I have a Windmax HY-1000 turbine that took a nasty fall when my tower failed during a recent storm. 3 of the 5 blades broke and I'm shopping for replacements. WM won't sell me just 3 and a new set of 5 is $325 which is pretty spendy. What WN blade set would be the best match for the HY-1000? I bought a set of 5 x 28" Hyperspins that I'm trying now, but so far they've been pretty disappointing. They do start spinning in VERY low wind, but they don't seem to be able to get up very high with the RPMs. The stock blades on the Windmax are about 32" long and 6" wide at the widest, for a total swept width of around 79". So looking at the specs, it would seem that the Windgrabbers would be the closest replacement...but 3 or 5? My site has fairly average wind, but that average results from significant periods of little wind and then fairly aggressive wind systems that move in and easily result in 35-45mph and gusts into the 50s. 'Any thoughts appreciated
I would recommend the WindGrabber blades. If you have decent wind then three should be fine. From feedback from customers it seems that the WG blades will perform a little better in low wind condition than the stock blades, about the same as the stock blades in moderate winds and worse than the stock blades in high wind conditions.
Hey thanks...3 or 5...what do you think? From what I've read, 5 does better at starting at lower wind, but 3 performs better at higher winds? There were 5 stock blades on the Windmax, but the Windtura 750 obviously runs 3....
'Just wanted to report back on my own post here. So far, the Windgrabbers have been impressive with my WM HY-1000. They give you a little more swept area than the 5 WM stock blades (WM blades are around 78", Windgrabbers are around 80"). The Windgrabbers are much lighter so they start up in next to nothing, but they also slow down a lot faster since there isn't the weight/momentum of the stock WM fiberglass blades to keep them spinning once the gust tails off... 'Hard to tell which is the better approach, but I've had some decent output with this setup. I've had several 1kw days and a 2kw day about a week ago. Max output has been around 925w...very easy to get into the 700-800s too. I'll know a little more once we get into Fall when usually the stronger more sustained winds start coming in, but at this point I can pretty confidently recommend these blades for the HY-1000. Whether they are better than the stock blades I cannot say with the limits of my "testing" setup/abilities...but anecdotally they seem at least as good so far...
Here's some video I just uploaded of the Windgrabber blades "in action" with my WindMax 1kw, including my recent "tail addition" to hopefully improve tracking/reduce yawing...
Looks great and no matter tail,blades, or tower you can not dispute the power at the rated wind speed. Just like the Windy Nation 750 PMA. IMO a bearing yaw is not as stiff as a straight metal yaw assembly. I guess theres pros and cons to both. Bottom line is clean air is way up there . Thanks for all the tesing infor. It has been very helpful for sure.
Just thought I would post a little update based on a killer wind day we had yesterday. 'Not the kind of day you hope for, but a little easier day to stomach when you're getting some power out of it Then first graph below is from my weather station that is several hundred feet away from the Windmax; the winds at the Windmax are slightly higher. But definitely a windy day...the interstate was closed for several hours due to low visibility from blowing dust and several big rigs blew over. Thankfully my new-and-somewhat-improved tower did not! My 24-hour production yesterday was 4.4kw, which is by far the best I've seen from this turbine for a 24-hour period. The second graph below shows from about 8am to 6pm based on my TED 5000 energy monitor. The light blue line is the output from the Windmax. The yellow line is the output from my 1.64 kw of solar panels. This was one of those great renewable energy days where we had clear skies/strong sun AND high winds. One final point...I wasn't able to directly observe my GTIs during all this, but from the TED 5000 data it appears that I didn't suffer much "down-time" at all due to overvolting, even though (although the data points don't show up on the graph below), the turbine definitely went over 1kw several times during the day (as I eyeballed the "real time" data coming on). The system I've been running for several months with my Windmax/Windgrabber blades is pretty simple: SungG 300w 10-30v in parallel with SunG 1000w 22-60v No dump load coming off the 300w 10-30v 4 x 24v 300w coils coming off the 1000w 22-60v as wired below (thanks Larry!) 'Obviously hard to know whether a different configuration (i.e. original blades or a windswitch controlling the two GTIs as Larry has used from time to time) would have improved output, but I'm pretty pleased with these results. It does seem from my not-so-reliable memory that when I had one or two of these "crazy wind" days before with the original WindMax blades the output pushed over 1kw more easily. But that was only when I had issues with being in "overvolt" more often and not producing watts, so maybe this is a decent compromise
Geat job. Thanks for the detailed post. This is great information. I am so happy to see your system working at it's full potential. You keep it nice and simple..no wind switch needed. To bad mother nature does not provide days like that all the time. LOl That little 300 w gti must have really proved it self that day by dealing with connecting, reconnecting when it hit overvolt. Shows if you do it simple and right all works like a charm. No bells and whistles needed..............just wind and the right componets. Please keep us posted. Thanks
