Wind turbine tribulation!

[MagicalArmchair]

Hello all,

On my venerable and beautiful 1970s Albin Ballad, my wife has asked that I install the significant luxuries of a fridge, leading to the thorny issue of battery bank size and the ability to replenish it. I've looked at the likes of the Rutland 504, and equivalents, however they are considerably more expensive than the Chinese equivalent (http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Brand-New...trial_Tools_Generators_ET&hash=item43b7588a11) that also provides more wattage.

I have never fitted a wind turbine, so any tips would be great.

Mark

 

[CAPTAIN FANTASTIC]

I have a Rutland 913 which was installed over 6 years ago and has been running continuously ever since charging 5 x 110 amps batteries. No problems at all; however, it is only a matter of time before it will need new bearings; great investment. Nowadays, the solar panel technology has improved a lot; so look at the advantages of solar panels too.

 

[MagicalArmchair]

Can you stop it from working in Marinas and at quiet anchorages etc? Or is it quiet enough to not enrage the boat next door? As always with solar, its where the devil do you stick the panels where they will get the sun and will not be trodden on. Hanging off the back of the pushpit is an option, however I'd be terrified of knocking them off whilst maneuvering in a marina.

 

[mjcoon]

Can you stop it from working in Marinas and at quiet anchorages etc? Or is it quiet enough to not enrage the boat next door? As always with solar, its where the devil do you stick the panels where they will get the sun and will not be trodden on. Hanging off the back of the pushpit is an option, however I'd be terrified of knocking them off whilst maneuvering in a marina.

Or someone else "knocking them off" whilst your back was turned?

Mike.

 

[LadyInBed]

My 913 isn't noisy. You can stop them but it isn't recommended as it puts flat spots on the bearings.
They can transmit vibration through the hull but rubber buffers on the mounting dampen it.

 

[Mistroma]

You mention the smaller Rutland 504 and I think that would only help keep your batteries topped up on a mooring. It doesn't have enough output to help much with a fridge. I only averaged about 10Ah / day with a Rutland 913 on west coast of Scotland. Output varied hugely as you'd expect but was never great averaged over a summer. I'd expect to get slightly more from 2 x 20W solar panels (approx. 12Ah/day) during the middle 2-3 months of the summer.

Hugely cheaper to use small rigid panels instead of a Rutland 913 + mounting kit + regulator. Cheaper than the chinese windmill as well.

Update:
Just realised that OP asked about tying up a Windgen. Rutland (& some other makes) state that it should only be tied off for short periods (i.e. Hours, OK and possibly a day but def. not weeks or months). I have seen several reasons given but main ones are:
a) Spinning shaft throws off water and stops it entering the bearings
b) Vibration from 'static' blades caused indentation of bearing surfaces

I know from experience that rain water will damage the bearings on a 913. I do tie off my 913 if very strong wind is forecast (>50kn) and remove it each winter. I've seen 2-3 completely destroyed by gusts (likely to be 80-100mph).

 

[mainsail1]

I installed a 68 watt solar panel four years ago and it is absolutely brilliant. No noise, no bearings and even works without sunshine and wind.

 

[MagicalArmchair]

Thanks for the cracking response, I must say I am leaning towards the solar option. mainsail1, Mistroma, where do you mount your solar panels? I potentially have space just in front of the sprayhood... Although a bit off topic, which solar panels and regulators would you recommend??

So the approach if you want to stop the wind turbine is actually to tie it up with rope? I had sort of imagined there would be some mechanism, a 'button', to force it to stall - I suppose if it is bad for the turbine the manufacturers would not encourage it.

 

[angelsson]

Hello all,

On my venerable and beautiful 1970s Albin Ballad, my wife has asked that I install the significant luxuries of a fridge, leading to the thorny issue of battery bank size and the ability to replenish it. I've looked at the likes of the Rutland 504, and equivalents, however they are considerably more expensive than the Chinese equivalent (http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Brand-New...trial_Tools_Generators_ET&hash=item43b7588a11) that also provides more wattage.

I have never fitted a wind turbine, so any tips would be great.

Mark

The one on e-bay is 12v AC, surely you will need 12v DC, or am I missing something.

 

[MagicalArmchair]

The one on e-bay is 12v AC, surely you will need 12v DC, or am I missing something.

Apologies, quite right, there are DC variants on ebay too for similar prices - I am just a bit frightened they would fly to pieces maiming crew or torch my pride and joy, so I will explore the solar route I think.

 

[Mistroma]

Thanks for the cracking response, I must say I am leaning towards the solar option. mainsail1, Mistroma, where do you mount your solar panels? I potentially have space just in front of the sprayhood... Although a bit off topic, which solar panels and regulators would you recommend??

So the approach if you want to stop the wind turbine is actually to tie it up with rope? I had sort of imagined there would be some mechanism, a 'button', to force it to stall - I suppose if it is bad for the turbine the manufacturers would not encourage it.

I put one panel in front of the spayhood as an experiment, just fitted rubber feet and tied it down to grab rails. In fact that's worked very well and I'm fitting a second one. I bought a panel that was close to the correct width, it left plenty of space in front and I was able to run the cable quite neatly (low profile gland inside a tunnel leading lines aft). I can move it out of shade and sometimes do that at anchor. I'm fortunate to have a lot of unused space and a furling mainsail. I can easily move the panel for odd bits of work on the boom.

I bought a new rigid BP panel from a domestic solar fitting company on eBay. They had a mixture of odd panels left over from home installs and were clearing out stock. Price was excellent and the panel is fine. I avoided semi-flexible ones as many are slippery when wet, seem to get bad reports regarding early failure and are very expensive.

I just accepted the shading problems with the view that I would still get a decent number of Ah/day for little over £100. Much cheaper than my wind-gen which only managed about 8Ah/day last year vs. 20Ah from the panel (less wind in Galicia than Scotland, but more sun).

You also asked about stopping a 913. I simply pull blades off the wind using the line attached to the tail and flip a line over the blades. I could stop rotation using the switch on the regulator but Marlec say that it shouldn't be used when blades are rotating quickly.

One failure I saw was on a 913 mounted 1/2 way up a mizzen mast. It had exploded, showering the deck with chunks of plastic and ceramic magnet. A blade had also passed right through the radome mounted underneath. We were hit with the same 80-100mph gusts a few weeks earlier but I had tied up the wind gen, removed sprayhood and moved to a slightly more sheltered spot. The other owner couldn't get up the mast to tie his 913.

I saw another boat in the yard at Ardrossan and his 913 had also "exploded" into parts after a 100+mph gust.

 

[john_morris_uk]

We have a wind generator (Superwind) where the blades alter their angle automatically as the wind speed increases. You can short it out with the special switch at any time to more or less stop it or if you leave it running and it runs over speed in gusts it dumps the excess power to a huge pair of resistors acting like a dummy load and preventing over charging of the battery.

It gives over 10 Amps in any reasonable wind speed and is more or less silent.

The downside is that they are expensive compared to some models mentioned.

 

[mainsail1]

My solar panel is on the cabin roof just forward of the canopy. It is a semi flexible panel and can be walked on without damage. The controller is a small box down below which monitors output and regulates it. I purchased it from Bardon.

Thanks for the cracking response, I must say I am leaning towards the solar option. mainsail1, Mistroma, where do you mount your solar panels? I potentially have space just in front of the sprayhood... Although a bit off topic, which solar panels and regulators would you recommend??

So the approach if you want to stop the wind turbine is actually to tie it up with rope? I had sort of imagined there would be some mechanism, a 'button', to force it to stall - I suppose if it is bad for the turbine the manufacturers would not encourage it.

 

[C08]

I have great regard for the Rutland 913 (also had a 504 but that is only a trickle charger not suitable to cover a fridge power requirement). I had two 913's but a couple of years ago I also got an 80W Solar Panel and was able to compare the charging rates. Overall on the south coast the output is more from the solar panel than either of the 913's.
The Rutland regulators have an "off" switch which slows the blades to a slow turning rate even in very strong winds BUT you have to be there to do this.
My experience with Rutland 913's has been very good. Extremely quiet, good charge rate and totally relaible just that at circa £800 a pop including a regulator does not compare with the cost of even flexible panels +regulator which have shot down in cost.
I would suggest if you are going to run a fridge that you also increase your battery capacity so that you are able to use stored power to get through the days when there is little sun or wind.
The ideal combination is wind and solar, but the really powerful generators are too big a blade sweep to be safe on a yacht less than about 34ft.

 

[michael_w]

Increase the battery bank and fit an alternator controller eg: Adverc. I used to have a Ballad and squeezed 2 x 110 ah plus a titchy Red Flash AGM engine start under the fo'c'sle berth. By boat had the venerable Volvo MD 6B and an Adverc too.

My current boat has a Rutland 913 and I'm singularly unimpressed with it.

 

[Mistroma]

Increase the battery bank and fit an alternator controller eg: Adverc. I used to have a Ballad and squeezed 2 x 110 ah plus a titchy Red Flash AGM engine start under the fo'c'sle berth. By boat had the venerable Volvo MD 6B and an Adverc too.

My current boat has a Rutland 913 and I'm singularly unimpressed with it.

I did a fair bit of work before buying a 913. I calculated the theoretical kinetic energy available at various wind speeds and estimated that most small wind-gens peaked at around 25% efficiency. So I did know what to expect from a small wind-gen before buying. I only expected a Superwind to generate less than twice the output of a 913 and decided that it was a big larger than I wanted.

It isn't difficult to calculate the available kinetic energy and estimate approximate actual output from a 913 at various wind speeds.
0.13A 5kn
1.1A 10kn
2.1A 12.5kn
3.6A 15kn

These figures tied up reasonably with Marlec's own figures. Multiply by around 1.72 for a larger unit such as a Superwind 350.
However, wind near deck level is only about 75% of that at masthead and sprayhood, mast etc. further reduce output. So my actual output was only 50%-60% of the expected figures. So I'm never surprised to hear that other people were disappointed with the output. I suspect that I'd have been equally disappointed with a larger and more expensive model.

 

[MagicalArmchair]

Thanks for all the cracking advice. I think I will go for a solar panel mounted in front of the sprayhood, add another battery to my tiny bank as large as I can manage. Do you just connect up the regulator to your domestic battery or do you put it across both batteries? Do you wire that up from the battery switch itself or independently?

Mistroma, love the website for your boat! Must set one up for Triola

 

[[10753]]

I have a 913 which produces on average (over 1 month) 1 amp per hour which is fine for battery top up and managing lights. However, once I added a fridge/cooler and a laptop it was unable to get anywhere near covering the requirement. So to try and help things along a bit I am installing an 80w SOLAR panel.

Both these are fed to the batteries via a Marlec Controller.

Basic calculations still make me wonder whether it will cover the fridge/cooler on an average day, let alone the laptop.

Time will tell but it may allow me to spend a few days at anchor without worrying (especially if the wind blows a steady 4 and the sun shines all day !)

 

[Mistroma]

Thanks for all the cracking advice. I think I will go for a solar panel mounted in front of the sprayhood, add another battery to my tiny bank as large as I can manage. Do you just connect up the regulator to your domestic battery or do you put it across both batteries? Do you wire that up from the battery switch itself or independently?

Mistroma, love the website for your boat! Must set one up for Triola

Thanks for that. It still lacks a lot of detail and I keep trying to find time to document all the mods., problems, costs etc. I expect I'll get around to it sometime and then it might be more useful to other 42DS owners. Current version was just put together with notepad to keep family and friends informed.

I have a 913 which produces on average (over 1 month) 1 amp per hour which is fine for battery top up and managing lights. However, once I added a fridge/cooler and a laptop it was unable to get anywhere near covering the requirement. So to try and help things along a bit I am installing an 80w SOLAR panel.

Both these are fed to the batteries via a Marlec Controller.

Basic calculations still make me wonder whether it will cover the fridge/cooler on an average day, let alone the laptop.

Time will tell but it may allow me to spend a few days at anchor without worrying (especially if the wind blows a steady 4 and the sun shines all day !)

Wow, I've never kept my 913 connected over winter so only get 8-10Ah/day over the summer (8Ah/day in Brittany-Galicia). I record Ah/day using the HRDi regulator display and readings seem to tie up with spot checks. It sounds as if you are getting 24Ah/day if I'm reading your post correctly but it is a lot windier in winter.

Data collected using my solar panel indicates that you'd get around 22Ah/day from an 80W panel for a fair part of summer on south coast. I'd need to check my logs but think it won't be miles out. I reckon that 40Ah/day is a reasonable starting point when estimating usage for a fridge 24x7. Again, it's a rough figure and brilliant insulation, small size and good design will make a huge difference.

It gives you an idea for a rough starting point and remember that you need to put quite a lot more back than you use (assuming you aren't using AGM). Even if you can get consumption down to 30Ah/day for the fridge you will still need to put in arount 35Ah. So you are still likely to be using more than wind & sun are putting back on an average day. But the solar panel will make a big difference to the deficit.

 

[Greenheart]

Is it worth suggesting that a critical factor here is finding the most efficient fridge possible? The difference between poorly and well insulated fridges will account for as much power as any 'green' charger can provide.