Recommendations for wind air compressor?
Steven Lake
Solar Expert Posts: 402 ✭✭
Okay, I'm at the point that I will soon be looking to replace our compressor for shop work, and it happened to dawn on me that a few fellow farmers north of me have smaller 50ft air compressor windmills that compliment their larger 100ft power generating mills that they use for generating compressed air for use in the shop and around the farm. Our maximum working pressure we need is about 120psi (air tools), with I think one tool that'll run at 120, but prefers 150psi. We presently have a 120gallon 2 phase twin cylinder we use, and it works fine on the current solar/wind hybrid system we built for the barn (solar alone turned out to not be enough to keep up with demand), but if I could go entirely wind powered on the air compressor, that'd take a big load off the system, and give me something a little greener to work with.:)
I haven't settled on what tank this will have, but it won't be the old one as that's old enough I'm not sure I wanna trust it much past the couple of months of life the compressor itself has in it. I don't figure it'll go pop anytime soon, but once the compressor goes, I figure that the whole unit itself will be ready for the recycle pile, tank and all. I've considered hooking up the brand new 500 gallon propane tank behind the barn and using that as my air tank as that has a max working pressure of 250psi and a burst pressure of over 400psi. We bought it two years ago in the fall and then ended up not using it. I know I've got fittings that'd allow me to use it as an air tank, so that's not a problem.
Anyhow, what's your thoughts? What would you recommend as a wind powered compressor, possibly usable on a 50ft mast tower, and my idea to maybe re-purpose the propane tank for holding compressed air? And before anyone screams, no, it has no propane in it. We bought it new, never purged, never filled, and it's remained that way. In fact, it still has the valve cap on it from the factory. ^_^;; Anyhow, I'd greatly appreciate your thoughts. I've done some looking around myself, but since I'm pretty much clueless in this area, I'm deferring to your wisdom on this.
I haven't settled on what tank this will have, but it won't be the old one as that's old enough I'm not sure I wanna trust it much past the couple of months of life the compressor itself has in it. I don't figure it'll go pop anytime soon, but once the compressor goes, I figure that the whole unit itself will be ready for the recycle pile, tank and all. I've considered hooking up the brand new 500 gallon propane tank behind the barn and using that as my air tank as that has a max working pressure of 250psi and a burst pressure of over 400psi. We bought it two years ago in the fall and then ended up not using it. I know I've got fittings that'd allow me to use it as an air tank, so that's not a problem.
Anyhow, what's your thoughts? What would you recommend as a wind powered compressor, possibly usable on a 50ft mast tower, and my idea to maybe re-purpose the propane tank for holding compressed air? And before anyone screams, no, it has no propane in it. We bought it new, never purged, never filled, and it's remained that way. In fact, it still has the valve cap on it from the factory. ^_^;; Anyhow, I'd greatly appreciate your thoughts. I've done some looking around myself, but since I'm pretty much clueless in this area, I'm deferring to your wisdom on this.
Comments
http://fluidpowerjournal.com/2014/04/air-tool-is-inefficient/
Second system 1890W 3 × 300W No name brand poly, 3×330 Sunsolar Poly panels, Morningstar TS 60 PWM controller, no name 2000W inverter 400Ah LFP 24V nominal battery with Daly BMS, used for water pumping and day time air conditioning.
5Kw Yanmar clone single cylinder air cooled diesel generator for rare emergency charging and welding.