HYE Turbines and Xantrex C60

Jayboy
Jayboy Registered Users Posts: 24
Hi Guys

Hope all well. I have owned a few HYE Turbines for the past few years now. They are pretty good and not that bad at all. Please note that windmax is not HYE. They only sell a few of their products and have tainted the HYE name by selling their own products along side them.

The Turbine is great however the Wind and Solar Hybrid controller that comes with it is not so great at all.
I was looking into using a Xantrex C60 or something smaller. My Issue is that the HYE turbine requires electromagnetic braking for RPM regulation.
How would I implement this with the Xantrex? I don't have the pennies for a midnite.
Any ideas would be great.

Thanks Guys
JB

Comments

  • BB.
    BB. Super Moderators, Administrators Posts: 33,431 admin
    Re: HYE Turbines and Xantrex C60

    The standard method is to connect the turbine directly to the battery bank (through AC rectifier, fuse/breaker, some sort of shunting switch to shut down the turbine and then to the battery).

    Then setup the C60 in "diversion mode" with a resistor heating bank of some sort. When the battery is "Full", the C60 turns on and dumps excess power to the resistor bank. When the battery needs charging again, the C60 Turns off.

    I would suggest you have the C60 set point a bit higher than any solar charge controller set point--That way the C60 only turns on when it is windy and the turbine is running. Otherwise, the solar charge controller limits over charging from the solar array.

    -Bill
    Near San Francisco California: 3.5kWatt Grid Tied Solar power system+small backup genset
  • Jayboy
    Jayboy Registered Users Posts: 24
    Re: HYE Turbines and Xantrex C60

    Sounds good thank you.
    Will the resistor bank be able to keep the turbine under 800rpm? This is the max rpm for the HY.
    I believe their cheapie controllers just short circuit the 3 phases.
    I am worried the resistors won't be adequate to control the machine from oversead in high wind,
    Many thanks
    J
  • BB.
    BB. Super Moderators, Administrators Posts: 33,431 admin
    Re: HYE Turbines and Xantrex C60

    All good questions and part of the design process (and part of the weakness of small wind turbines).

    If something fails (breaker opens, too much wind and the shunt switch over heats the turbine stator, etc.), the turbine can over speed and self destruct.

    It is the battery loading (or shunt switch) that keeps the turbine from over speed (unless is furls or something else).

    Risk/Reward question. Is the risk of turbine over speed (dangers of shedding blades, cost of repairs, etc.) for a small turbine vs the savings in buying a small turbine worth it for you... I cannot say.

    -Bill
    Near San Francisco California: 3.5kWatt Grid Tied Solar power system+small backup genset
  • gww1
    gww1 Solar Expert Posts: 963 ✭✭
    Re: HYE Turbines and Xantrex C60

    You can set up a circuit that shorts the turbine base on some criteria that you would fix for it to do so. I couldn't help you in this cause I haven't got first hand experiance. I do know that Chris Olson, a member of this forum posted that that is now how he has decided to control some of his turbines. I also don't think it would be that complicated if I though hard about how to do it, so you need to go where some of the circuit wizards go and ask them. You might try the otherpower forum and post the question on how.
    Good luck
    gww
  • Ethan Brush
    Ethan Brush Solar Expert Posts: 235 ✭✭
    Re: HYE Turbines and Xantrex C60
    Jayboy wrote: »
    Sounds good thank you.
    Will the resistor bank be able to keep the turbine under 800rpm? This is the max rpm for the HY.
    I believe their cheapie controllers just short circuit the 3 phases.
    I am worried the resistors won't be adequate to control the machine from oversead in high wind,
    Many thanks
    J

    I cannot speak for your specific turbine but generally I think of it this way: An off grid turbine can be installed 2 ways. One is with NO Controller. The turbine is connected directly to the batteries (but through a bridge rectifier) then you charge control with diversion (as BB said). This in concert with furling protects the turbine from overspeed. The second way is to use an MPPT controller like the midnite classic (the only one I know of). Now there are some variations within this method but they all generally employ a "safety" on the line side of the charge controller to short out the turbine if something goes wrong and this could save the turbine and the controller. You can use a midnite clipper or make your own. ITs pretty easy, all you need is voltage controlled relay and some contactactors. Here is a ink to Rob Beckers method

    http://www.solacity.com/docs/wind%20turbine%20overvoltage%20protection.pdf

    and similar design here:

    http://www.fieldlines.com/index.php?topic=148038.0

    Sounds like your "controller" is just a charge controller with diversion/shorting elements built in. Thats the way the southwest windpower "controller" worked, it just incorporated bridge rectifier and diversion resistors in one unit - nothing fancy going on there. I got mine with no controller and just made my own.

    I would recommend a tristar controller instead of the C series. The C series are really slow to react to changes in wind/incoming voltage and the battery voltage swings around quite a bit.