Windmill installed.

AlterEgo

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So we shipped a marine-grade windmill down, and got it installed this past weekend. Our inverter guy came out to set it up to charge the batteries connected to our inverter.

Someone here on DR1 had warned that we needed quite a wind to move it, and they're right. So far it's spun around a few times [it rotates based on where the wind comes from], but no way is it spinning all day, not even close. We always have a brisk wind at the back of our house, but some gigantic mango trees [we think] on our neighbor's property might be blocking some of it.

Might have been an expensive experiment.
 

Acira

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Does it state what the minimum wind speed is to start it up? The Chinese model we are looking at is one who needs very little wind to start up and stay running.
 

Criss Colon

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What is the amount of current it generates,according to wind speeds.
When I did a little "searching",I found you need a big windmill to ge very little electricity.
I live on top of a hill over looking SD.We have a lot of wind here.maybe you want to sell?
CC
 

SantiagoDR

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Jan 12, 2006
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What size is the windmill?

Unless it is quite big and high wattage, it will be useless.

I have a 400 watt Marine windmill,
... it looks nice and impresses the neighbors, but that's about all it does.

We have lots of wind here but over the 14+ years of using it, it does not spin as much as when we first installed it.

Back at the beginning it would really howl and could be heard quite loudly, but not any more.

It would not even keep one 12 volt car battery charged.
I didn't know better at the time, but should have gotten a 24vdc model since my Inverter system is 24vdc. (Bought the Windmill before I bought the Inverter system)


D in Santiago
 

Acira

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Specs of the one we would consider buying once we found our spot :

Vertical wind mill
Start up at wind speeds as from 0,2 km/h
Goes to 10 Kwatt
Hight of tower 9 M
Very quite because of vertical rotation
Price : 5500,00 US$ FOB from China

They claim they can ship it to the DR for under 300 US$...which I doubt lol
 

SantiagoDR

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Jan 12, 2006
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Specs of the one we would consider buying once we found our spot :

Vertical wind mill
Start up at wind speeds as from 0,2 km/h
Goes to 10 Kwatt
Hight of tower 9 M
Price : 5500,00 US$ FOB from China

They claim they can ship it to the DR for under 300 US$...which I doubt lol

A few years ago, OchoA in Santiago was selling a really large windmill, each blade might have been about 6 feet long.

Now that one might have worked here at our place, forgot what the price was.

Kinda lost confidence in windmills after the experiences of the Marine one.

Another problem with windmills here are the neighborhood kids and their kites.
Many times I had to remove the kite twine wrapped around the rotor shaft which kept the blades from turning.

One day up on the roof there was a very large collection of chopped bubble bees. :mad: lol



Only fools fall in Lve,
I Lve Bella Terra Mall
 

Acira

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I do not want a horizontal wind mill just for the large blades and the height of the tower which makes it not very practical in use and maintenance. And all horizontal ones need more wind speed to start up.
A vertical one is not to high, speeds up to 500rpm and can chop in an ecological way all your veggies...last part interesting maybe for pi :)
 

windeguy

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Jul 10, 2004
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I was probably the one that had warned people about windmills. My earlier posts on windmills and solar power were accidentally deleted in a clerical error on DR1 (about 2,000 posts in total). Sorry to see that the windmill is working as I expected.
 

Hillbilly

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Jan 1, 2002
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Not to worry, you can always sell it to someone on a better wind path...maybe out East or Northeast...

Good going to even try it out down there...congratulations.

HB
 

AlterEgo

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Okay, to answer some questions.

Ours is a 24V, as is our inverter. 400 Watt.

It's at the top of a 40' metal pole.

This morning it was whirring away, actually made a humming noise when it got going real fast.

I suppose time will tell if it does anything at all...... We got it to supplement the inverter, to help charge the batteries. Right now we're supplementing with a planta/generator.

Electric outages here have been outrageous this week - neighbors say it's been this way about 3-4 months.
 

windeguy

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Do you have a DC current meter to see what it is putting into the batteries when it is spinning rapidly?

How much do you have invested in it?
 
May 29, 2006
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What size is the windmill?

Unless it is quite big and high wattage, it will be useless.

I have a 400 watt Marine windmill,
... it looks nice and impresses the neighbors, but that's about all it does.

We have lots of wind here but over the 14+ years of using it, it does not spin as much as when we first installed it.

Back at the beginning it would really howl and could be heard quite loudly, but not any more.

It would not even keep one 12 volt car battery charged.
I didn't know better at the time, but should have gotten a 24vdc model since my Inverter system is 24vdc. (Bought the Windmill before I bought the Inverter system)


D in Santiago

It sounds to me that if anything, you're windmill is too big. For instance, If it's designed for a 20KPH wind and you are only getting 10KPH, it will only put out 1/4 of its potential energy, at best. Also after 14 years, it could prob use a tune-up. Windmills operate with finicky wind ranges and it pays to do some site evaluation to get the maximum output from them.

You may want to turn on the subtitles for this:
William Kamkwamba: How I harnessed the wind | Video on TED.com

The book he wrote is a good read. He built the blades by cutting open PVC pipes and heating them in a fire to form them. He did this when he was 14 and he had no tools to speak of.
 

windeguy

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It sounds to me that if anything, you're windmill is too big.

Too big? The windmill being discussed is a 400 Watt unit. Let's assume the windmill is in Cabarete. There is a good wind in Cabarete on many days of the year. That wind picks up, let's say at 12 noon and runs until 6 PM. That will give you 6 hours a day and generate 2.4KwH of power on a good day if the windmill is running at full output, or 72 KwH a month. To replace what I pay to Edenorte completely it would take at least 7 these units performing that well.
 
May 29, 2006
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If the site only performs for 25% of the day, then it's less likely to be cost efficient. This is why a site should be evaluated before spending money on a system. The max wattage output is based on the cube of the wind speed and a square of the blade diameter.

Wattage is not the issue. The question is what range of wind speeds it's designed to work at. A 400 watt unit can have 2' blades if the wind speed is high or it can have 10' blades if the wind speed is low. But if you are operating a unit designed to work in high winds, it won't output 400w in moderate winds.
 

windeguy

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PeterInBrat, I still don't see what you meant by saying the unit was too big, despite your explanation on the number of blades versus the wind speed. Did you mean that the turbine may have been designed for high wind speeds and is only seeing low to moderate wind speeds?
 
May 29, 2006
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Yes. I should have been more clear about that. There should be a spec sheet that comes with any turbine with an output curve for different speeds. Something like this:

Wind turbine power curves.

So in the example the turbine works well in 14-25 MPS.

By being too big, I meant that the rated output speed might be higher than your typical wind speed. As you can see by the graph if the speed is only a few MPS below the output speed, there is a dramatic drop in the power produced.
 
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