Inside a Chinese wind turbine nacelle

Re: Inside a Chinese wind turbine nacelle

Hello everyone,
I had a much earlier post "Buyer Beware" that warned folks about Four Seasons Windpower, a.k.a. FSW Turbines. This beauty of a wind turbine was purchased from them. Their website is http://www.fswturbines.com
Notice the pictures of the charge controller in my post "did you look inside the controller"
That very same charge controller was part of this wind turbine system.
A total piece of junk. Did you see the craftsmanship inside of the nacelle? Those welds are absolute trash, as is the stopper for the tail vane and the rest of the components.
FSW Turbines are pushing their VAWT units. These are a huge scam and have claimed outputs that are magical. Never mind the math and science.
I hope this post saves someone from buying this or a similar POS. You see identical units on Ebay. Same POS, just another lying importer.

Kim

Re: Inside a Chinese wind turbine nacelle

Hey Bill,
Maybe the lifespan in the brochure was a typo and should have read 12 hours instead of 12 years. Too funny!

Kim

BB. wrote: »

I would guess for this model the tail can fold 90 degrees to the wind if there is A) too much wind or somebody or a controller wants to turn the wind turbine off (batteries fully charged or shut down for maintenance/storm coming).

From the 2kW product glossy:



From another 200 watt manual:



-Bill

Re: Inside a Chinese wind turbine nacelle

More of that outstanding Chinese quality. Who knew the Chinese had time to make wind turbines in between shooting Tibetans? The problem, well, one of them, are these cheap people out there who have been mesmerized with the "spin your meter backwards" crap. Hell, if that'd have been some politician that said that, everyone would say "Another campiagn lie!" Of course, these people won't be spinning their meter backwards with Four Seasons (sounds like a salad dressing, not a wind turbine) gennies or anyone else's. This whole "I'll spin my meter backwards and get a CHECK from the power company!" is such a joke, it beggars belief as to how anyone can be so gullible as to fall for this obvious hucksterism! "Step right up folks! Three balls for a dollar! Knock over the milk bottle and win the chance to spin yer meter backwards!" P.T. Barnum would have loved these people! Yeah, these people are running central AC in Las Vegas in August and they're going to spin their meter backwards. Fer sure! What these people need to spin is their heads back on straight.

That's where these Chinese gennies come in. The importer is trying to ride coattails and make a quick buck. Four Seasons didn't INVENT the concept; they just saw it and decided to cash in. Or at least try to. It would appear these gennies don't stay up long enough for their customers' checks to clear.

Re: Inside a Chinese wind turbine nacelle

Did this ever get resolved?

I'm asking because I'm researching new products for my business but I'm not going to carry anything that doesn't work... or at least isn't corrected.

Also, do you know which factory it came from (their site says the products come direct from the factory)? Thanks to your post, I will check into whether they have any quality control over the factories producing the turbines, that would be another important aspect I'd be critical of, aside from verifying power curve accuracy.

Thanks.

kimberly cantrell wrote: »

Look at those beautiful welds! You get what you pay for. Yet another ripped off customer owns this one. No refund, no repair, no justice......... yet.
This is the same turbine in the air, less than 1 day after being commissioned. Notice that the tail vain pushed the flimsy stopper over, which caused the cheap, ultra-low quality, airfoil to contact the tail vain.
Don't forget, you also get that POS controller with it.
Don't you wish you had one of these?

Kim

Re: Inside a Chinese wind turbine nacelle

In the post, it said "No refund, no repair, no justice......... yet."

That would be my meaning about it being "resolved".

As for a small wind turbine company that measures up... so far I'm the most impressed with the Windspire. http://www.mariahpower.com/ They, like me, don't try to hide behind the "rated" power output (which is nothing more then a wind tunnel test, real wind doesn't have a constant force from a constant direction). More and more companies are now posting actual expectations depending on yearly average wind speeds, though there is still room for error there. Since a 12 mph average could be something like 0 one day, 24mph the next, then 12, then 6 and then 18... all over the place, which would most likely produce more power then a location that is consistantly 10 then 14 then 10 then 14. Why? Because those 24mph days will produce 8 times the energy then those 12mph days, and those 18mph days about 4 times the 12mph days, etc. A few 0mph days is easily made up for with the higher wind days. But, since it's obvious the wind tunnel ratings have no bearing on real wind production results, at least the companies that explain what you may expect from an annual average are trying.

Re: Inside a Chinese wind turbine nacelle

Yes. This past Summer at Onekama Michigan, at the Michigan Energy Fair http://glrea.org/events/MichiganEnergyFair2008/index.php they had one installed right as you come in, it had by far the largest crowd of any of the exhibits, since it was actually working (the rest had samples and/or blades from their turbines in their booths). You could be 5 feet from it and talk in a normal voice and not know the thing was spinning. Very quiet.

Re: Inside a Chinese wind turbine nacelle

Assuming you are looking at the 2nd graph on the test results page, it is in m/s. In a download (pdf) I have I was able to zoom in and read it. The bottom is in m/s and the side says "power delivered to grid". Also, on the download, was this paragraph:

Note: This initial data was provided by Windward Engineering, an
independent test facility, using an in-ground installation in real world
wind conditions, and scientific 1-minute average binned data. Final data
will be released once all electronic settings have been calibrated for
optimal performance. We expect final data to be even more impressive.

(link to pdf: http://mariahpower.com/images/windspire%20specifications.pdf)

Re: Inside a Chinese wind turbine nacelle

BB. wrote: »

Thanks for the PDF...

The left "spec chart" is AVERAGE WIND SPEED and the scatter plot is then probably instantaneous wind speed.

I am not going to pretend that I know the technical difference between average wind speed over one year vs the instantaneous speed vs the Weibull distribution... So I took a look at Bergey's website and downloaded a 10kW Grid Tied Turbine spread sheet... Reasonably close in swept area (~10.5 m^2 for the Bergey, 7.43 m^2 for the Mariah).

Playing with the spread sheet--it seems that for equivalent swept area, the VAWT gathers much less power... And mounting on a shorter mast, a lot of energy is lost (due to turbulance/slowing of wind near the ground).

At 10m/s, the Bergey (10 meter as a mast height) outputs 4.59kW, while the Mariah outputs ~900 watts (0.9 kWatts).

I don't know if the comparisons are fair--the Bergey (I would guess) has its hub around 10 meters... Whereas a 10m Mariah would be the top of the rotating wings would be at 10 meters?

The Bergey is rated at 10kW peak, the Mariah at 1.2 kW peak(?).

-Bill

I didn't double check your figures, but all seems about right... (and yes, the Bergey blades would extend another 11' above the hub).

---

This from their site:

Connected to the grid, the BWC EXCEL can provide most of the electricity for an average total electric home at moderate wind sites. The all new GridTek 10 power processor (inverter) is the most advanced in the industry and it carries a full UL certification to the latest utility standards.

Prices, which include a voltage regulator or a grid-synchronous inverter, range from $23,500 to $29,500.

The BWC EXCEL is most often installed on a guyed lattice tower, which is available in heights of 18 m (60 ft.) to 43 m (140 ft.). Prices range from $10,150 to $17,200. Tilt-up versions of these towers are available for sites without crane access. Non-guyed lattice type towers and monopoles (tapered tubular) towers are also available to heights of 37 m (120 ft). Customers may also supply their own towers if they follow BWC's technical requirements for Excel towers (see Requirements).

---

I have a comparison spreadsheet partially completed, it shows the Bergey as able to produce 10,800 kWh a year if the average annual wind speed is 12mph. It also shows the Bergey costs between $40,000 and $55,000 installed depending on height, shipping, distance from structure, etc.

The Windspire is $6350 installed (based on $4995 for turbine, $350 shipping, $1000 install). It is able to produce 2,000 kWh per year at 12 mph average wind speed. 5 Windspires could produce as much as 1 Bergey, even at $6500 per turbine five would cost $32,500. Much cheaper then the Bergey.


That is why this particular product intrigues me the most (so far) of all that I have researched to date. Only thing is, it won't work on every site, it can't get above the trees if your property has them in or nearby. For that, I am looking at all the 5kw and 10kw models to try to find the best price per production at 80 feet of height. In fact, I was researching one such model when google led me to this site and this thread.

That same night I came across this company (who isn't in production yet) who is going to open a factory in the mid-west USA and I'm anxiously awaiting their information (both production and price). http://www.quantumwind.com/