FD 500 watt ac turbine

santsalvador · February 2010

HI. I have a FD 500 watt AC Chinese made Wind turbine, kit comes with Turbine 6 meter mast and charge controller. The turbine and mast was given to me by a friend less the charge controller, If built a bridge rectifier to convert to DC would I be able to use a Tristar TS 45/60 or Xantex C60 charge controller with this turbine.
Help please Terry (Spain)

russ · February 2010

Re: FD 500 watt ac turbine

Are you sure the guy that gave it to you is a friend?

halfcrazy · February 2010

Re: FD 500 watt ac turbine

russ wrote: »

Are you sure the guy that gave it to you is a friend?

I was thinking that same thing.

BB. · February 2010

Re: FD 500 watt ac turbine

Yes... Some pages about building bridge rectifiers here and over there. (if your wind turbine does not have an internal rectifier)

Yes, you will use one of those listed charge controllers (or others) that can be configured to use as a "dump" or "shunt" controller.

connect wind turbine rectifier output directly to battery (with appropriate fusing/circuit breaker). Some wind turbines use a switch to either connect the wind turbine to a battery bank (normal mode) or short the output of the wind turbine (brake mode--short circuit current keeps blades turning very slowly in a storm (read wind turbine manual for proper setup).
configure your charge controller to shunt mode.
connect charge controller input to battery bank (again with fuse/circuit breaker). Connect output of charge controller to a resistive load (heater) or appropriate electric hot water heater element.

Russ' comment is probably aimed at the fact that the wind turbine is the "least expensive" part of the setup... The tower (plus concrete / guy wires) + batteries + charge controller will usually cost more than the turbine itself.

Also, these wind type of wind turbines have been known to swing the tail into the blades in turbulent conditions (there is a thread with a photograph around here)...

-Bill

santsalvador · February 2010

Re: FD 500 watt ac turbine

To BB.
Thanks for your comments, to the others, were not all as well off as you two and have to take what we can get.
Terry.

niel · February 2010

Re: FD 500 watt ac turbine

santsalvador,
i do not believe they were inferring anything about the costs as much as the guy probably dumped a lemon on you.

BB. · February 2010

Re: FD 500 watt ac turbine

santsalvador,

The (our) concern is that small wind turbines generally do not generate much power -- and to work well, should be on 60 foot or taller towers. Also, it helps if the trees in your area are shaped by the wind ("flagging").

Also, small wind turbines tend to need a lot of maintenance... So, the concern is that you don't spend a whole bunch of money on the installation (tower, controllers, battery bank, etc.) and find that the turbine has problems.

It is not unusual for a wind site to generate only 3-5% of it rated power--and 15% would be a really good small wind site. A commercial turbine can get over 30%:

0.500 kWatts * 24 hours per day * 365 days per year * 5% = 219 kWhrs per year
0.500 kWatts * 24 hours per day * 365 days per year * 15% = 657 kWhrs per year

Just to set some expectations of how much wind power you may get.

Of course--take what I say with a grain of salt--I am not a big fan of small wind anyway. For similar costs, many people can use solar panels which have much more predictable output and much less in the way of maintenance.

You did not ask my opinion--and that is why I did not offer one up front...

If this setup works for you--great. We just don't want to see you lose your installation/setup costs if the turbines ends up not working for you.

-Bill

halfcrazy · February 2010

Re: FD 500 watt ac turbine

Yes I apologize for not going into detail but that was my point you have a turbine but now you need a few thousand dollars of stuff to make it work and then it is not a high quality turbine so it may fail you early giving you a bad taste of wind power.

santsalvador · February 2010

Re: FD 500 watt ac turbine

Hi Again. OK all comments appreciated, although i dont understand your comments on this turbine being a lemon or waste of money, you cant get much cheaper than free, I have the mast and everything else so why not use it, ok i'll have to buy a controller but id need one anyway if I buy a larger turbine.
My system here is small compared to all yours but so is my pocket we have to start somewhere, maybe I should have said before,I have six 80watt BP panels, which I hope to add to and a Trace 2.5kva inverter, 12 Hoppeck Batteries 6kva back up genny, we do get a lot of wind here so why not use it with a free turbine, if its worth it I may get a more powerful one but turbine costs over here and the UK are silly prices not like the States.
We live in the country with no electricity (Catalunya Spain) but we do OK but could do better and im working on it.
Thanks again Terry.

BB. · February 2010

Re: FD 500 watt ac turbine

Here is a thread for, probably, the same turbine/manufacturer... Please be aware that the poster of the original photograph turned out to be an "Internet Sock-puppet" (same person posting under various names for whatever reason).

Right now, a large percentage of the wind turbines coming out of China are pretty much junk (100% until proven otherwise).

Even in the US, there are probably only a handful of small wind turbine manufacturers that are not outright scams.

Read down through this thread... Even a happy wind turbine owner has to be prepared for problems.

Regarding how much your solar panels can produce... Using PV Watts Website, using Madrid (maybe a station in France will be closer to your weather), 480 watts of solar panels, 0.52 derating (includes battery and inverter losses--solar panel to 230 VAC power), using 1kW of solar panels (smallest program supports), we get:

"Station Identification"
"City:","Madrid"
"State:","ESP"
"Lat (deg N):", 40.45
"Long (deg W):", 3.55
"Elev (m): ", 582
"Weather Data:","IWEC"

"PV System Specifications"
"DC Rating:"," 1.0 kW"
"DC to AC Derate Factor:"," 0.520"
"AC Rating:"," 0.5 kW"
"Array Type: Fixed Tilt"
"Array Tilt:"," 40.5"
"Array Azimuth:","180.0"

"Energy Specifications"
"Cost of Electricity:"," 0.1 euro/kWh"

"Results"
"Month", "Solar Radiation (kWh/m^2/day)", "AC Energy (kWh)", "Energy Value (euro)"
1, 3.32, 49, 0.06
2, 4.10, 55, 0.07
3, 5.68, 84, 0.10
4, 5.72, 82, 0.10
5, 5.96, 84, 0.10
6, 6.47, 87, 0.11
7, 6.95, 94, 0.11
8, 6.61, 92, 0.11
9, 5.21, 72, 0.09
10, 4.50, 64, 0.08
11, 3.62, 51, 0.06
12, 2.35, 34, 0.04
"Year", 5.05, 848, 1.03

To account for your array size:

848 kWhrs per 1kW of panels per year * 0.48 kW of panels = 407 kWhrs per year

My guess is this is power more than will be generated by the wind turbine (assuming your weather is similar).

Also, regarding the Trace Inverter... Most (all?) are pretty much at end of life. Even if you get a good one, it will probably very difficult to find any parts to service it--I believe the manufacturer has dropped any repair/parts service for these guys (some of these are approaching 18 years old).

Free is nice--but the other associated costs can make "free" very costly.

Sincerely,
-Bill

PS: Regarding the Generator Set--try to run it a a minimum of 50% load--Most gensets reach minimum fuel usage around 50% of rated load... Below that, the fuel flow remains the same and you get less electricity (50% fuel flow and 10% load means you are spending 5x as much per kWhr of electricity for fuel costs).

And diesels should probably be operated at 50-60% minimum load for long life and clean burning (to the point of adding "dump loads" / electric heaters to bring genset up to minimum loading.

Many times, looking at smaller gensets can give significant fuel savings. Or you may have two--a large one to run shop loads, water pumping, and Air Conditioning systems. And a smaller one to top off your battery bank in the winter.

FD 500 watt ac turbine

Comments

Categories