Wind turbine?

[Blinking]

Hi,

Just enquiring why wind power turbines (not sure if thats the right term for it) are so expensive - unless of course we've been looking in the wrong place!?

Just wanted to get something as an extra backup for charging the battery?

Is solar power more expensive?
Can we make our own unit?

Complete novice to all this - so if anyone can give us a few pointers, that would be great!

 

[William_H]

You are right about wind power being expensive. It seems that in the 8 or 10 amp range it is only slightly cheaper than solar and that is expensive. Although it is all relative....
One advantage of solar is that you can buy smaller panels that will do a usefull job of boosting your battery at down to 1/10 the cost of a wind turbine. But of course a solar panel will havee less contribution if it is on a swing mooring, is in high latitudes or bad weather. A small however is reasonably unobtrusive.

On the other hand a wind turbine is good for a swing mooring and high latitudes but is failry big noisy and obtrusive.

I guess you don't get smaller chaeper turbines because the power comes from the area of the disc . The area reduces in a square law manner with diameter so a disc only half diameter of a big one will give max 1/4 power and is probably is not much cheaper to make.

So apart from a chance purchase cheap on ebay your best bet might be solar. good luck olewill

 

[cliff]

[ QUOTE ]
Just wanted to get something as an extra backup for charging the battery

[/ QUOTE ]On a Binliner 2455? I must admit I have never seen a MoBo with a wind gen although I am sure someone, somewhere has fitted one /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

I would look at fitting an alternator/charging controller if you do not already have one to boost your cgarging rate/capacity and/or buy a small 2~3kva suitcase type generator as backup. For ~£400 (or less!) you can pick up small suitcase type units which are for practical purposes as quiet as the "red ones" which are frightenly expensive.

If you have an onboard charger already all you need to do is plug your shore power cable into the genny and charge your batteries.

Remember you will be as popular as a turd in a swimming pool if you run one of the "B&Q" £29.99 (or £39.99) 2T open frame gennies in an anchorage or even in the marina - they are noisy little MF'ers and their output may not agree with a solid state, 3/4 step charger.
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[ccscott49]

Wind genny for caribbean, UK, solar for meddy, caribbean, UK.

But I agree with Cliff, what for?
Go with a small petrol genny, or make sure it's almost inpossible to flatten all your batteries.
You carrying petrol anyway.
Or go for a small trickle solar charger, to top up your batteries when you are away from the boat.

 

[TigaWave]

You need to work out how much you need, if you only need half an amp to keep batteries topped up when not aboard then a small solar panel will be fine, but of you want to run fridge lights nav equipment, laptop etc without having to run the engine every day then a towed when sailing or wind when anchored/moored may be best.

Some aren't noisy, the Aquair 100, by Ampair is very quiet even when sat under neath it in the cockpit, with the blades removed it packs up very small.

 

[Marmalade]

We've been using a wind gen for years now and it's the best money we ever spent on the boat. We're on a swinging mooring and not only are the batteries always charged when we come to the boat - we can run fridge, auto pilot, lights etc without the constant glancing at the battery meter