PS did a side-by-side review of several WGs, not including the D400.
Output, noise (subjective, made more so by the
interference of the wind noise), cost, all compared. Total amp hours produced by the hour and over the entire time of the test.
We have a KISS, and, with the limitations of the wind noted and cured by cocking off the wind, it's hands down the simplest. OTC automotive replacement
parts other than housing and blades.
Spend a great deal of time making the balance of the blades perfect when you set it up. It makes all the difference in the world to the noise and vibration produced. It will come with a balancing spindle, which matches the taper of the shaft on the rotor.
Put the ends of the shaft, ideally, on a level pair of something hard, ideally like a metal ruler held in place upright. If you can't do that, and are willing to deal with the exercise of taking it out, cutting little strips of the lead weight tape glued to the back of each blade, you could do as I did and use a level fiddle with a minimum of 30" clearance (the length of the blade), and stand there with one end on the fiddle, and the other, a hand held small bubble level.
Take a little off each time on the low blade. If it rotates any faster than, say, 10 seconds from high to low, start with sections of the lead tape about 2" long. Save them in case it's badly enough out of balance so that you can restick that on the light blade (they hold; I've got a dozen small snips from my heavy blade on the light blade). Use a judiciously applied utility or similar knife to cut the lead tape, but not score the FG blade.
Eventually, you'll get to the point where it will take at least a minute to rotate from high to low on the heavy blade. You could get more anal than that, but if you don't have a perfectly level, stable platform for your spindle support edges, you'll induce more errors than you'll find to correct.
Once finished, you'll find you hear a soft "whissshh" from the blades all the way up to its thermal overload point. If it freewheels in a gale, it will sound a bit like a light airplane taking off, but not a whine :{))
Put a tether which will allow it to rotate to about 45* off straight forward so that you don't get swinging-at-anchor inducements to start fully engaging in a serious blow. Tie the blades (I use a bungee over the top of one, under the tail, and back over the other top) so they can't move, and cock the unit, if you're going to get over 40 knots. Consistent full gale or above, remove the blade.
The purpose of the tether is to prevent more than a maximum of three twists, mostly a concern if you're on a
dock and the winds are clocking. The torsion spring is more trouble than it's worth; if you're installing it new, take it out; it does the same thing as the tether (prevents damage to the wire from too much twisting). Or, of course, you could buy the slip rings, mostly useful for mizzen mizzen mounting.
One caution when installing from new. Take a caliper and measure the
depth of the threads in the pole housing (actual
depth doesn't matter - use the stem of the gauge for the next step; you could use anything so long as the measure could be retained accurately). Mark the coupler end with that depth with a sharpie or something else (tape?). DO NOT EXCEED THAT DEPTH when you're screwing it on. It's easy, if you're using silicone or similar fixing compound, to overtighten, and you can stress, or even split, the FG housing stem. I've concluded that's the reason mine took flight in a gale in Marsh Harbour!
So, with that thought in your mind, know that these are so simple that I fished it off the bottom after a day in sea
water, took it out of the shattered housing and separated the rotor and stator, rinsed it thoroughly with fresh
water, spritzed it with
Corrosion Block to drive out the moisture, and let it dry. After it was dry, I did the tests and it was perfect.
Pried up the
seals, and even though the grease looked good, regreased the bearings, put it back together in the new housing I ordered, balanced the new blades, and we're using it again, for about a year with no ill effects.
They're pretty much bulletproof.
All that said, if I were a lot richer, and conveniently located for
service, I might buy a D400 were I to have to do it again. Since I'm neither, however, if I have to replace it, likely I'll do a KISS again.
That said, a buddy told me of a (subjective) test he and another did in a ripsnorting wind in a crowded anchorage. Said buddy had just ordered and installed a KISS. Taking a DB meter around to various
boats with various fans, while the KISS was quieter than all the others, the D400 was the quietest of all.
According to the specs, and to the distributor, it will put out more power than the KISS, doesn't mind gales, and starts putting out faster. I'm put off by the
price, and their demand for a load diverter.
I have such a controller (Xantrex C40, pretty much the standard for WGs) and diversion load. You can take advantage, if your water
heater has the appropriate element, of excess power, to make hot water. Mine doesn't, unfortunately.
AND - since I have an 880AH bank, along with
windlass and starting
batteries, all wet, since one may safely put up to 15% of capacity in constantly, one of my next projects will be to hardwire it, bypassing the controller, as I don't equalize my
batteries nearly often enough, anyway. And, FOTM is that I rarely have absolutely full batteries, given my onboard loads.
As to the assertion of anchorages being sheltered, it's a valid argument in many locations. You have to take your cruising grounds into account when you design your system. Ours is designed for the
Caribbean, someplace we've yet to get to. When we go to a hard top, we'll add to our 370w of solar, as both have their place. Relative to an earlier post, we have a BlueSky
MPPT which allows us 25A in ideal conditions, but usually only about 15-20A typical peak, and, of course, lesser early/late in the day. They aren't gimballed so we don't have the advantage of accurately facing them; if we did, our output would be notably higher...
And, finally, your total system design, including a very accurate measurement of your loads and daily AH totals under varying conditions (anchored, under way, motoring or sailing,
autopilot and other navaids included) is key to making it all
work. As a result, as it was nearly windless, and very cloudy all day, we're now running our
Honda 2000 to not only take up the slack but cover our
current 2-computer, reefer/freezer and other lesser loads :{))
Oh, ya, one other thought about a different thread; my (Lydia's is a bricked AC transformer laptop) computer is 12V as is nearly everything other than the
monitor, which I'll replace with one of the newer LED based units, which will take ship's power, at which point the only AC device in our computer setup (computer,
monitor, powered hub, 4 external HDs, and
WiFi, all house or filtered 12V) will be the laser printer. Otherwise, throughout the
boat, all
lighting loads are LED (yet another thread)...
L8R
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