electric breaker hook up as a brake

Ok so I bought a 40 amp breaker in its own housing and hooked two leads from the ac's at the rectifier into the 2 screw clamps in the front but when the switch is flipped to "on" nothing happens. If you touch the 2 wires the turbine stops rather quickly. Any ideas whats wrong?

 

Hook 1 to the buss bar that feeds the breaker and 1 to the breaker.
A picture would help.

 

So you are saying tom that the black wire should go up in the left corner screw post bar?And the red stays in the front?If I wanted to put the resistor in like I talked with you about it could be just put IN LINE of the red wire? Thanks Tom...

 

Bluejay,
The reason nothing is happening is the top two screws are empty.These screws are where incoming power would normally be tied in.If you put a wire to connect the two top terminals it will brake the wind mill.You could put the resister there instead of a wire but make sure you set up the resister in a place to dissipate the heat and not damage any of the wiring. Take care Mark

 

Mark, I tried with Both wires in the bars at the top and it still didnt work. Does it matter what 2 ac leads it is? like the outer two or the middle and a outside one? Wind has stopped so I cant play with anything yet...

 

I also had the idea of one resistor wired in the short as it has the less resistance than the thick motor wire. Does this work that way? The heat would than be at the resistor instead of in the motor???? These big blades will still spin around 10-60 rpm totally shorted depending on the severity of wind speed

 

That is a 220v Breaker. Basically 2 single pole switches side by side. Put the 2 wires from the turbine at the bottom of the breakers. One on each terminal. Then the 2 top screws you hook to the resistor or hook a wire between them.

 

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Like this.

 

Nice post Tom,
I really like how you were able to take the photo and put lines on it,Sometimes words don't get it done Mark

 

Thank you both very much

 

It works

 

Just a update .It will not stop a turbine in 20 mph winds. The watts were showing 320 ish and when flipped the output went down to 100ish and the resistor got good and warm..

I believe the one ac lead was turned into dc but the two ac leads that are a part of the switch let there power turn to heat at the resisitor...

If its stationary it makes it need higher wind to start so I guess it can be a semi brake for working on... or just to slow it while producing heat...

 

I have found that if you start the 500 off dead shorted (all three AC wires connected together) using 3 WindGrabber blades, it will start to spin in about 12-15 mph wind. It is a slow spin but by the time it hits 20 mph it is moving pretty darn fast.

 

To avoid the PMA burning out the stator in high winds when a brake (short) is thrown across the rectifier outputs, would it be better to have 2 switches that shorts out Phase A and B and another for C and D, and throw them a few seconds apart?

 

I have dead shorted mine at 20-25 mph on the AC side and it drops right down to a crawl. All three together at once. Have not tried it since I put the flywheel on and changed the blade profile. Being the tail has been working fine.

 

Thanks. I suspect if a hard short in high winds was likely to damage the stator that WN would have heard about this by now. If it was hard shorted on the other side of the rectifier, I'd be curious to know what the current spike looked like to know if the rectifier runs the risk of popping. That's a lot of energy to dissipate in a hurry.