Well I thought I posted about the relay getting so hot you could burn yourself and it started smelling like the windings were burning. It was at 145 degrees without passing any current. Only took two hours to get that hot. At 18 ohms it is not a good candidate for being on all the time. Guess continuous duty does not always mean 100% duty cycle. Now I have two Bosch 40 amp relays on it. Have not gone over 90 degrees and they have been on for days and passing about 15 amps current. Also update on that fan that was making noise. I replaced the fan and put it on the outside of the GTI.
Well it is a New Year and the last update to the Switch Board !!! Added a 10 volt Regulator to it. Now the trip point will not change and you can monitor the battery that is powering the board.
Just lost a new SunG 1000 Watt Wind Grid tie. It did not burn up as it works for a few minutes before it quits. Will have a new one tomorrow. The other one is taking up the slack till then.
Had 55 mph wind last night first time since new wind turbines were put up. 2 Ohm resistor will not hold both at the same time. Also resistor getting real hot. Going to two 300 watt .73 ohm resistors in series on each turbine.
My Windy Nation 500 is going to a new home in Jamaica. I sent 3 blade hub and 5 blade hub and five blades as well as some goodies for installation. I gave him a good deal or should I say steal on it. I hope it works out for him.
Things have been running real good for the 2nd half of 2016. After that tree was cut down to the SW the turbines do not hunt around much anymore. More steady power output except for the gusts. I had to cut top voltage from 55 volts to 50 volts. The other night we were having 50-55 mph gusts and one of the 1000 watt Gti's locked up on dump. Glad I was here to reset it. Also I wish that I would have waited and bought a 1000 watt GTI from the start. The 500 watt GTI's go over volt too easy when a big gust comes in. The 1000 watt jumps right in and tries to get the most out of it. Also they are current hungry . So far running 12 volt turbines is working really good. Less over volt situations. Circuit boards are working just fine even after 3 years.
Picture of new setup. Had low bill last month $8. The one picture is my heat sink and two 450 amp rectifiers for my 2 wind turbines. Burned two 150 amps out. So I stepped it up a bit. Worked great last winter. (UPDATE) Been over two years and they are still working fine.
Starting on the next phase here. First two flex solar panels just showed up. I will be putting them on the front of the house. Using a three rail system.
Latest update !!! This is what I have added and have been working for a few months. The Flexible panels are on 1 x 1.5 extruded aluminum Z-channel from Orange Aluminum. The spacers are 1 inch stainless steel rod . Cut to 1 inch pieces and a 3/16 hole drilled thru. All screws are stainless steel. The extensions for the inverter input are 1/8 x 3 inch copper. Made it easier to hook up wires. Also this is my bill from last month and still using the inverter 100% this month. So now the test of how well the panels will hold up starts. Wind has been up to 30 mph from the South West so far and they hardly move. View attachment 1248
I'm interested in how your flex panels stand up over time hopefully they don't fade. What made you go with the flex panels over the traditional ones? What are the specs on them?
Weight mostly and easier to install. That is also one reason why I will wait till spring for the next installment. I have them series, parallel. Every two in series. Then all three pairs in parallel. They only make 11-14 amps right now but by winter they should be at 30-45 amps. That is why I put them on the front of the house. I needed more power in winter.
I understand the need for more power in the winter. The time my panels are in direct sun then is half of what they are in the summer. Panels do perform better in the cooler temps but I don't see you getting much more then 16.65 amps unless you mean amp hours.
They are at 17 amps at 13.2 volts into the battery today. June 21 they were at 143 watts for 600 watts. Two months later they are at 224 watts. And they will be going up everyday till Mid December. That is when I will know for sure how much. I will let everyone know in December.
I missed the fact your using a MPPT controller. These improve the efficiency of ones panels. You would get more out of every three in series and more still with all in series if the controller can handle that.
This charge controller will go to 60 volts but they said the sweet spot is 30-40 volts. Mine run at 36-38 volts into the controller. Sept 1, 2017 High Watts. This from the 600 watts on the front of the house. They are vertical. Everything is working just fine so far.
That is a bit of a limitation if one were to use grid tie panels. I see why you only have two in series now.
This is what I use for a Classic Clipper. I use it on my Classic aux1. I tried direct short and the vibrations were to much. .73 ohms make it better. This has been working fine for 6 months so far. I have 1 SCR for each turbine driven from aux 1 on the classic. The 3 phase from the turbine on one set of three terminals. And three .73 OHMS resistors in parallel across the other three terminals. (UPDATE) Had to go to two resistors. Using three was not good enough. Connect two phases to each resistor and the third to both sides of the other sides of the resistors. (UPDATE) 3 years and still working fine.
These are the modifications to the Reliable inverter. I was having alarms until I did. The copper is 1/8 x 3 x 4 solid this made connections easier for me. The 2nd one is where the 4 spade connections are. There are 2 positive and 2 negative. Originally there was one set that went to direct connection and one set to the outlets. Direct connect was 10 ga and the outlet was only 12 ga. Now all 4 are 10 ga and spliced to 6ga and my outlet. The third picture is of the voltage adjust which mine will not go low enough. Picture 4 is the lowest it will go and it is supposed to be 120 volt model. This 5000 watt is not really setup from the factory to run a whole house. Even the direct connection is 10 gauge which would be hard pressed to go above 3600 watts without the alarm going off all the time.
The Inverter is fixed. The holes are small for the potentiometer and is was really hard to replace. I had to snap it off and remove each lead using a solder gun. It wasn't wired like I thought. It has one end and the wiper connected together. So basically it it just a 10 k variable resistor. So I just replaced it and figured if it didn't change I would have to live with it. As I have no time to dig deeper into the circuits. (UPDATE) As you can see by the picture after I just changed the potentiometer with no other changes . It now works fine. (UPDATE) Sine wave inverter still working fine and no hiccups.
