SilentWind Gens Spec Update

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by Delfin

It does, thank you. Just to be clear though, on those overcast days when solar isn't putting out much, are you saying to might get 100 Ah? That would be material for me....

If it’s blowin’ a gale, then yes. But no, not usually.

But with the wind gen running throughout the bad solar days, and nights of course, it takes the edge off the battery drawdown. Looking at this past season, the four times I had to pull out the gas generator coincided with the rare times we had heavy overcast AND no wind.

Have you looked at the Silentwind website? When I last looked they provided a power curve vs wind speed which seemed fairly accurate. It’s very much an exponential output curve, so at 12 knots I’m seeing about a 1/2-1 amp. By around 16 knots we’re making 3-4 amps. By 20 knots it’s up to around 8-9 amps. By 25 knots we’re up over 15 amps. I’ve seen sustained 25 amps coming off the wing gen in gale winds.

[Delfin]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

If it’s blowin’ a gale, then yes. But no, not usually.

But with the wind gen running throughout the bad solar days, and nights of course, it takes the edge off the battery drawdown. Looking at this past season, the four times I had to pull out the gas generator coincided with the rare times we had heavy overcast AND no wind.

Have you looked at the Silentwind website? When I last looked they provided a power curve vs wind speed which seemed fairly accurate. It’s very much an exponential output curve, so at 12 knots I’m seeing about a 1/2-1 amp. By around 16 knots we’re making 3-4 amps. By 20 knots it’s up to around 8-9 amps. By 25 knots we’re up over 15 amps. I’ve seen sustained 25 amps coming off the wing gen in gale winds.

Merci!

[Erik de Jong]

I also have a silentwind (bought in 2014) on "Bagheera", no solar as I'm too far north to make that effective.
I have no diesel generator onboard and have a 400Ah@24V battery bank.
When there is enough wind to sail, the wind generator can keep up with all my demands for underway. (Radar, Autopilot, Lights, nav instuments and computer). With the only exception of downwind, then the appearant wind is not strong enough, the moves, but the generator has not started up yet. Only with more than 16-18 knots of true wind will the generator do anything useful on a downwind course.

Bagheera is 52' and is used for charter / research projects in the High latitudes.

[George DuBose]

INHO, SilentWind generators are a poorman's version of the SuperWind 350. Just looking at a SilentWind one can see the abundance of plastic.

My SuperWind is the single most maintenance item on my boat. 10 years and I have had zero issues, other than once a crew stuck a wooden oar into the blades and broke one.

SuperWind shipped a new blade set out and I had it in two days after the incident.

Buy cheap tools and you buy them twice...

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by George DuBose

INHO, SilentWind generators are a poorman's version of the SuperWind 350. Just looking at a SilentWind one can see the abundance of plastic.

My SuperWind is the single most maintenance item on my boat. 10 years and I have had zero issues, other than once a crew stuck a wooden oar into the blades and broke one.

SuperWind shipped a new blade set out and I had it in two days after the incident.

Buy cheap tools and you buy them twice...

Seven years with my Silentwind … zero maintenance.

[Erik de Jong]

Originally Posted by George DuBose

INHO, SilentWind generators are a poorman's version of the SuperWind 350. Just looking at a SilentWind one can see the abundance of plastic.

My SuperWind is the single most maintenance item on my boat. 10 years and I have had zero issues, other than once a crew stuck a wooden oar into the blades and broke one.

SuperWind shipped a new blade set out and I had it in two days after the incident.

Buy cheap tools and you buy them twice...

Absolutely no maintenance here either (has only been 4 years, but they have been tough years with a lot of icing up), I'm not sure what you refer to as an "Abundance of plastic". Except the blades there is no plastic on the thing what so ever. And the Superwind has plastic blades too. The silent wind is actually a lot stiller than the Super wind, my neighbor had one and I could easily hear that one over mine.

[rgleason]

I was wondering why you don't just heat you domestic hot water when you have extra power. It is a pretty good place to dump extra power and wouldn't the resistanxe coil accept whatever voltage/amps you can produce?