Wind generator

[johnlilley]

Thinking of getting a small wind generator, seems to come down to a choice between a Rutland 503 with blades, an Ampair Dolphin or a Forgen, both these two are vertical access danger free units but are they too small an output for their presence? or have I not included a good one? Any ideas
Thanks John Lilley

<hr width=100% size=1>John Lilley, John Lilley & Associates, Web site www.seasurveys.co.uk for osmosis /timber problems

 

[snowleopard]

sounds as though you want something to keep the batteries up during the week, if so, a vertical-axis model will do the job. if you want to use it for keeping the batteries up while cruising you'll definitely want something bigger

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[FullCircle]

how strange - just looking on ebay....

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2487171175

Jim

<hr width=100% size=1>Our engine will never wear out - it only runs for 5 mins before packing it on again.

 

[silverseal]

I bought a 12 inch x 38 inch solar panel last year which has kept 3 off 110 amp batteries fully charged. Last week the service battery was down to 8.9 volts due to excessive use of the beer cooler - connect the solar panel and within 2 hours the battery was 11 volts, and the following day was 12.8 volts. I paid £105 for the solar panel, and it cant give you a headache

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[simonfraser]

i agree, go solar if you have the space, i have two sets of scars from a wind gen, sold it after the second "accident"

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[bedouin]

I'm afraid if a solar panel can raise the voltage from total discharge to 12.8V in a day then the battery is dead - replace it.

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[snowleopard]

he's right. from your description of the panel it sounds like 15w which would put in around 6AH a day in britain, maybe 10AH in the tropics. a 330AH bank in good condition would need 2 months to bring it back up to full charge!

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[silverseal]

Regarding my earlier posting about solar panels a three 110 amp deep cycle batteries. They are not car batteries but deep cycle, and will recover naturally. The solar panel was connected solely to the service battery, and at a nominal amp an hour and 14 hours of daylight I would expect to get more than 6 ah per day, specially in Solent sunshine, I ran the same 60 watt beer cooler this weekend and the battery was a mere 10 volts at the end of the exercise - the beer ran out.
I went to the boat this afternoon and the said "nackered" battery was back to 12.6 volts. The two engine batteries a mere 14.0 volts. To be fair we did run the engine for 20 minutes between Horsesand Fort and Hardway, and the 75 amp alternator will have helped

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[bedouin]

A 15W solar panel when new will pump out 15W in bright tropical sunlight when correctly orientated to the sun.

The first problem is that by 15W they don't mean 1.25A at 12V, they mean more like 0.85A at 18V - so the most you can get correctly orientated in tropical sun is 0.8Ah / h. You can probably halve that for a typical installation in the UK where the panel is flat and the sun is weaker. Looked at that way 6Ah seems a bit optimistic!

To get a meaningful measurement of battery voltage you need to measure it in "resting state" i.e. at least 30 mins after it has been detached from any charging source. There is no Lead Acid battery that will put out 14V in those conditions, so I would suggest that either your meter is overreading significantly or there is something still charging the batteries that you don't know about.

Note that as a battery deteriorates its capacity decreases significantly. This has the added affect that it appears to recharge much faster. An interesting exercise is to charge the battery fully then attach a load that will discharge the battery at about the 10H rate and see how long it takes to drop below 12V

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[sundance]

No, wrong. A 12 X 38 inch panel is at least 50 watts, not 15! I suspect that it is/was putting out about 14-20 ampere hours per day (at this time of year); in which case the claims are feasable if only a small service battery was being re-charged!

There is a belief going around that solar panels cannot bring batteries back up from 'flat'! This is incorrect.

Go Solar! We had a Rutland wind charger once, nasty (and noisy) piece of work.
Nearly took a guests head off one day. We dumped it after that. Now we have 2 X 80 watt solar panels and we don't even have to connect up to shorepower at our own marina - even with the fridge on!


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[bedouin]

Where can you source a 12x38 inch solar panel that puts out 50 watts? I don't think any of the ranges commonly available in the UK could put out half that (e.g. the ICP Solar range or UniSolar range).

Anyway even at 14Ah/day there is no way a Solar panel could recharge a 110Ah Battery from flat to 12.6V in just one day.

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[charles_reed]

Boat electrix

I'd suggest that you need both wind and solar to try and keep up with boat power needs.

In hindsight it would have been more useful, for me, to have had a solar panel before the wind generator.

I'd be doubtful if anything but the Airmarine or big Ampair produce sufficient to be of use.

With 400 ah of battery capacity, I find I can get about 5-6 days at anchor before having to start the engine to charge.

I've got an 85watt solar and the Ampair 100 feeding through a regulator which cuts out at 14.4volts - the alternator is a 100 amp with an Adverc smart charger.

That runs a fridge, CD-player radio and computer apart from normal boat services.

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