Splinter’s 750 - 12vdcInstalled 8/4/2011 Hello all, I’ve been fooling around (spending money) with wind turbines for a few years now and just put up this Windtura 750 last August. I placed it 100 feet behind my shop (where the ground is the hardest to dig) where the controls and inverter are. It’s another 35 feet to my house. I live in southern Ohio which rates about a 2 on the blowage scale. Not real good, but my particular location isn’t too bad. I’m on a bit of a rise and the location is reasonably open. I bought the complete 750 kit and I’m very pleased with it. It hasn’t been up long but so far it has proven to be a solid and efficient design. I use it to keep four deep cycle batteries charged for back up power in my house. It also powers a couple of my shop lights. The heat generated by the diversion load is a nice supplement for my shop heat. I suppose the tower is one of the cooler features to me. It’s actually 2 poles with the upper pole pivoting on a pin to raise and lower the turbine with little effort. Hopefully you can tell by the pics (assuming I can get them loaded properly). The controls are very robust and have been completely self-sustaining. The batteries will provide a little over 500 amp-hours of power. I would be interested to know if anyone has tried different props with the 750 (or 500). Here’s my description for ‘Splinter’s 750’. It’s a 12 vdc system. Tower – 25 feet to axle. Pivoting mono-pole. Added small guy wires for stability. 3 phase slip ring. Winch lowers pivot pole. (It had to be easy!) Feeds – Three #8 conductors in pole. Six #10 underground (2 per phase) in conduit to controls. Controls – 6 main components. Left to right 1. Diversion load. Two .185 ohm braking resistors in series for .37 ohm. ~500 watts when diverting. These beefcakes are conservatively rated at 700 watts each. 2. Input board – 75 amp 3 phase main rectifier (from WN). 3PDT (orange) disconnect can be flipped over to backup rectifier and load applied via outlet. Lightning protection via MOV’s each phase to isolated ground rod. SSR turns on 2 paralleled 40 amp relays when diverting. Gen voltmeter and rectifier ammeter. 3. Output board w/dc ammeter – Inverter connected to this and also has large lugs for general use of battery power. 50 amp breaker. 4. Charge/diversion controller. Diverts at 14.3 vdc (adjustable). Powers SSR on input board when diverting. LED frequency meter (gen AC input) used for determining RPM. (rpm = frequency x 20 as close as I can figure). LCD battery volt meter. 5. Wagan 1000 watt pure sine wave inverter. Powers shop lights. Underground feed powers a single outlet in house. 6. Batteries – 4 Interstate deep cycle. 126 ah each. Performance – ~25 mph wind. Averages out to about 11 amps continuous charge to the batteries (154 watts). Max output so far 40 amps in 30+ mph gusty wind (560 watts). Increased tower height and two less trees would greatly improve performance but I am very pleased as-is. Even a 15 mph breeze will push a few amps back to the batteries. It’s been trouble free so far (I shouldn’t have said that). Feel free to ask if you have any questions. Thanks!
