Hello everyone, I have a turbine circuit set up linked to a 12V deep cycle battery and the Windy Nation charge controller box shows the correct green light. However, for some reason the battery voltage never seems to increase. In fact, the opposite happens; when I connect up a fully-charged battery to the circuit, the voltage drops right down to between 2V and 4V and just sort of floats around there. The voltage occasionally reaches up to 8V. I was recommended by someone to check the current using an ammeter. I have one lying around but don't know quite which part of the circuit I should attach it to. Has anyone experienced anything similar, or has any ideas of what I can do?
Looks like you need help wiring the controller up properly. By your description the load resister is in circuit all the time. Dank
Dank, Thank you so much for your reply about my battery charging problem. So, you think that the dump load / load resistor wiring might be the problem. I tried to follow the wiring instructions from Windy Nation so that the positive wire from the load resistor is connected to the middle prong of the relay and the negative wire goes directly to the negative terminal of the battery. Is this wrong? Any help would be really appreciated. Kevin
I also used 5 inch long tubing with 6 inch screws to get the resistor off the wood. I had mine screwed right to a piece of wood. When the resistors got hot the wood was starting to smell like it was starting to char.
TomT, Thanks for your input, but my resistor has never given off any heat at all. It is always stone cold. Is this normal, or is it possible I have a faulty resistor?
Your can check it with a continuity tester,ohm meter or hook to a battery to see if it gets warm or not.
Something to consider is that you want to plan for the worst-case-scenerio, That being a storm or real high gust where the resistor(s) could heat up quite a bit. I will have mine in a metal box which has spacers behind that. Dave
TomT and Timber, Thank you so much for your input. I have just today had a chance to test my load resistor on a charged battery and it does in turn get slightly warm. So, this would suggest that the load resistor is not faulty. I will take your advice though and raise the load resistor further away from the wood and circuit. However, I still have the problem of the battery failing to charge. I have tried switching batteries but to no avail. It is truly frustrating not knowing which part of the wiring is wrong or circuit units is faulty. Any further help / ideas would be greatly appreciated. I am still yet to produce a single amp from my turbine!! Kev
I don't know a lot about your system but perhaps your diode is in backwards. Best way to check that is with an ohmmeter with all power sources disconnected but you could also disconnect just the side of the diode away from the battery and see if you have current coming from the battery. This could be done with a automobile light bulb or voltmeter. Run a ground wire from the (-) negative side of the battery for the second lead of voltmeter of bulb. If the bulb lights up (side of diode away from battery) you need to turn the diode around and try again ... then hopefully the bulb will not light up. The best place for the ammeter would be on the positive lead where the DC current comes into the circuit. Hope this helps, Dave
All the above is good advise ! To make it easy on the diode, the end of the diode with the threads will be the end that goes to the battery. Make sure you have a GOOD SiZE heatsink that the diode is mounted on or you can fry it fom heat build up. If you have an amp meter you can check the incoming wire on the diode, if there are no amps but high volts you will know it is time to change the diode . As for your wiring , drop customer service a note for help.
Just one more thing to check since it happend to me. I made my own blades out of pvc and they rotated counterclockwise. Using a pmdc motor I found out I had to use the black wire out of the motor as my positive wire and the red as negative...you can unhook the wind genarator from the circuit and when its spinning hook a meter up for dc volts and if yyou get a negative volt reading the wires are backwards....
One more thing. In your picture, both LED lights on the controller are "on". This means the charge controller is in "set-up mode". You have to read the installation instructions for the charge controller and make sure you complete thet set-up process. If the wind charge controller is stuck in "set-up mode", it will obviously not work properly. When the charge controller is set-up properly for use, the green LED is "on" when the battery is being charged and the red LED is "on" when power is being diverted to the dump load. Both lights (green and red) will never be "on" at the same time when the charge controller is completely set-up and working properly. http://www.windynation.com/sites/defaul ... _24V_1.pdf
