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Forum Index : Windmills : New to renewable power
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| Riverduk Newbie  Joined: 16/09/2013 Location: AustraliaPosts: 6 |
Hi there, I have been looking at this site for some time now, slowly gathering info and bits and pieces to have a dip at a renewable energy project and am slowly getting to the point where I am ready to go. I am a little hesitant, whilst I don't have the greatest understanding of electricity, electronics etc, I do have a very healthy respect for the sparky stuff, having been bitten on a couple of occasions in the past. My desire is to build a VAWT wind turbine using a F&P motor with staggered stators to give me optimal capacity and also giving me the option of going to a dual stator later if I desire. The dream: as we live about 3 ks from the edge of town on 2.25 acres we have room to move and no worries about neighbours, I hope to generate enough power to run LED lighting in my new workshop, as well as power the existing water pump for the house. If that goes well I may well add to this powering of the waste pump for our septic tank and even another submersible we use to move excess rain water away from the house, (our block has very little natural fall at all, needs all the help it can get.) As I begin to tackle this project I plan to put my ideas and machinations up here for scrutiny by those of you who are far more expert than I. As I said before, "I don't have the greatest understanding of electricity, electronics etc" however I am keen to learn and looking over the back shed web site has led me to believe that I can make this a do-able project, obviously I am not going to attack some of the more detailed stuff, ie, electronics projects, relying instead on purchasing appropriate components to fill the gaps but other bits like the generator and the wind turbine are well within my grasp. I look forward to sharing with you in the near future and also to hear any and all constructive critisism that may come my way. Cheers to all, Ross |
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Gizmo Admin Group  Joined: 05/06/2004 Location: AustraliaPosts: 5078 |
Hi Ross, welcome to the forum. As your on a acreage, I would go for a HAWT instead of a VAWT. VAWT's are OK for turbulent winds and back yards, but out in the open you will get much much better results with a HAWT. I run a dual, stagger stator HAWT with a 2.7m diameter turbine using GOE222 blades and its been a real gem. I've build a few VAWT's too, but the HAWT is more suitable to my open location. Glenn The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago, the second best time is right now. JAQ |
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Downwind Guru  Joined: 09/09/2009 Location: AustraliaPosts: 2333 |
I fully agree with Glenns comment, a VAWT might power your led lights in the shed if you are lucky (real lucky that is) Its no more work to build a HAWT and at least you will get to make some useable power. A vawt is really too slow in rpm for the F&P stators, yes they can be made to work, well sort of ?? but as you have stated the electrical side is not your strong point, so would expect you might struggle with some of the tricks needed to extract a bees bum of power from a vawt. Pete. Sometimes it just works |
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Tinker Guru Joined: 07/11/2007 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1904 |
Ross, The biggest expense with renewable energy set ups are the storage batteries so I suggest you start with that before you spend much time tinkering with a windmill and then have nowhere to store that energy. Do some calculations on how much energy you want to store in the batteries. Next, while windmills are much fun to tinker with the wind is nowhere near as reliable for harvesting renewable electricity as are solar panels. I would suggest you invest some of your renewable energy funds into solar panels next. Then, when you have a system up and running, perhaps after installing an inverter for converting the battery DC to mains AC, you can supplement the power harvesting with wind energy. But, and its a big but, only worthwhile if you have fairly reliable winds at your location. Its nice to have a wind turbine of whatever type you choose but it will most likely be beaten hands down at almost any location in Australia by solar power. Have fun... Klaus |
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| Riverduk Newbie Joined: 16/09/2013 Location: AustraliaPosts: 6 |
Hi there once again, thankyou for the welcome, comments and suggestions, I should have given a bit more info the other day but was at work and time became the enemy. I have also been looking at solar as well and the overall plan is a system with both solar and wind, I have already purchased an inverter, a Powertech 2000w (4000w surge) which I am told will serve me needs well. I didn't plan to start there but I was in the shop at the right time and the saving on retail to good to pass up on. I'm the guy who is usually in the shop the day after the bargain was sold, you know the story, "sorry mate, should have been here yesterday......" Anyhow time will tell, I guess, whether it is the good deal or not. Storage and capacity are also high on the agenda and this leads me to my first question: given that most of the electrical gear I want to run initially is water pumps that only run intermittently, how do I accurately measure their actual running time over a 24 hour period so I can calculate their power usage over that same time frame? I'm guessing that there is some sort of device that connects, so what is it, where can I get one and is it worth purchasing one? or do you just base all time calculations on guestimations only? Looking forward to your replies, suggestions once again, cheers, Ross |
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fillm Guru Joined: 10/02/2007 Location: AustraliaPosts: 730 |
Hi Riverduk , Again welcome to the forum , I noticed you were wanting to measure your base loads to work out approx battery capacity required and where you can cut load .. Cutting load is the first port of call .. Anyway these are a good power meter I have used and can measure both ways HERE , they can be found cheaper from China but make sure you get AU plug model . I also noticed you were inquiring about the F&P and VAWTs / HAWTs , I have recently put together a New F&P Dual system that can be configured in both ways as well as easily convert to a Petrol powered DC gen .... Primary I recommend HAWT as this will produce the most power and with the GOE222 blades they match the F&P very well . I have not let the info out of the bag as yet here on "The Back Shed " but should not be far off, but if you want to contact me through the Email Link on the Kits & Parts Page HERE or PM then I would be more than happy to give you more info . PhillM ...Oz Wind Engineering..Wind Turbine Kits 500W - 5000W ~ F&P Dual Kits ~ GOE222Blades- Voltage Control Parts ------- Tower kits |
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| Tinker Guru Joined: 07/11/2007 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1904 |
Ross, regarding the power meter mentioned above, there could be a potential problem - read on. I have a power meter like the one in the link above (but not exactly the same) and I was going to use it to measure the power consumption of the high efficiency fridge I built, using parts from an old fridge. Anyway, a fridge comes on intermittently, just like your water pumps I assume. So, if your inverter has a switch/setting to reduce its standby consumption this will mean there is actually no 240V AC available at the inverter output until the connected device switches on and demands power. This means a power meter connected at the inverter output will be unpowered for most of the time and lose its reading because its power draw is below of what's required to override the inverter power save function. The way around this is, of course, to turn the inverters power save function off but doing that that consumes extra power from your battery bank. I decided not to use the AC power meter for this application and used instead a meter called 'Watts up' (available from the internet) which connects to the DC input line of the inverter, measuring the Ampere hours drawn from the battery bank. These things have a max rating of 100A so I would not use it if devices which draw 1000W + for a prolonged time are connected to the inverter. Klaus |
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| fillm Guru Joined: 10/02/2007 Location: AustraliaPosts: 730 |
Tinker , Thanks for pointing that out ... As Ususal  ... I have used a couple of types of these meters over the years myself and for a cheap quick look at what power is being consumed they are good enough. The ones from Jacar do not loose their memory when powered off , from memory , The ones in the link do .
The type in the link I have found to be very accurate where the Jacar a little out down low . If you are worried about the .2W/Hrs you are missing then by all means get the expensive types. But, also if you want to measure the the DC side why not put your $ towards and just do it with a decent solar controller like the Plasmatronics that measures solar/wind in and load out , it may just take a bit of turning appliances on and of but will give the same result, then you wont end up with a expensive dusty piece of equipment in a cupboard . PhillM ...Oz Wind Engineering..Wind Turbine Kits 500W - 5000W ~ F&P Dual Kits ~ GOE222Blades- Voltage Control Parts ------- Tower kits |
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| Riverduk Newbie Joined: 16/09/2013 Location: AustraliaPosts: 6 |
Thanks both Klaus and Phil, at this very early stage I really just need something to tell me what power usage my existing pumps and other appliances for that matter, are taking from the grid. I was kinda looking at the one from Jaycar and I guess in the overall scheme of things .2W/Hrs is no biggy but just out of interest sake how does this one look: http://steplight.com.au/monitor/plug-in-electricity-power-me ter/ I just need a starting point for working out my requirements etc and current power usage seems like a good point to start, cheers, Ross |
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| Tinker Guru Joined: 07/11/2007 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1904 |
Ross, rather than requiring everybody interested to copy & paste your link there is a far niftier way on this forum. Just click the fourth box in the header of the reply page - it looks like a globe with a chain link - and you can make your URL like this: link Klaus |
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| Riverduk Newbie Joined: 16/09/2013 Location: AustraliaPosts: 6 |
Thanks again Klaus, this is all new to me, I knew it could be done, just wasn't sure how, find Link here. Cheers, Ross |
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