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Old 19-12-2014, 06:53   #1
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Solar and Wind generators

Has anyone used any of the Chinese Solar and Wind generators. I have a friend that's looking in to ordering a Wind generator from one of the bulk sites. The question is are they any good.
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Old 19-12-2014, 06:58   #2
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Re: Solar and Wind generators

I tried one of the cheap Chinese wind gen ordered from Alibaba straight from China. It is complete crap. It is rated at 400w and I have never seen it put out anything over maybe 20w. I have had it for over a year and have seen all conditions so I should have seen better output. At least it was cheap and I can save up for a good one. Most all of my power comes from solar and they are coming down in price even for a good one. Hope this help.

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Old 19-12-2014, 12:50   #3
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Re: Solar and Wind generators

There is one now in the trash can at Marina Palmira in La Paz, Mexico, it did last a few months, but pure trash.
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Old 20-12-2014, 05:59   #4
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Re: Solar and Wind generators

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Originally Posted by patr1707 View Post
I tried one of the cheap Chinese wind gen ordered from Alibaba straight from China. It is complete crap. It is rated at 400w and I have never seen it put out anything over maybe 20w. I have had it for over a year and have seen all conditions so I should have seen better output. At least it was cheap and I can save up for a good one. Most all of my power comes from solar and they are coming down in price even for a good one. Hope this help.

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It does help Thanks for the reply.
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Old 20-12-2014, 06:01   #5
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Re: Solar and Wind generators

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There is one now in the trash can at Marina Palmira in La Paz, Mexico, it did last a few months, but pure trash.
Sounds like a waste of time and money.
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Old 20-12-2014, 09:29   #6
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Re: Solar and Wind generators

I'm looking at buying these from Defender for das Boot. Any thoughts or expereinces?


Go Power! Solar Flex - Solar Panel Charging Kit - 200 Watt


Sunforce 400 Watt Marine Grade Wind Turbine / Generator
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Old 20-12-2014, 09:48   #7
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Re: Solar and Wind generators

Don't waste your money on a wind generator. Solar panels will give you 3-4 times as much power for your money, with less maintenance.

The US government has just raised the future price of solar panels by putting anti-dumping duties on the Chinese panels.
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Old 20-12-2014, 22:57   #8
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Re: Solar and Wind generators

You are talking nonsense. There is no sun at night. The combination of solar and wind works marvels for me.
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Old 21-12-2014, 03:39   #9
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Re: Solar and Wind generators

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Originally Posted by donradcliffe View Post
Don't waste your money on a wind generator. Solar panels will give you 3-4 times as much power for your money, with less

.

That's a bit of a strange statement.

It really depends on the sort of weather you expect the boat to be exposed to. Our old trade wind sail boat spent its first 15 years powered almost entirely by the wind generator with the odd engine topup. Now she is further south she is more dependant on the solar.

Horses for courses. Where/ how will this boat be used?

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Old 21-12-2014, 03:48   #10
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Solar and Wind generators

To answer the OP though, I've no experience of cheap Chinese wind generators only our expensive ( old) British model. It still puts out the rated capacity after 20 years and 45000 nautical miles. That's got to have justified the original purchase price many times over.

I have had a bit of experience with cheap Chinese solar and it has not all been bad though if I were to generalise I would say they rarely meet their rated capacity and are more sensitive to heat. Now that's a very sweeping generalisation and I happily installed 2 x 140 watt El- cheapo Chinese panels recently and at the price I am thrilled. Have seen up to 230 watts total output at times which is a little better than I expected at the price. Not sure how well they will last. Probably not as well as my kaneka house panels but hey they were about one quarter of the price per watt. The kanekas still put out 110% of their rated capacity after four years.

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Old 21-12-2014, 06:20   #11
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Re: Solar and Wind generators

Thanks everyone for the reply's. The sailboat will be used here in Florida and the Bahamas.
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Old 21-12-2014, 08:48   #12
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Re: Solar and Wind generators

Solar panels get hot and their output drops.
Whatever brand of wind generator you decide upon, make sure to mount it like most cruisers I've seen.
That is, make sure it shades your panels most of the time so they stay nice and cool.

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Old 21-12-2014, 17:45   #13
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Re: Solar and Wind generators

I also succumbed and bought a Chinese wind turbine via Alibaba: 400 Watt 5 blade 1,5m wheel diameter with glowing specifications from Wuxi Naier in Beijing only to discover it does not perform to the spec at all.

The boat is moored in Sydney Harbour with wind on average from 8 to 20 kph with occasional gusts towards 40 kph during December.
I've measured as follows:
At 7m/s 800 milli amp
At 10m/s 1.9 amp
At 12 m/s 3.2 amp
At 15 m/s 5.3 amp
by plotting a graph it would take 25 m/s wind to get 23 Amp generated. This is approaching hurricane level and would be unpleasant so put it mildly.

When you contact the supplier you get a young girl with a Anglisised name such as Jessica playing all sorts of games to avoid the issue. This is both annoying and unprofessional.

I have to add though that the power generated by the wind turbine is a direct function of the wheel diameter and the wind speed while the rest is all superfelous and the 400 Watt maximum capacity is totally meaningless.

I've installed it as due to postage it's not worth returning and it does top up the batteries consistently around half the amp mark 24/7 but turned out an expensive trickle charger at $500.
The 200 Watt solar panels on my boat is far better and produce most of the power provided the sun shines.
The idea was to get a foot in each camp the 200 Watt Solar and 400 Watt wind and I suppose on a cold windy day a couple of amps are better than nothing!

If I could do it over I would get Rutland 910i at $1200 and smile.
Well that my experience and I hope it is of use to someone to avoid the mistake I made.
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Old 22-12-2014, 00:15   #14
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Re: Solar and Wind generators

Geez, those figures for the Alibaba unit are pretty dreadful. That feels like it is almost criminal selling something like that.

I just looked up the Rutland and it appears to be UK kit as well. Our old Aerogen 6 was UK made. The current Rutlan 914i seems to out perform the Aerogen 6 by a good 10%, but otherwise has a similar output curve. In the brochure they state that the performance gain is through the use of MPPT regulator... maybe the same thing would improve the Aerogen...

FWIW, the Aerogen 6 seems to be about AU$3500 including the reg, not exactly cheap, interesting to see how it would compare $/Watt with some of the other reputable brands. (Just spotted that the Rutland is half the price!)

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Old 22-12-2014, 00:41   #15
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Re: Solar and Wind generators

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Originally Posted by atexasex View Post
I'm looking at buying these from Defender for das Boot. Any thoughts or expereinces?


Go Power! Solar Flex - Solar Panel Charging Kit - 200 Watt


Sunforce 400 Watt Marine Grade Wind Turbine / Generator
I don't have any experience with the wind generator, but that solar kit with the Go power PWM controller is wildly overpriced. I've seen a couple of those controllers installed by RV dealers and they are a bare bones PWM controller with no adjustability. Once we replaced them with a cheap MPPT controller, we saw a 25% increase in harvest and were able to adjust the bulk charge voltage in .1v increments all the way up to 15.5v (recommended voltage for Interstate golf cart batteries.) The Go power controller only puts out 14.8v, which would only charge the batteries to 80%, giving the user only 30% usable charge/discharge power out of the 50% he should have had. With the other controller we nearly doubled his usable power.

You could buy an MPPT controller and 200w of panels for $300 or so. The last panels I bought were 230w and $135 ea, brand new.
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