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Old 03-10-2014, 07:47   #31
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Re: Diversion Load for Wind Generator

Question/option: If you have a wind gen and available power, can't you use an inverter with a 110V element and heat the water? That takes a lot of energy from your house bank, then fill it up with the win gen.

A few showers shouldn't empty your hot water, unless someone is not being frugal with H2O.
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Old 03-10-2014, 10:47   #32
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Re: Diversion Load for Wind Generator

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Originally Posted by Stu Jackson View Post
Question/option: If you have a wind gen and available power, can't you use an inverter with a 110V element and heat the water? That takes a lot of energy from your house bank, then fill it up with the win gen.

A few showers shouldn't empty your hot water, unless someone is not being frugal with H2O.
In the Caribbean I'm sure that might be a workable strategy, but in Maine the wind doesn't blow hard/long enough to replace the amps it would take to heat enough water for a shower.

As to H2O frugality, you're preaching to the choir, but we have 3 teenage kids. I'm sure you can do the math....
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Old 03-10-2014, 13:28   #33
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Re: Diversion Load for Wind Generator

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Originally Posted by hellosailor View Post
AFAIK the windgens aren't all the same. Some can auto-brake, some can regulate, others still require a dump load. A traditional "real" generator will require a brake, or a dump load. So what the OP has will limit the options for it.
Obviously, some windgens don't have internal regulators or shorting brakes, but why do some windgens "REQUIRE" a dump load? Please support this statement with some data, for I can't quite understand what harm will happen if one simply shorts the output of a turbine.

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Old 03-10-2014, 13:53   #34
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Re: Diversion Load for Wind Generator

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Obviously, some windgens don't have internal regulators or shorting brakes, but why do some windgens "REQUIRE" a dump load? Please support this statement with some data, for I can't quite understand what harm will happen if one simply shorts the output of a turbine.

Jim
The beauty of a dump load is that you can leave the windgen unattended. With my KISS I seldom left it on when I was not on the boat. With my D400 I leave it on most of the time including when I'm ashore. With the KISS I used to jump up in the middle of the night if it started honking to check the voltage and then get in the cockpit to short it and tie it off if required. With the D400 I don't have to do this, it just goes to the resistor bank which has a big heat sink to dissipate the heat. It makes life aboard a bit easier.
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Old 03-10-2014, 14:04   #35
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Re: Diversion Load for Wind Generator

The D400 like the KISS recommends (recommends but not required) a Diversion load so just like VASCO stated you don't have to worry about over charging the batteries and you can just forget about it. The KISS recommends using the TriStar 45 regulator made by Morning Star which can divert the excess power from your battery bank to a diversion load. For the diversion load you could use the 12v/120v dual hot water heater element. I don't like the dual water heater element because I don't want to lose the 1500W 120v hot water heater element and have to run my generator longer. So I would recommend using the standard resister elements. You can see them in this client install photo: Cheap...easy.....done.



The original concept of the KISS wind generator approach was to just have a simple on/off switch that shorts the turbine to turn it off and there are folks that have used that set-up for literally 15yrs without problems because they always needed and wanted more power or they turned it off when their batteries were full (if that ever actually happened). But for the folks with more solar and that more often have their batteries topped off, adding in a diversion load so that the KISS turns into a more "set-it and forget it" wind generator makes sense. We are not talking about a lot of money here for less than $300 you can buy all the stuff necessary for the Reg and Diversion load.
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Old 03-10-2014, 14:38   #36
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Re: Diversion Load for Wind Generator

All understood, but if one has a controller that diverts the turbine output to a dump load, it could also divert it to a short circuit, stopping the turbine as detailed before, and saving the cost of the dump resistor. This is still a set and forget system.

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Old 03-10-2014, 15:00   #37
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Re: Diversion Load for Wind Generator

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All understood, but if one has a controller that diverts the turbine output to a dump load, it could also divert it to a short circuit, stopping the turbine as detailed before, and saving the cost of the dump resistor. This is still a set and forget system.

Jim
Oh absolutely Jim...a nice and easy voltage sensing relay (VSR) and you could use an automatic switch to turn off wind gen, just like turning the on/off switch off on the control box...done...and automatic.

Why don't we just do that? Well here's the no BS reason. People who can't live with the concept of just turning off the on/off switch when they either have full batteries or are going to be away from the boat for a long time are the same type of person that just couldn't live with the thought of not having a full charge controller system to better float their batteries than a simple VSR ON/off set-up would do. Their mind can't take it, to this person the Voltage sensing relay and auto brake feature is a dinosaur approach and they gotta have the bells and whistles of a programmable controller.

One of my many faults has always been being to straight forward...and here I go again. KISS tried to be as the name implies as simple as possible, but in the world of marketing flash and sizzle...the clients have been somewhat brainwashed into thinking they need something that...well....they don't. You can either spend your time trying to educate and explain or you can give the client the charge controller option they are telling you they want or they will buy a unit from the "better competition" that sells it....uggg.

I guess there IS a negative of the on/off brake.
I can only speak of what I know about, so this only pertains to the KISS wind gen (since I'm the owner of KISS for full disclosure by the way) but in winds of +25kts the KISS gets a little noisy in the brake mode. Now there is nothing wrong with this approach, heck, they have withstood hurricane force winds in the brake mode. But to some folks the extra noise caused in brake mode nuts them up. So the controller/diversion load approach lets the wind gen stay operating in the most quietest mode.

The 12v dump load to make hot water in my view is a fantasy unless you are in hurricane winds, because the amount of power it takes to make a 6gal tank of hot water is pretty high. Cold to warm...ya maybe. But not hot enough for my wife! On my boat, I only have the Reg/Diversion load set-up for testing because as a live aboard cruiser my batteries are never full anyway and can always use some more power. [I have a 400AH LeFePO4 Battery Bank, so I ALWAYS knows where my battery voltage is]. And if they are actually full...they I just turn off the switch at the control Box and if I leave the boat I just turn off the switch. What's the fuss with that?

Time to run to the High School football game to watch my son's team get slaughtered again...but I'm leaving my wind gen running..ha ha ha
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Old 03-10-2014, 15:08   #38
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Re: Diversion Load for Wind Generator

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Originally Posted by jtsailjt View Post
One advantage of the 500 watt AC element is that the inverter can power it when the genset isn't running, but it will run down the batteries pretty fast, and that combined with all the other DC loads would mean that the batteries would rarely actually get to full charge. I've actually done it a few times when the batteries were pretty full and the wind was blowing, but it still takes a very long time to heat up that 12 gallons of water no matter what's powering the 500 watt AC element.
Just a little perspective:

By my calculations, heating 12 US gallons (45 litres) by 36°F (20°C) uses about 85Ah @ 12V (3.75 Megajoules). Assuming 100% efficiency, that's will take over 2 hours for the 500W AC element and nearly 3.5 hours for the 300W DC element
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Old 03-10-2014, 19:03   #39
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Re: Diversion Load for Wind Generator

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Originally Posted by Jim Cate View Post
No one responded to my post early in this thread, so I will try again:

Why do you need a dump load when you can simply short out the output of the KISS or other turbine? This is what Air-X and its relatives do with their internal regulator/controller and their factory supplied stop switch... and what I did with a home brew unit on our previous boat.

When shorted, the load slows the rotation to nearly stopped, the output is nearly zero, and basically the system is shut down. This eliminates noise, wear on the shaft bearings and worries about blade strikes. What's not to like?

Jim
It's because no one thought of it at the time. So they came up with an ugly $600 fix to an almost non existent problem. Basically, it's a solution in search of a problem.

Jim, you're dead right, a BMS capable of driving a relay when a trigger point was breached would do the trick.

The exception, I guess, would be for those WGs which rectify within the sealed housing and one only sees the 2 DC wires coming out of it
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Old 03-10-2014, 19:22   #40
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Re: Diversion Load for Wind Generator

For decades we simply connected a 60 watt light bulb to dump the load on the wind generator. It was set in a corner of the quarter berth and we always knew when the batteries were happy. The light was seldom on constantly all the time since we always had something in use on the boat. This didn't require anything expensive and we didn't have to reinvent the wheel. Chuck
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Old 03-10-2014, 20:04   #41
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Re: Diversion Load for Wind Generator

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Originally Posted by StuM View Post
Just a little perspective:

By my calculations, heating 12 US gallons (45 litres) by 36°F (20°C) uses about 85Ah @ 12V (3.75 Megajoules). Assuming 100% efficiency, that's will take over 2 hours for the 500W AC element and nearly 3.5 hours for the 300W DC element
Yes, I consider both of those numbers "a very long time" to wait just to be able to take a shower.
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Old 03-10-2014, 20:33   #42
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Re: Diversion Load for Wind Generator

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Oh absolutely Jim...a nice and easy voltage sensing relay (VSR) and you could use an automatic switch to turn off wind gen, just like turning the on/off switch off on the control box...done...and automatic.

Why don't we just do that? Well here's the no BS reason. People who can't live with the concept of just turning off the on/off switch when they either have full batteries or are going to be away from the boat for a long time are the same type of person that just couldn't live with the thought of not having a full charge controller system to better float their batteries than a simple VSR ON/off set-up would do. Their mind can't take it, to this person the Voltage sensing relay and auto brake feature is a dinosaur approach and they gotta have the bells and whistles of a programmable controller.

One of my many faults has always been being to straight forward...and here I go again. KISS tried to be as the name implies as simple as possible, but in the world of marketing flash and sizzle...the clients have been somewhat brainwashed into thinking they need something that...well....they don't. You can either spend your time trying to educate and explain or you can give the client the charge controller option they are telling you they want or they will buy a unit from the "better competition" that sells it....uggg.


The 12v dump load to make hot water in my view is a fantasy unless you are in hurricane winds, because the amount of power it takes to make a 6gal tank of hot water is pretty high. Cold to warm...ya maybe. But not hot enough for my wife! On my boat, I only have the Reg/Diversion load set-up for testing because as a live aboard cruiser my batteries are never full anyway and can always use some more power. [I have a 400AH LeFePO4 Battery Bank, so I ALWAYS knows where my battery voltage is]. And if they are actually full...they I just turn off the switch at the control Box and if I leave the boat I just turn off the switch. What's the fuss with that?
The fact that you say you think your clients are too stupid to make rational decisions about how to avoid overcharging their batteries says more about you than your clients..... Most cruisers I know are all about keeping things as simple and as inexpensive as possible, so I'm surprised to hear your rather cynical sounding perspective.

Then there's people like me who don't fall into either one of your neat categories. I'm interested in a dump load because I already have the controller (it came with the boat) so it's easier and less expensive to just get one rather than rewiring the KISS to short itself out when the batteries are 100% full and the wind blows hard (does that really ever happen?).

I use mine much the same way you do, on the rare occasion when my batteries are full, or if I'm planning to be away from the boat for several days, I merely shut off the switch and that's that. But I'd like to be able to leave it on when I leave for 3 or 4 days because I also like to leave my refrig and freezer on with food in it, or I might forget to turn off the switch before leaving the boat someday and spending $50 to $100 to make my KISS into a set and forget system seems like money well spent.

KISS sells a dump load for about $100 but I can't seem to find a photo of what I'd be buying and I'm not even 100% sure it's still available. Can anyone recommend an appropriately sized and caged in dump load that has worked well for them? I currently have mine wired to the DC element in my dual element water heater so it should be a very simple matter to replace the dual element with a standard 1500 watt AC element and then just switch the KISS DC wires to an appropriate dump load. Any particular diversion load anyone recommends?
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Old 03-10-2014, 20:53   #43
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Re: Diversion Load for Wind Generator

Consider the power going into the dump load, if it isn't going there,
where is it going with a shorted motor? Into the motor.
Doesn't sound like a good idea.
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Old 03-10-2014, 21:07   #44
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Re: Diversion Load for Wind Generator

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Consider the power going into the dump load, if it isn't going there,
where is it going with a shorted motor? Into the motor.
Doesn't sound like a good idea.
Shorting it shuts the "motor" off so there is no appreciable power being generated. That's also the way the manual on/off switch does it. Turning the switch off takes the blades from spinning at a blur to barely rotating in just a few seconds. He's just suggesting an automatic switch that would do the same thing the manual one does. I think it makes a lot of sense and would do it on my boat if my KISS windgen wasn't already wired to a controller that's also connected to my solar panels and the batteries. For me, it would be more trouble to switch over to this method than to just order a dump load to replace the one I currently have in my water heater.
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Old 03-10-2014, 21:36   #45
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Re: Diversion Load for Wind Generator

Why don't you drop a coil in your HW tank and use the genset cooling water to heat it ?
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