South west wind Air industrial on midnite classic charge controller

mahendra
mahendra Solar Expert Posts: 177 ✭✭✭
Quetion, a good friend is giving me one of those Southwest Wind turbines to add to my existing off grid system.
The turbine is a 48V industrial type without the electronic regulator seen in the newer models like the Air 30 also from South west Wind.
Will this work on my existing 12v battery bank system using a Midnite Classic Charge controller .Will it convert the excess Voltage generated to 12v nominal for the battery bank.

Comments

  • boB
    boB Solar Expert Posts: 1,030 ✭✭✭✭
    Re: South west wind Air industrial on midnite classic charge controller

    My thought is that without the regulation circuitry in the Air turbine, that its output voltage should vary just like any other turbine and should
    work fine.

    If anybody here has played with an Air X turbine without the regulator, then it would be interesting to hear what they have
    to say.

    I have seen the internal circuit board but can't remember much about it. Hopefully the internal rectifier in these
    things are OK. Are they 3 phase internally ??

    boB
  • ChrisOlson
    ChrisOlson Banned Posts: 1,807 ✭✭
    Re: South west wind Air industrial on midnite classic charge controller

    That would be the Air-X without the internal controller - they are three-phase and it should work fine. If it was me I would get rid of the onboard rectifier and slip rings and run a three conductor #12 Type SEOW cable down the tower, rectify it on the ground and run the DC into the Classic from there. If you take the thing apart it's fairly well self explanatory as to how to get a drop cable in there and eliminate all the problematic stuff they got in the little nacelle. Once you get rid of all that you can run a three-phase clipper with it because you'll have access to the three-phase output on the ground. You will need a clipper to keep it online because it will fairly rapidly exceed 150 volts output. They use reactance limiting in the stator in those to allow the turbine to run at the right speed. Once you remove the battery voltage "clamp" by hooking it to a Classic and letting it "float" the voltage will go up very fast.

    It will take some fiddling with the power curve to get it to work. The little blades they use on those things only have a very narrow TSR range where they work right, and the blades "flutter" and self stall to prevent over-speed. If the turbine makes its characteristic "buzzing" sound really loud that's when the blades are fluttering and you're running it too fast to get best power from it.

    Other than those modifications, I don't see why it won't work fine with the Classic 150.
    --
    Chris
  • Ralph Day
    Ralph Day Solar Expert Posts: 1,019 ✭✭✭✭
    Re: South west wind Air industrial on midnite classic charge controller

    Ha Ha Chris. "Flutter" and "Buzzing". Ha ha. The first time we heard the "blade tip flutter" (the techie's name for it a SWWP) on our H80 we christened it "The Farts of the gods!". Scared the dog and me in equal sphincter factor. You can compare it to a helicopter landing in your front yard, or maybe a monstrous big tree chipper sometimes found in the wilds of Wisconson :roll:.

    Trimmed the blades and it was better, replaced the blades with a shorter stiffer set (under warranty when SWWP actually cared) and it is only heard on the blowing-est of days, gusts over 60km/hr.

    Ralph
  • ChrisOlson
    ChrisOlson Banned Posts: 1,807 ✭✭
    Re: South west wind Air industrial on midnite classic charge controller

    Yeah, they can get to sounding like a giant bumblebee from one of them horror movies when the wind is really blowing. But when running on a Classic 150 you want to keep the turbine below that speed range to get best efficiency from the blades.
    --
    Chris
  • inetdog
    inetdog Solar Expert Posts: 3,123 ✭✭✭✭
    Re: South west wind Air industrial on midnite classic charge controller
    ChrisOlson wrote: »
    Yeah, they can get to sounding like a giant bumblebee from one of them horror movies when the wind is really blowing. But when running on a Classic 150 you want to keep the turbine below that speed range to get best efficiency from the blades.
    --
    Chris
    Any suggestions on where to find or how to calculate the best volt/amp curves for the Classic to use for this turbine?
    SMA SB 3000, old BP panels.
  • ChrisOlson
    ChrisOlson Banned Posts: 1,807 ✭✭
    Re: South west wind Air industrial on midnite classic charge controller

    Absolutely no clue, inetdog. I know it will work with the Classic. But it's not like a air gap generator, so I can't even come close to calculating it without knowing all the magnetic details of the core and what those little chicklet magnets on the rotor are in there for power. Where the core reactance in those little things will start eating up the excess shaft power is a mystery until somebody experiments with it. Like any laminated electrical steel core generator, it will self-limit at some point, which air gap generators don't do because the power curve of a air gap generator is fairly linear. The faster you spin a air gap generator, the more power it makes until it finally burns up. Iron or steel core generators don't do that.
    --
    Chris
  • mahendra
    mahendra Solar Expert Posts: 177 ✭✭✭
    Re: South west wind Air industrial on midnite classic charge controller

    well that the reason why i asked for advice and judging from the vibe i am receiving i would be better off buying g a brand new turbine with regulator.Clipper and rectifier just skyrocket the price.so i guess that will be a no for me