Wind Generator Improvements

Still self isolating at Aratula in Queensland. Well travel restrictions still apply, so in the next few blogs I will talk about projects I am currently under taking to make living out of a camper trailer much more enjoyable. 

The first one I wish to talk about how do I manage living off grid, without a power pole?

Well 12v and 240v are available to me. I have a house battery bank of 780 amps, which consists of 6x130amps batteries. Also currently I have 2 inverters that take care of my 240v needs.

This brings me to the next question how do I manage to power these batteries? Living off grid the 2 main power source for electricity is solar or wind and yes you can charge the batteries with a generator.

Most campers go with solar panels and yes most times you can guarantee that sunrise and sunset will happen every day.

Problems like cloud cover, storms or even shade from trees will influence how much energy you collect daily.

We do now when sunset occurrence happens daily no energy is collected overnight via the solar panels. It is funny most times while camping in the day you are outside enjoying yourself and the need for power is reduced.

It is after sunset, the tv goes on, heaters, cooking appliances, fridge and freezer s and lighting are in use. After sunset lots of power are used by most. Yes of course some campers go to bed at sunset, use a touch or sit by the campfire, which by the way is a great experience. There is no wrong way to do it it is about choice. 

For this blog it is that night time experience of power collecting I would like to talk about. 

Night power collecting other than a generator which does upset everyone around you while living off grid only leaves wind generator as a viable source to supplement the battery power.

"However it does rely on wind blowing" at the time using the wind generator as a trickle feed overnight.

One of my projects was to setup a wind generator to supplement power overnight when the sun was not there for the solar panels.

I have had a wind generator for awhile but has not been very useful when I was not on the coast of Australia, where most of the Seabreeze is there to power the wind generator.

So this project is to how I can use my wind generator in low wind conditions. My initial wind generator has 3 blades, the trouble with this it takes a lot of wind, to start the wind generator, at times I would swing the blades to help start the wind generator, but as the wind slowed down it would just stop again.

So my solutions to this problem is to make it a 6 blade wind generator by fitting a new hub, 6 blades and a new nose cone.

I have mounted my wind generator on-top of a speaker tripod stand, where I secure this structure with guy ropes to anchor it down to stand up to strong winds.

There are 3 wires that connect to the wind generator, I connected 3 wires down the centre shaft of the pole of the tripod stand, where I installed a 3 pin AC female socket to the end of the 3 wires.

Now I used a 15 amp extension cord, this is because AC power has less voltage drop off over long distances. Now to change the power from AC to DC Power a rectifier is needed. 

I tried a hybrid controller, but it still needed the wind generator to produce 12volt on the pole to be effective, however the wind was not strong enough.

Ok this is where my project begins. I found that at low wind speed the generator was still producing voltage but not at useful amounts to charge the battery. I solved this problem by using a buck boost converter that I got on eBay.

The buck boost converter would boost voltage above 3 volt to a usable 14 volt that charges the battery well. 

I also fitted a Watt Meter between the buck boost converter and the battery via use of Anderson plugs which helps to rest the Watt Meter for each time we move camp and re-setup camp. This way I know how much power the wind generator has collected.

I am very happy with this setup and now having monitored power up to 19.5v going through the buck board, at this level the buck board doesn't boost when the output setting being 14v all voltage above this goes through the board without boosting an now it makes my wind generator very useful at low wind speed. I have tested it out over a month with good results.

My friend Graeme has also bought a wind lantern generator and was having low wind speed issue and not getting enough power from the wind generator to be useful.

We tried a similar setup as mine but the lantern generator was having trouble reaching 3 volt with the current mild winds here. 

We did notice on a very windy night it did put out a very usable voltage and Graeme woke up to his batteries being fully charged at the start of the day. 

To use the same buck boost converter that I was using which lights up an LED display, requires 4.5v which still required a certain level of wind to make it useful.

We did a lot of testing and noticed 2v - 2.8v was occurring very frequently in mild wind conditions.

 So I found another buck boost converter which starts boosting with only 2 volts on eBay which will suit the energy levels of the wind lantern generator making it more useful in charging the batteries. Now it has made the lantern generator more useful.

This is such a small device not much bigger than your thumb but does a mighty job at boosting 2v to 14v. Graeme still has not finished his setup waiting on a Watt Meter he ordered on eBay. However Graeme seems very happy with this setup.

It is not unusual for Graeme too look at the lantern generator and estimate the speed and quotes to me  how much power he is producing when my wind generator is not even turning. I think this is a firm of bragging, but he is very happy.

This has been constant between both wind generators in mild wind conditions. I hope this blog may give you ideas for a similar setup.

In the right conditions a wind generator can be a very useful tool for power generation overnight time conditions where solar panels are not producing any power. 

Protecting our batteries from extreme discharge is the best way to make the batteries last and avoiding expensive replacement.