, it's not loud at all.)

niel

Re: Pictures forum?

ok, then maybe some better guy wires are in order.
am i seeing that correctly that you have over 10,000ah in batteries. yikes, that's got to be cca and not ah, but even at that it's way high for what you have charging them! i didn't find that particular battery in a quick search.

halfcrazy

Re: Pictures forum?

My apologies i didn't even see this sig line. that is some serious wind. are you using thimbles on the cables on the ends? i looked at the commercially available towers when i did mine and just couldn't get past the lack of good rigging skills. a few didn't have turnbuckles just pull the cable tight and go?
I ended up building my own and i know it is over kill but i like it that way. the highest wind i have recorded is 60mph but we have only been logging wind speed and turbine data for 2 months the turbine has been there for about 8 months

Bob McGovern

Re: Pictures forum?

niel wrote: »

ok, then maybe some better guy wires are in order.
am i seeing that correctly that you have over 10,000ah in batteries. yikes, that's got to be cca and not ah, but even at that it's way high for what you have charging them! i didn't find that particular battery in a quick search.

Nope -- it's Ah. Twelve 2V telecom cells, 3700 Ah at the 8 hour rate. According to Exide's engineer, that's 7000 Ah at the 20 hr rate. He said, "We've never even considered the 100 hour rate, but according to our curves it should be around 10,000 Ah." We're talking 7200 lbs, here.

Batts this big play hell with conventional wisdom. Like the "3-day rule". We can skip along for six weeks with no charging inputs. Have done, during a long cloudy winter spell when the turbine lay on the ground. They are large enuf to run my cabinet shop 60 hrs a week. And while the "5%-13%" rule is helpful for smaller banks or lead antimony, these cells are lead calcium and like living in the top 20% of charge. Voltage reading this morning:



Happy, happy batteries. They get plenty of daily exercise re: short-cycle charge and discharge; sulfation shouldn't be a problem. They come to full charge every week or so; and they haven't lost any water, ever.

They've been brilliant for five and a half years, as lively and bulletproof as the day they went in. I understand they aren't for everyone and they do represent somewhat a law unto themselves, but they are perfect for my setup.

ETA: They are officially "GNB 3700" batts; Exide bought GNB & renamed them the HCT-370 Classic, apparently.