New wind generator install

[SaltyMetals]

Nightsky, Sure that is what i would get on my Rutland 1200 at those wind speeds if i read the wind showing on my instruments. Bear in mind that i guess you are probably looking at the wind speed showing on yr instruments, the sensor being at the top of the mast. Wind speed at deck level will be lower.
Andrew

[Franziska]

We are actually quite happy with our windgen, it's perfect to be able to top up when sailing under autopilot and as little augmentation on slightly overcast days.

Solar is great as a main source, but we feel wind augments it nicely.

We have the Rutland 1200 as well and once it's run in its fairly quiet and not disturbing.

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by Nightsky

Winds this morning between 13-16 kts. Charge going in to the battery bank is anywhere from from 2-4 amps. Is this OK or not very good output?

This sounds about right to me. The power curve climbs steeply from here.

[Nightsky]

Thanks Salty. Yes, reading mast top wind speeds only. Will take more time to determine if this cheapie unit is robust enough to last for a while and worth the $.

[skenn_ie]

12 or 24V ? I wonder if the poor performance is the alternator or the turbine itself. Do you notice the speed going up to a certain level and no further ? These things should speed up until current flows, then little more even in gusts. You should install a heavy resistor to clamp the speed right down in strong winds. The turbine output power drops way down when it is slowed, so the resistor will only produce hear to a second or so while it kills the momentum of the blades.

[molly21]

@saltymetals:
Can you tell us about your experience with the rutland 1200?

[Franziska]

Btw. I am in touch with the manufacturer of the Rutland 1200, Marelec.
They say that from a specific serial number upwards, the controller can be reprogrammed by them to properly charge a LiFePo4 battery bank.
Won't know until I am back on board.

[SaltyMetals]

@molly21,
I bought 3x150W Sunware semi-flexible solar panels which I wired in parallel, the Rutland 1200 and an MPPT which could handle both solar&wind, as well as charging both my domestic bank of batteries (4x110Ah) and my second circuit of batteries which includes the starter battery(80Ah) as well as 2x 50Ah batteries for the bowthruster. I did have one problem after about 1 yr when I had left the boat with the Rutland closed down but solar still ON. For some reason the batteries had lost their charge and the MPPT had gone to sleep and no sunshine would make it wake up again. Fortunately the batteries (Victron AGM) did not appear to hv suffered. After discussing w Marlec I sent my MPPT back to them and they updated the firmware. No charge. Since then no problems at all. Marlec service and tech advice is excellent.

The Rutland 1200 is wonderfully quiet. When mounting it I used some rubber-bushed brackets and a special SS foot which has a rubber insert. At the time (2017) Marlec did not supply these and all I wanted to do was to have the brackets welded to my SS transom arch instead of the 3-legged mounting kit offered by Marlec. So I sourced the brackets from Silentwind and bought them via Allspars UK who are their UK agents. If you PM me w yr email addr I can send you some pics.

Marlec warn not to tie off one of the blades to stop the Rutland when you leave the boat. Doing this is likely to allow rainwater to get into the front bearing. You should either dismount the blades and then put a water proof cover over the whole unit or just use the button on the MPPT to close it down. It will then only rotate v slowly but seems enough to protect the front bearing from water and saves the hassle of dismounting the blades.

It starts generating at about 8 kn (as measured from my mast-head wind sensor) and goes up to about 20-25A at 30kn. In a real blow the temp rises in the MPPT which will then close down the Rutland automatically and will restart once the MPPT which has an internal cooling fan has cooled down a bit. It is important the MPPT is mounted to allow air circulation. Essentially, having installed everything the system now looks after itself and I have the satisfaction of knowing that I did not hv to burn any diesel to charge my batteries to have a nice cold beer.

Last year I added a single 145W Solbian panel on the rear part of my bimini. This goes through a smaller MPPT (Victron 75/15) and can only charge one circuit so is connected to the domestic 4x 110Ah. This has now made my power generation & consumption balance nicely. Possibly sailing at night w nav lights and AP it will be using the batteries but I hv plenty of reserve.

Advice on CF has been to try and maximize yr solar before considering a windgen. I have the Marlec monitor at my chart table so can see cumulative figures of generation. Typically I get 80-90% from solar and balance from the Rutland but latter is magic overnight to recharge the batteries but most of the time my SOC never drops below 80%and w some sunshine is back to 100% by midday. The solar even generates a small current at night when there is clear sky and a full moon.
Andrew

[molly21]

Thanks for this nice review

[skenn_ie]

I could be wrong (it does happen ;-) ) but I suspect that the main failing of Chinesium turbines are the beatings. Whichever turbine you have, I suggest that you carry replacements for both the main shaft, and the vertical one.

[Franziska]

Btw. be careful with the Rutland 1200 controllers sun power channel. There is an upper capacity limit.
Not sure how high it was, but I think it can't handle panels above 200W.

[TonyNA]

Review of our $270.00 Marsrock 12volt 400W Wind Turbine


I put this review together for Amazon but they've not posted it yet so I though I'd share it here.


OUR POWER SITUATION: We bought this for our boat while passing through Marathon Florida and didn't get a chance to install and test it until we arrived in the Bahamas.
Our boat has 400 watts of solar, 470Ah batteries in 4 Trojan T105 flooded lead acid batteries and a separate 12v starting battery powering the usual boat LED lights and equipment, a 9 Cubic Foot fridge cooled with a Danfoss 12v compressor with air cooled condenser, a recently added large 12v Engel type portable fridge which we use as our deep freezer. The Engal also has a 12v Danfoss type compressor and air-cooled condenser. When running the fridge and freezer they each draw about 4 to 5 amps and cycle on and off about twice per hour and when running they are on for about 10 to 15 minutes. The refrigeration is our largest consumer of amp-hours on our boat. If we had a R.O. water-maker that would be the big one. Without the turbine we were generally fine on solar power if we had good direct sunlight and adjusted the panels toward the moving sun and only needed to run the main engine (has one 70-amp Balmar alternator) about every 5 days for about three hours. Our plan with the wind turbine was to avoid running the engine at all and since we are back in the tradewind belt. So far, with the turbine we have been able to avoid running the engine to charge the batteries.
Overall the unit looks to be well made and the fit and finish appear good. The blades seem well balanced and fit snugly into the mounting hub and the tips are measured to be equal distant. When first looking at the turbine right away I wondered how a 12-volt turbine that is rated at 400 watts can ship with such a small gauge wire coming out of its base. It appears to be 16 gauge at best. At the turbine’s rated voltage and power, it would need to handle a peak of 30 Amps of current. Okay fine, over a short 12" run that could work since the unit won't be operating 100% of the time at the rated 400 watts. To avoid voltage drops in the three-phase line from the turbine to the supplied MMPT060 controller I used a 35-foot length of 3 conductor 12-gauge wire. When pushing and pulling the rotor shaft in and out (axially) there seems to be no thrust bearing which gives me the impression the shaft is allowed to float on the magnetic force between the rotor’s magnets and the steel in the stator’s core. After looking into this further it seems several other reviews of these Chinese turbines said the fit between the bearings’ inner races and the shaft is too loose allowing it to easily slide; more on this later.

We had a fabricator in Nassau make us a really nice 8-foot mast from type 316 stainless steel 2” tube and stayed it with two short pieces of 1” stainless tube using common stainless yacht awning hardware instead of welding.

Since we are not on a farm and on a small boat living close to this thing, we definitely needed a way to stop it instantly, so we added a STOP/FREEWHEEL/RUN switch. We bought a 5-dollar two pole three position toggle switch at Home Depot and wired it using the pictured diagram. Basically, the thing just shorts the three turbine leads together creating a magnetic break for STOP and opens the leads up for FREEWHEEL and conducts them straight through when in RUN position. No need to waste your $90.00 on one of those “black box” stop switches sold by “wind companies” that do the same thing without showing you the wiring.

For about two weeks now we have been using the turbine in about 12 to 15 knots of wind and have found we get 4 to 7 amps of charge current in those conditions. With it running 24/7 we have had no problems keeping our batteries topped off. Today we are having a cold front pass through and are seeing 20 to 25 knots of wind with higher guests. In those conditions we are seeing about to 20 amps of charge current. In reviewing Wind versus Power output for 400-watt turbines I’d say that ours is living up to expectations for far less money than the expensive Made in Germany turbines that sell for $1200.00 vs $260.00

ISSUES:
The turbine produces two kinds of noise, aero noise and mechanical structural born noise. The aero noise seems worse (like whistling and whirling sounds) at wind speeds of 9 to 12 knots. Sometimes I find myself thinking the noise is not worth the 2 to 3 amps of charge and consider switching it off during the day when solar is doing the heavy lifting. At 13 to 20 knots the turbine kind of purrs and the annoying high pitch whistling sounds go away. The mechanical structural born noise is likely from the loose shaft to bearing fit and at low speeds it make a kind of random, wobbling, loose bearing sound but it too gets better with steady 15 knots of wind.

The MMPT060 controller that came with it is a piece of junk, but I thought I would try it out before upgrading to something better. I say its junk because the leads are also a bit small (gauge wise) for the 600 watts the controller is alleged to be rated. Also, what really *sucks* about is apparently no thermal dissipation was considered when they designed its package. Its’s heat sink is just too small to adequately dissipate the heat it generates passively. In fact, it gets so hot I nearly burned myself when I touched it when the turbine was operating in 20 knots of wind. I don’t have a laser thermometer on board to prove it, but my experience says it felt like at least 170 deg F. Too hot to be healthy for the MOSFETS doing the switching inside. I also don’t want it burning our boat up. Since I can’t easily get an upgrade in the Bahamas, I had to quickly find a solution which ended up being mounting it at about a ½ in from the wall it was screwed to and turned it around so the black heat sink fins are not against the wall. For added measure I attached a spare 12v “computer” fan to it. These measures seem to have worked and I may not burn the controller up before I can get an upgrade.

As far as the bearing issue goes, I plan to take the unit down and disassemble to see if the included bearings are capable of taking axial loads. If that is the case, I will figure out a way to fix the shaft to the inner bearing hubs using blue Loctite or something similar. This should stop 90% of the annoying structural noise.

Bottom line is I like messing about with stuff like this, so the price makes the cost to play reasonable and, in the end, I get what I want for our boat’s energy system. If you don’t like DIY projects and just want a turbine that works, go for the $1200 model and hire an installer.

For those you live on land and don’t have steady winds that are non-turbulent forget any kind of wind turbine and buy all the solar you need for less than $1.00 a watt – you’ll be much happier and won’t get caught in the dark. I can’t believe the number of people who think they can mount this turbine to their second story deck railing and it or ANY turbine to work. Those reviewing that have inadequate wind are wasting everybody’s time.

HEY SELLER: SHIP WITH A BETTER CONTROLLER even if it costs a bit more and EXPLAIN why and you’ll have happier customers. Also address the thrust bearing issue – you fix this you’ll have a real winner! And if you send me a free revised turbine I’ll test and review it also for FREE!

[SaltyMetals]

#Franziska (#116), I have the MPPT as supplied by Marlec which handles input from both wind(Rutland 1200) & solar (3x50W Sunware)and outputs to two separate battery circuits. You are correct, there is a solar limit and Marlec told me that the solar limit on the MPPT they supplied me is 250W. The extra 144W of Solbian solar that I added goes through a separate Victron MPPT. Originally I thought of wiring my extra 144W single Solbian panel in parallel with the existing since they never seem to provide >60% of the rated capacity but there was another important reason to use a separate MPPT and that was because the solar panels are different and would have conflicted w each other on input to the same MPPT.
Andrew

[Franziska]

Hi Andrew,

we will use 3 Epever solar controllers as we will have three 495watt industrial solar panels (on a cat we have the space for them).
The Rutland will still be nice on overcast days and at night, but the solar controller in it is just to small for our panels.
Guess we can be fairly independent with our setup :-)

Originally Posted by SaltyMetals

#Franziska (#116), I have the MPPT as supplied by Marlec which handles input from both wind(Rutland 1200) & solar (3x50W Sunware)and outputs to two separate battery circuits. You are correct, there is a solar limit and Marlec told me that the solar limit on the MPPT they supplied me is 250W. The extra 144W of Solbian solar that I added goes through a separate Victron MPPT. Originally I thought of wiring my extra 144W single Solbian panel in parallel with the existing since they never seem to provide >60% of the rated capacity but there was another important reason to use a separate MPPT and that was because the solar panels are different and would have conflicted w each other on input to the same MPPT.
Andrew

[SaltyMetals]

Franziska,

On my additional 144W (i have a mono so no space like yrs on a cat!) i got the Victron 75/15 MPPT which i find very good. The 75 refers to the max open voltage and the 15 refers to the Current at 12V. I like the Victron units since there is an App you can download on your phone and it will give you all the charge details, historical input, etc. Victron does make larger ones such as the 100/20 which can handle 290W @12V, 580W @24V or 1160W @ 48V. The smaller one which i have can only charge one battery circuit. Not sure about the larger ones.