DC Wind Turbine Issue

[Hkalan]

Hello,

A mate called me over to his vessel on Monday to help check an odd issue with his new 500w DC wind turbine.

My turbines are 3 phase out to a rectifier, so I am a bit new to direct DC output turbines.

He picked up the turbine on his way back to Hong Kong at the Singapore boat show from an Australia company that had a booth there.

His turbine has some internal MPPT circuit that will not put out more then 31v no matter how fast the wind is. He has a 50 amp diode in line before it connects to his battery. He has an analogue 0-30 amp panel meter.

When I stopped over, we had gusts up to 12m/s, but the voltage output was 4v to 9v, and his amp meter showed zero all the time. He had his amp meter on the positive side. I brought with me a digital amp and volt panel meter (75mV 500A) with a matching 500A 75mV shunt.

We connected the shunt on the negative side, and connected the meter... The same readings !!!

There has to be some current flowing, even at 9 volts... This is odd !!!

He is using 6mm wire that is about 8 meters from turbine to the battery. I told him that perhaps 25mm2 wire would be best, and the current is not showing due to the loss because of wire size being too small... But he still thinks there should be some amp reading no matter the wire size... I have to agree with that statement !!!

I am at a loss here !!! Any words of wisdom ???

Alan

[Sailmonkey]

Why the diode inline? It may be preventing the turbine from reading battery voltage.

What is the make of the turbine?

[goboatingnow]

controller is more then likely controlling the output so that nothing is output below a usefull battery voltage , I mean what are you going to do with 4-9V


Equally it may have a 'no battery ' detected feature and is effectively throttling outout.
Dave

[Hkalan]

Hello,

Not sure of the brand... Was more focused on the meter readings... Or lack of readings...

I had never thought that there would be a "battery detect" circuit on that... Great call... We'll just take out the diode to test that !!!!

Your so right !!!! It is acting like it is at an "idle" spin as if some circuit is blocking output due to something not being right !!!

We'll even disconnect the solar panel to allow the voltage of the 24v battery bank to fall below the float voltage of 27v !!!

Great info gentlemen !!!!

Thank you !!!!

Alan