IstaBreeze 500... Product experience....

[Syserenity]

Dear fellows
To all who want to experience with wind generators, one brand experience! IstaBreeze is a product manufactured in Turkey and sold as German product. Attention, it is not German Quality! Everybody who works in that company is turkish to start with.
I bought one of these generators and installed as described by the manufacturer. The technical instructions were poor, although the Serviceman did a very precise job following these instructions. Once mounted we expected it to start turning, as it says it only needs low wind. Nothing happened! The wind started to pick up and we meassured 30 knots of wind. Nevertheless, the product did bearly about 3 turns per minute.
At the regulator it indicated, it was charging, which it maintains even disconnected (weird).
I contacted the manufacturer with a list of questions, they only responded tks, yes it should have a break.
My next E mails got the request form them to send some pictures of how it was mounted, which I sent by today. Aside of that, big silence!!!!

I have become within the last years reluctant to try new technologies since the manufacturers sell products not tested sufficiently and also, they have no experience in mounting the necessary technical support. I just sent down the drain a couple of thousands of dollars in order to contribute to the worlds cleanness. Guess, I go back to old and proven technologies..... I could have bought a brand new generator with that money.

[Syserenity]

I have spent a few days calling the company in Germany anbd get no answer. After looking their Website in Facebook I posted there a cry for help. The Guys do not respond. I have figured out: They say to sell 1´500 units a month. That would be 18´000 a year, which is a huge percentage of the German Housing market every year. This is by far an uncertain figure and I guess, these Trukish Manufacturers try to make a Marketing Campaing by misleading information. So, take care everyone who plans to buy a IstaBreeze, whatever modell.

[Syserenity]

Sailing without Wind generator....

As I had called IstaBreeze and asked for technical assistance, I did not get assistance. Finally, after noising up on the Internet against the product (in Facebook) they said to ship a replacement. The replacement was shipped with a turkish carrier who had to hand over to DHL Germany. Now it happens, that DHL Germany had not scanned the express shipment and so far, DHL cannot identify the shipment anymore and said to have to start a hand search in their warehouse......

With this experience of a uncapable wind generator manufacturer and a uncapable American deliverer, I will have to sail without Wind generator. This joke is costing about USD 3´000 in Building, installing and disinstalling the wind generator.

Nobody will come up for these costs....... this was my last contribution to green energy.... business which end up being a rip off of some people who wanted to be a little more conscious. These USD 3´000 would have allowed a brand new Diesel Engine with super Generator.... and a lot of Diesel for underway...

[Syserenity]

The end of the story:
The manufacturer never recognized the problem, never sent a replacement, never gave assistance.
Tks to an electrical engineer from NASA, we opened and reviewed the unit and he got it working. Now it is prodcucing some power, never the promised.... It draws some 5-6 Amps an hour spinning like hell, but my batteries have to be supported by something else....

Don´t go for IstaBreeze, it´s one scam....

[sy-revolution]

I bought one too and have wasted my money. In my opinion, and a growing number of others, they are total crap.
Avoid at all costs!

[soloauditor]

I just joined cf
I wasted my money on itsa breeze 500 did not work out of the box no reply to em when i complained but before i bought replied to question so there is somebody there . i suspect the load controller is faulty i would not recommend this even if it worked as it is too noisy to live with.diesel generator is quieter.I suppose you get what you pay for cheap junk.

[ausnp84]

Avoid, avoid, avoid like the plague. Had two fitted on a motorsailer, one failed in 30kts and came crashing down to deck. Contacted Istabreeze Germany (Turkey) as their Irish distributor was no longer part of the company; they sent me two new wind gens. Great I thought.

Fitted both - neither worked. They never produced ANY power in the entire time I had them. Now have a Rutland 914 fitted. Sure, it doesn't produce Air Breeze / Air X power, but it produces a lot more power than the Istabreeze.

Again, avoid like the plague.

n

[devilliers]

I have a new ista 500 24V

I use this with their HYBRID 24 volt REGULATOR.

The regulator as received had a design and board problem. This needed reworking and eventually I received a working regulator.

The solar I have is two 50 watt 12 volt panels in series.

The solar works very well and the regulator will work the BRAKE for the turbine when the batteries are fully charged.

At first the other problem even after return was that the ORANGE CHARGING LED was wired to the BRAKE ON circuit. Of course then the RED BRAKE LED was showing as a CHARGE indicator. Inside the regulator I changed the leads from the board to the Color LED's by CHANGING THE RED AND WHITE LEADS AROUND FROM WHERE THEY COME FROM THE BOARD CONNECTOR.

HOWEVER, I HAVE ISOLATED THE SOLAR AND FOUND THAT THE TURBINE, ADVERTISED AS 24 VOLTS HAS MEASURED A.C. VOLTAGE BETWEEN PHASES OF 20-21 VOLTS IN APPROXIMATELY 18 KM/H WIND ( TOP OF FORCE 3)

BETWEEN EACH PHASE AND NEUTRAL THERE WAS 13.6 V D.C.

THIS MEANS THAT WHEN RECTIFIED BY THE HYBRID REGULATOR THE DC VOLTAGE OF 13.6 VOLTS WAS ONLY SUFFICIENT TO CHARGE A 12 VOLT BATTERY.

THIS LEAVE ME WONDERING WHO ON EARTH HAS DESIGNED AND MARKETED THIS PRODUCT?

I AM AWAITING A RESPONSE FROM THE MANUFACTURERS AND WILL POST THIS WHEN RECEIVED.

SINCERELY

[Dankoozy]

Have they improved in recent times? I was watching some youtub vids where a lad was praising IstaBreeze turbines maybe they have come on a bit in 7 years

[sustainable]

Hey don't spose anyone had an update on IstaBreeze's quality & design, they're seeming more popular nowadays, thanks

[Statistical]

Originally Posted by sustainable

Hey don't spose anyone had an update on IstaBreeze's quality & design, they're seeming more popular nowadays, thanks

Wind is horrible for small boats. It just is. Even the best wind turbines are marginal at best, noisy, repair prone, and inconsistent. The worst ones are just scams/garbage.

30 years ago when solar was $30 a watt and power needs on boats were small a small turbine might be worth the cost and frustration. Today save yourself some grief and avoid all wind power from all wind power brands.

I don't know anyone who has put a wind turbine on their boat in the last five years and has said "it exceeds my expectations. It is well worth the purchase price".

[pietvdiemen]

I have no personal experience yet with windgenerators but I think you generalised too much. A Superwind (or likely also Silentwind) works well.

There is e.g. a video (

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BeEx8NL6Y1M

) from Peter Goss; at some point he told that the superwind means that they never have to think about energy. Unfortunately I don't remember where he said this, but anyway, the video is well worth watching!

The superwind is also mentioned in an article about this boat: https://www.yachtingworld.com/cruisi...fferent-143376

And Oddity is not big, just 32 ft.

[Statistical]

Originally Posted by pietvdiemen

I have no personal experience yet with windgenerators but I think you generalised too much. A Superwind (or likely also Silentwind) works well.

There is e.g. a video (

) from Peter Goss; at some point he told that the superwind means that they never have to think about energy. Unfortunately I don't remember where he said this, but anyway, the video is well worth watching!

The superwind is also mentioned in an article about this boat: https://www.yachtingworld.com/cruisi...fferent-143376

And Oddity is not big, just 32 ft.

No I stick by it. Superwind is certainly better than most but the $2,000 would be better spent on solar. It produces 350W at a sustained 25 knot wind which is going to be rare. Most of the time it will produce vastly less than that. At 5 knots average wind speed it produces an average of 800 Wh per day. Of course so does a single 200W solar panel.

I have no reason to doubt the author when he says it meets their needs. Looking at the boat they have very modest electrical needs however modest electrical needs can also be met by solar and using a lot less than $2,000 worth of solar.

That being said if someone was hell bent about putting a wind turbine on a boat SuperWind would be a good (least bad?) choice.

[pietvdiemen]

You wrote "Wind is horrible on small boats". I don't see what wind has to do with s, m, xl or xxl boats?

Wind vs. solar is another discussion (where I also think that as much as possible solar makes sense). But in Scotland there is often plenty of wind, it thus depends where you sail.

Btw, you won't find a Superwind 350 for 2000, it's more like 2700... On the other hand if you buy "high-end" panels, like say Flin solar, it doesn't come cheap either.

I think with solar panel one can "go cheap" and still have good products. Not with wind generators, if you spend too little, like with this Ista, you end up with utter crap.

[ray122]

I bought one in July 2021, from a German eBay vendor (that I suspect to be the Turkish company manufacturer cover in EU).
I never managed to get it work.
The turbine turns well but I have no current coming from the controller.

I'm very interested to understand what changes have to be done to the controller. At this stage I have nothing to loose if opening it.

Another side problem is that the turbine head is very badly balanced, so if the mast where the turbine is is not perfectly vertical, it "falls" down on one side and don't turn.