Wind Turbines

[kgb]

Hi all, I am looking at fitting a new Wind turbine on my 50' ,the old one is a AmpAir Aquair 100 w 12 v DC and getting a bit tired and noisy.I like to replace it with a Apollo 550 w 12 v DC,or maybe a Hyacinth Z-100 w 12 v any thoughts or recommendations on the matter? Sailing in the roaring 40 ties most of the time and normally under reef.so high winds could be an issue .Thanks

[Neptune's Gear]

SilentWind. Quiet and powerful.

[Whitebread117]

Originally Posted by Neptune's Gear

SilentWind. Quiet and powerful.

X2. A really nice piece of kit. Big amps in moderate to strong winds. We love ours.

[SV Windrush II]

I have an Apollo 800W, 6 blades. not very happy with its output on anything less than about 10 knot winds, but above that it does pretty well. been working constantly for about a year now, no issues. But I would try SilentWind as the above guys mentioned. It may produce more amps.

[Whitebread117]

One addition- Silentwind controller has programmable cutouts. Ours starts spinning around 8kt sustained and auto brakes just south of 30kt sustained. If it's blowing 20 gusting 30 we are generating 30 amps or better. We have a very large bank (1040ah) so I set the cutout fairly aggressive.

[kgb]

Thanks Whitebread 117,my house battery bank is 600 Ah ,so I am not after big amp output,but I like to top up my batt-bank when cloudy and not motoring ie @ anchor ,as been pointed out everybody wants a calm spot over night anchoring ,thus an efficient turbine charging at low wind speed is paramount, Most turbine advertised seems to be grossly overrated and need a gale to work! In the end you get what you pay for.

[Stumble]

Originally Posted by kgb

Thanks Whitebread 117,my house battery bank is 600 Ah ,so I am not after big amp output,but I like to top up my batt-bank when cloudy and not motoring ie @ anchor ,as been pointed out everybody wants a calm spot over night anchoring ,thus an efficient turbine charging at low wind speed is paramount, Most turbine advertised seems to be grossly overrated and need a gale to work! In the end you get what you pay for.

All good design does is reduce the noise, even cheap wind generators pull a pretty big fraction of the power available in the wind. The problem with small units however is that there are minuscule amounts of power available in light breeze.

You can work it out mathematically, but available power goes up with the cube ^3 of wind speed and the square ^2 of swept area. So for light wind production you need the largest blades you can manage. The problem of course is that as the wind speed increases and power generation goes up exponentially those same large blades may produce more power than you can contain and the system has to be shut down sooner.

[Jim Cate]

Most turbine advertised seems to be grossly overrated and need a gale to work!

While optimistic advertising is surely present, there is a good reason that many folks are disappointed in the output of their wind turbines: The turbine is typically mounted some 10 or 12 feet above sea level. Their wind instrument, which they use to determine wind speed, is at the masthead, some 50 or more feet up. There is always some wind shear, with stronger winds aloft, so the anemometer could be reading say 20 knots while the turbine is only experiencing 12 knots, and thus fails to meet "advertised" output for the wind speed. Additionally, the air flow down low is typically somewhat disturbed by all the stuff ahead of the turbine, usually mounted near the stern. Furled head sails, rigging, mast(s), they all disturb the flow and the turbulent air stream does a poor jobof driving the propeller.

Further, most yotties tend to remember the peak wind speed shown and do a poor job of estimating the average wind speed... again putting the turbine at a disadvantage with regards to meeting advertise output.

No doubt that vendors quote outputs achieved under optimum conditions, but really, what else can they do? Those are the only repeatable conditions, and they have no way of guessing what your installation will look like!

All that said, we find out old Air-X to be a useful adjunct to solar, especially under way at night, where every little bit helps to feed our voracious autopilot!

Jim

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by Neptune's Gear

SilentWind. Quiet and powerful.

Another satisfied user here. Ours operates to spec. Pretty quiet (having had an old Air-X prior). Needs about 15 knots before getting real amps, but can run 24 hrs. Adds up, even in lighter airs.