Apollo Wind Generator

[ghochreiter]

Tristan i am not an electrical buff so i was really hoping someone would be telling me i was wrong. i was told from an electrical guy at my work that to figure out amps you divide the volts into the watts and that gives you amps. i just took it for granted that it works both ways for DC and AC so i guess i'll have to google some more. here a link to some comments on the apollo you might find interesting.



Page 1 of comments on apollo 500w Turbine.mpg - YouTube

[ghochreiter]

Tristan google these guys. They sell on Ebay but you can actually call them and they are helpful on the phone. i was trying to get the controller issue dealt with.
Missouri Wind and Solarnot sure if you got my other reply but he it goes again. i was told to figure out amps you divide the volts into the watts which gives you amps. now whether it is the same for both DC and Ac i am not sure. might have to google it

[windabled]

To expand on some of the questions and share some of my experiences with the Apollo 550 wind turbine (WT) here is what I have determine:
The WT has three output wires which are AC that feed into a rectifier with a two wire DC output.
When spinning the WT with my drill motor, I think I am getting 1000 RPM no load and 700 RPM loaded. The AC voltage between two of the three wires no load is 30V but only 8V when loaded. The DC output of the rectifier is 14V and 4.5A during load. The DC amp output somewhat corresponds to the amp output for 700 RPM shown on the power chart that came with the WT.
I have the rectifier going into a junction with my 250W solar panels and that line going into a Xantrex 35 charge controller. I have the charge controller wired to divert output to a diversion load when my batteries exceed 14.5V, other than that both the solar panels and WT are charging the batteries.
When I have the WT being driven by the wind, I have been getting between .3 and .7 amps, 8 to 22 knots of wind. My guess is the WT is not being spun fast enough with the wind.
I too purchased my WT from the same dealer as ghochreiter and have the same issue with getting a response. I did get a reply stating they had larger blades (mine are 23.5” long) and I requested additional information on them. I am beginning to suspect the problem is WT RPM and plan to measure RPM and output. I will post my wind speed, rpm and output data when I get it. If the larger blades seem reasonable, I plan to try them too.

[windabled]

Just finish measuring wind turbine (WT) rpm and I got 300 rpm, in 14 mph wind that produced .5 amps. The WT power chart that came with the WT shows 1.5 amps at 400 rpm and 0 amps at 250 rpm so my .5 amps at 300 rpm is consistent with the power chart. Earlier (couple of weeks ago) I was getting .75 amps at 22 knots. I am concluding I must increase rpm of the WT and the easiest way will be bigger blades, not more blades. When I get the larger blade information from the dealer, I plan on getting the larger blades. I will report the results.

[Tristan]

Thank you guys for the valuable information.
Ghochreiter you are right- the power = U*I so I=P/U . In case of AC it is a little bit more complex I've got an email response from the ebay dealer. They are using an external rectifier bridge in the DC units. Based on what I see on the youtube looks like these generators have some mechanical problems. They generate a little power because they cannot get to any higher rpm. I guess because of the blade design

[prae]

snip.... "The WT/DC output has been 0.3 to 0.7 amps in wind of 6 to 23 knots. The voltage between 2 of the 3 WT legs is 10.8V. All of this seems low when compared to the power vs rpm charts that came with the WT". snip...

Dear windabled,
My checks with the apollo installation is the same. I haven't seen it go over .3amps and the check between phases is about 10v; consistant amongst each 3 legs. On the DC side I have seen it up to 37V
I tried a xantrex c60 with dump load and wired up as per instruction in C60 manual. Still no amperage
I called a 12v electrician who confirmed "something is amiss". Did note that my rectifiers DC side polarity was different to what the book said. All diodes check out OK. Rectification is working. Why no amps?
Electrician has gone away to think about it and consult.
We are missing something. It should show amperage even with no charge controller and directly connected to batteries.
Have you got any further with your setup?
Cheers
PRAE

[Jubilee39]

[QUOTE=Tristan;1201815]Thank you guys for the valuable information.
Ghochreiter you are right- the power = U*I so I=P/U . In case of AC it is a little bit more complex I've got an email response from the ebay dealer. They are using an external rectifier bridge in the DC units. Based on what I see on the youtube looks like these generators have some mechanical problems. They generate a little power because they cannot get to any higher rpm. I guess because of the blade design[/QUOTE
Formula for DC is okay but you need to add sq rt of 3 for ac, not that important. With a sufficient battery bank no controller needed all you do with it is dump power which you do not have enough of anyway. The 3 phase alternator is the same setup as an alternator for a car. You might be able to find a 3 phase diode bridge through an automotive supplier to convert your AC to DC for the battery

[windabled]

Here is an update on my wind turbine (WT) project. I contacted the Apollo dealer, via email, and he responded he would send me revised 23.5" blades to try and get more rpm out of the WT as when I spin the WT with my drill motor at about 700 rpm I get 4.5 amps. In addition, the dealer said he has 29" blades but they require a larger tail for the WT and the large tail won't be available until June. When I get the new blades and test them, I will post the results.

By the way we had a very windy night a few days ago and my wife said she saw 3.5 amps on the readout with the wind blowing about 30 mph. I was asleep.

[prae]

I get more from my air breeze rated at 160watts. usually 11 amps at around 30kts.

[windabled]

I have tested the Apollo 550 wind turbine (WT) with 4 different blades in 6 configurations, charging a 12V battery bank. A) The original blades were white 4.5” wide and 22.5” long. B) The up graded blades seem to be the same. C) The short fat blades were white, 6” wide and 22.5” long. D) The long blades were black, 6” wide and 29” long. I could not accurately measure the pitch of the blades. . Wind speed was measured using a hand held anemometer.

A) The original blades were white 4.5” wide and 22.5” long.
I recorded .2 to .6 amps output in wind speed of 8 to 17 mph. A hand held photo tachometer measured WT 300 rpm at 14 mph of wind. One night during a storm with winds exceeding 30 mph, one reading revealed a WT output of 3 amps.

B) The up graded blades seem to be the same white 4.5” wide and 22.5” long.
I recorded .4 to .9 amps output in wind speed of 9 to 15 mph. Wind speed was measured using the hand held anemometer. A hand held photo tachometer measured WT 318 rpm at 15 mph of wind.

I combined A) and B) blades for 6 blades on the WT without a nose cone. I measured 1.5 to 2.7 amps at 12 to 14 mph of wind.

C) The short fat blades were white, 6” wide and 22.5” long.
I recorded 2.2 to 3.2 amps output in wind speed of 8 to 14 mph. A bike speedometer adapted to the WT measured WT 520 rpm at 14 mph of wind. I did see 6 amps of output while estimating the wind speed at 19 mph.

D) The long blades were black, 6” wide and 29” long.
I recorded .8 amps to 7.7 amps output in wind speed of 7 mph to 21 mph. The bike speedometer measured WT 900 rpm in 21 mph of wind. At one point the wind increased to over 25 mph and the WT blades began cavitating losing power and creating a loud noise. In addition, the shorting brake on the WT could not slow the WT rpm below estimated 300 rpm.

I combined 6 D) blades on the WT without a nose cone. I measured 1.3 to 6 amps in wind speed of 8 to 23 mph.
Conclusion:
While the 6 A) and B) blades were better than either in the 3 blade configuration, the C) and D) blades clearly produced greater amps than the A) and B) in any configuration. I don’t understand why the 6 D) blades did not perform better than 3 of the same blades when the 6 A/B blades almost tripled the output of the 3 blade configuration.

The 3 blade configuration of C or D blades seem to provide the best output, but I need to test the C blades in higher wind to compare output to the D blades at the same wind speed and determine at what wind speed the C blades will cavitate.

Whichever blades I ultimately use, I am confident either the C or D blades will enable the WT to produce meaningful power while the A and B blades did not.

[sailmambo]

I installed a 550 Watt apollo wind generator and morning's star charging controller
Wind speed 10 - 15 1-2 amps. 15-20 2.5 amps under load to batteries. No real gains after that. I removed the load/switching off batteries. Speed of generator increased dramatically.
I then loadex up the generator by turning on the batteries. Saw a peak amperage in 15 -20 knots of Wind AT 10 amps for about 1/2 second. generator then decreased speed and output to1.5 - 2 Amps. Conclusion. Blades either too small or not enough torque. THIS INSTALL WAS WITH 6 Blades. Very quiet but useless until the problem is solved. I have not recieved any return email about this issue.I will try the 29 inch blades asap. Also this company web addrezs is down. I pulled the address from the ebay site. Any help or info would be Ppreciated. Bruce

[sailmambo]

Update...complete fraud. Do yourself a favor. Do not buy apolllo. No tech support. No return emails. Will not answer phone. I had ebay try to contact owner of Apollo. No results.
Do not believe the hype. This unit is junk...

[Celestialsailor]

Very limited information on them. I would bet that they are Chinese and looking for distributors in the US. So every Tom, Dick and Harry are instant business people. I'm sorry you had to go through that experience. I have had 1 or 2 bad experiences on ebay with less than reputable people.
As far as Chinese products, I do my best to steer away from them. Sometimes it's impossible.

[jacquikite]

I install a apollo 800w 12v on my sail boat.
All wind turbine Apollo seem to be built in AC, with 3 wires. When you order a DC turbine, they ad a small part wich converts AC (3 wires) to DC( 2 wires) , i don t install this part because my wind regulator accepts AC (3 wires) wind turbine.
- wind turbine is quiet. Not noisy. I was very surprised. Wind, waves or boat is more noisy than turbine. The mast and all brackets are very well insolated. So, i m very satisfied with the noise.
- Efficiency. At 10 knt, the 6 blades are turning, but no charge. It begins to load around 15 knt, but only between 0.5 and 1 A maximum. Around 20 knt, it loads between 2 to 4A. Around 25 knt, it loads between 4 to 7A. I measure a peak of 11A with a gust around 35 knt. I was anchored when i took those measurments and I watched the wind meter of my boat, wich is working well. The Amp. were given by the wind turbine regulator, by a portable digital ammeter and a permanent lcd ammeter installed before batteries. I m very surprised with those datas. I checked several times if all wires were correct . Anyway, efficiency is very, very low ... Should the wind be more than 60 knt to load my batteries ? So, I wonder if the datas Greenergy Star, who is selling Apollo wind turbines, are not VERY exagerated. And that s probably why they only give datas in rpm. and not in wind ...
May be it s my controller wich doesn t work correctly ... I don t think so, but ...
So, if somebody else could confirm my datas, I would appreciate. For people who are interested with Apollo wind turbine, wait and see other reviews !

[Cumajacabeel]

I purchased two of the Apollo 650's with the charge controller. Having previously owned two air marine 400 watt units I was impressed with what I thought were significant improvements in the design, the spacing of the bearings, six blades etc. when I installed them we had no wind over 7 knots for about a week so I was not surprised to see almost no input( I have an ammeter that measures the input). When we set sail we had winds in the low teens and I expected to see a few amps but all I could see was barely an amp of input. Then we started to see stronger winds and soon had apparent winds in the 20-25 knot range. I could see only 2-4 amps. The lights on the charge controller showed that the AC was active and the blue light that it was charging, but still only a small charge.
Later that night we had squalls and apparent winds in the high 30's and the most amps I could see was 5 (which at 14v charging is only 70 watts) and I would have expected to see at least 35 amps.
After a few days the one generator on the starboard side quit charging at all ( we had been on stbd tack for four days).
I checked the trouble shooting guide and there was no help. It is pretty hard to screw up the wiring, 3 wires from the AC, two wires to the dump load and two wires to the batteries. I opened the controller and measured what the AC volts were and it measured 45 AC volts , I also measured the DC volts at the rectified output and it measured 27 volts DC ( which is about what you would expect after rectification. I connected the DC directly to the batteries and got 5 amps of input in 25+ knots of wind.
I emailed the supplier (Greenergy) and got no response.
The units were actually pretty quiet even in the 30 knot plus range but produced very little power.
At this point I am at a loss as to why it produces so little.
Do not buy Apollo 650 from Greenergy!!!