Adding a wind turbine, what controller do I need

kevsbox

kevsbox

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Portsmouth, UK
www.kevsbox.com
Hi
This is my current setup plus a Rutland 913 which is going to be fitted this winter. I have purchased the 913 and mounts but not a controller. My question is what would be the best controller to complete the setup, everything is already fitted and running well.

1599075072784.png

Thanks in advance for any advice

Kev
 
+1 for the HRDi controller. You need to use a Marlec controller to operate the wind generator; it does clever things to control the speed of the turbine. The HRDi also provides a lot of ancillary information about rate of charge and battery state; it's comparable to the Photonic Universe controller you picture (having sold my HRDi with my wind generator, I bought the Photonic Universe controller as the best equivalent for Solar!) However, note that unless you are in a location where the wind speed commonly exceeds 15 knots, a wind generator will provide little benefit. I had one for several years, and basically it never did more than give a very small top-up charge to my batteries, especially when I moved to locations where dock walls and embankments sheltered the marina from the wind.
 
Caladh said:
The HRDi is very useful due to having 2 output so you can you one for the House and the other for the Engine Start battery. All solar goes to House. .....
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Are you sure? I've not noticed any mention of this in the literature.
 
Graham376 said:
I've sold my Aerogen, waste of space. Most of the time it created a shadow on the panels lowering output and adding little via wind.
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HRDi is PWM not MPPT but works well for both solar and 913. I have 145W solar and 913 through an HRDi plus 200W through an ePever MPPT unit. The HRDi is close to MPPT but that's in Greece and you get more advantage when it is cloudy. MPPT increases voltage to continue charging at lower current but PWM simply stops charging if voltage isn't high enough.

I did have a problem once with high output either side of a Medicane and discovered that there's an internal circuit for each battery. I fixed the blown chip and connected both outputs to the domestic bank. I think that all the current was going through one output to domestic side and virtually nothing to the fully charged start battery (as you'd expect). I reasoned that it was better to share the output to the domestic side via 2 sets of wires (one set per regulator inside HRDi). It was simply a matter of moving the existing connection to start battery over to the domestic side.

It seems to have worked but the problem only appeared once in about 8 years, might need to wait for the next cloudy spell accompanied by extreme wind. I usually tie off the 913 in very high winds but do sometimes need to run it.

N.B.
Don't expect much from your 913, approx. 7-10Ah per day would be a reasonable summer average. Virtually zero on many days, very modest most of the time and a large surplus 1-2 days each year. Your solar panels will be much more useful and probably about 8-10 x the "bang per buck".
 
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