Best windgen Rutland or ampair.

purplerobbie

purplerobbie

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I have an ampair 100 on my boat and its just about worn out.
I'm thinking of replacing it was going to replace like for like to make the fitting easier.
But is the ampair 100 worth £300 more than the Rutland 914i?
 
Ive done quite a bit of recent research on this, I cant afford any of your two models (i ended up with a 504) but along my way ive read a lot of good reports about the 914i, people saying they cant justify paying a good bit more for something the same or as good as or in some peoples opinions even better in the way of apparently quieter....
 
If the quality of the Rutland 914 is as good as the Rutland 913 then it should be very reliable. My Rutland 913 is 6 years old and has been working hard constantly since it was installed, charging 5 x 110 amp batteries. I have no experience of the Ampair
 
Stemar said:
Before deciding on either, have a look at what your money can get you in the way of solar panels http://www.sunstore.co.uk/12v-Solar-Panels-c-286/, for example.

No noise, and charging as long as there's light. They may not be the answer for you, but the cost has dropped so much recently that they have to be worth a look.
Click to expand...

Further to the above, 100W rigid panels can be had for around £90 from eBay and 100W semi-flexible panels can be had for £150 from solarpanelpvt.com .
We have a selection of both of these.
 
+2 for solar, a Rutland 913 will probably only provide similar Ah per day to a 40W rigid panel (averaged over a summer season). However, I seem to remember that OP already had 2 old panels on stern and was planning to replace them, so may not have room for more.

No responses yet from Ampair owners but I wouldn't expect a huge difference in performance as the Rutland 913 and AmpAir 100 have similar swept area and number of blades. One might be 10% better than the other but won't be 50% better (unless one has a truly dreadful design).

One bad point on 913 (and probably 914) is the amount of weight in front of the pivot point. Can't be helped as that's where the stator and ceramic magnets are fitted. I think the Ampair design might be better balanced. So the 913 doesn't face into the wind when heeled in light-moderate winds.

I sometimes use the line from the tail-fin to hold the 913 into the wind when sailing on one tack for several hours. I plan to extend the arm holding the tail-fin to see if this helps matters.

I don't have any experience with Ampair.
 
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I have 2 solar panels and 2 wind gens. They are all a bit tired. The wind gens are both ampair 100's one is really old and one is reasonably new. I was thinking of replacing the older one but for a couple of hundred more I could replace both with the 914i's

Stemar said:
Before deciding on either, have a look at what your money can get you in the way of solar panels http://www.sunstore.co.uk/12v-Solar-Panels-c-286/, for example.

No noise, and charging as long as there's light. They may not be the answer for you, but the cost has dropped so much recently that they have to be worth a look.
Click to expand...
 
purplerobbie said:
I have an ampair 100 on my boat and its just about worn out.
I'm thinking of replacing it was going to replace like for like to make the fitting easier.
But is the ampair 100 worth £300 more than the Rutland 914i?
Click to expand...


I had no end of problems with Rutland and a 500; my replacement Aero4gen has been through several storms and is still generating plenty of power. I don't know about Ampair but I wouldn't touch a Rutland again.
 
The nice thing about the Ampair is that if you get the right model, you can tow it and get 1 Amp per knot or hang it in the rigging or on a stick with its windmill blades whirling away. Both very satisfactory and there are good spares kits out there for it.

I am very happy with mine. I hung it over the back in Bermuda and struggled to use the amps on the way to Horta.
 
I'm singularly unimpressed with Marlec. I've got a 914 and three spectra solar panels from them.

After two years the 914 has burnt out once, its tailplane rusted, and the mounting system has made several attempts to go swimming; it has eaten 3 HRSi controllers and the solar panels have delaminated.

You pays your money...
 
sailor22 said:
The nice thing about the Ampair is that if you get the right model, you can tow it and get 1 Amp per knot or hang it in the rigging or on a stick with its windmill blades whirling away. Both very satisfactory and there are good spares kits out there for it.

I am very happy with mine. I hung it over the back in Bermuda and struggled to use the amps on the way to Horta.
Click to expand...

I was about to suggest this. We have an Aquair 100 (the towed/wind version of the Ampair 100), though I'll have to be honest I haven't got round to using it, yet! We will be using it once we start cruising this summer.
As per sailor22's comments, you get around 1 amp per knot of speed with apparently minimal drag. This is a constant charge that doesn't depend on the sun or wind (wind gennies are worthless if you're on a run!).
If you have the wind kit, it is very easy to convert the generator to wind mode for when you're not travelling. Either hang it in the rigging (usually in forestay triangle) or you can have a pole for it and plop it on that.

They're not massively cheap, but if you keep an eye out you can often find some good deals second hand.
 
I've got a Rutland 913 working through a HRDX controller. New in 2006 and I've owned the boat for 3 years. I don't know about Marlec service as it has worked perfectly since I've had it. I lived on the boat for 18 months and do now when I'm in the UK and it provides most of my needs although i do connect shorepower in the marina so I don't have to think about electricity. (I have fridge, eberspacher, mostly led lights, tv and normal instruments.) It's very quiet up to about 30 knots apparent wind. According to the digital gauge on the controller output is somewhat lower than Marlec spec but that could be because batteries are already charged. Certainly my consumption suggests the output is higher than gauge reading. Never had a problem with it being unbalanced as someone suggested earlier except possibly when beating in >30 kn apparent when it does oscillate a bit.
 
When I had my 913 I spoke to a guy at Marlec about low output I was getting compared to that claimed, he said it was due to "dirty wind" in the marina...:rolleyes:
 
>I have an ampair 100 on my boat and its just about worn out.

How old is it. Ours has been on the boat since 1998 and it's still going strong, the only maintenance was greasing the bearings once.
 
Pasarell said:
I've got a Rutland 913 working through a HRDX controller. New in 2006 and I've owned the boat for 3 years. I don't know about Marlec service as it has worked perfectly since I've had it. I lived on the boat for 18 months and do now when I'm in the UK and it provides most of my needs although i do connect shorepower in the marina so I don't have to think about electricity. (I have fridge, eberspacher, mostly led lights, tv and normal instruments.) It's very quiet up to about 30 knots apparent wind. According to the digital gauge on the controller output is somewhat lower than Marlec spec but that could be because batteries are already charged. Certainly my consumption suggests the output is higher than gauge reading. Never had a problem with it being unbalanced as someone suggested earlier except possibly when beating in >30 kn apparent when it does oscillate a bit.
Click to expand...

I've also found the output to be lower than Marlec's figures but put that down to measuring windspeed 60' above the windgen which gets dirty wind from nearby sprayhood, boom, mast etc.

I must admit that I've never seen the 913 balance problem mentioned online. It tends to be a problem in lighter winds, not strong winds. It wasn't an issue on short tacks but was sometimes a nuisance on longer ones (60-100nms). I've run into 2 liveaboards who had the same problem. One old chap had his mounted in the middle of his gantry so that he could manually adjust it with some bungee cord. That works for me when heeled to starboard but I can't pull the tail outboard on the other tack. I met another liveaboard who had the same problem and he was going to try extending the length of the arm holding the vane. I'm going to try the same thing this year.

I initially thought that Marlec must have "tuned" the size and position of the vane to maximise performance. Then I realised that ease of installation was probably a higher priority. I think that the distance from pivot point to tip of the vane is about the same as the length of a blade. This means that the vane cannot foul anything if there's enough room for the blades to rotate. I have plenty of space to extend the arm without it hitting any rigging.

The wind pushes the vane to allow the blades to swing into the wind. The 913 is quite front heavy and always hangs tail up When I lower the support pole. So the 913 would certainly sit tail upwards if the boat was heeled in the absence of wind. There are times when wind strength doesn't quite overcome the weight of the blades, stator and magnets. The blades sit well off the wind direction and cease to spin when that happens.

Increasing the length of the vane support arm should help and a test will cost very little.
 
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