What it does is boost the voltage when the turbine is running below cutin.
Cutin of my turbine is at 300rpm. In other words, there is no output from the turbine at 300rpm. Once it passes that speed, it starts charging.
With the S4w booster, cutin is around 140rpm. Not much, but it IS charging. At 300rpm it is producing 1A. It breaks even at around 340 - 350A and 2A. In other words, at this speed there is no increase in output when the booster is connected.
So, what it does and was designed to do is to give some charge in light winds. It probably works best with a turbine like mine which spins very easily in light winds. My other turbine (which is not flying at the moment, but probably will be by tomorrow) takes a lot more wind to start spinning, but still produces around the same once the wind picks up. Since it doesn't do much spinning in light winds, the booster would probably not do much for this turbine.
The only disadvantage I have found to the booster so far is that it produces some RFI on my shortwave (ham) radio. I have to switch it off to copy light stations. (And remember to turn it on again after.) This will naturally be less of an issue for those who do not have ham radio or live in houses where the distance between the booster and antennas and radios can be greater.
You may say that 1A is not much, but an average 1A is still 24Ah per day that I would not be getting without the booster. That's enough to run my Stirling cycle fridge. :)
Owen If you're not living on the edge, you're taking up too much space.[ Parent ]
In the post above, I wrote:
"It breaks even at around 340 - 350A and 2A."
That SHOULD read:
"It breaks even at around 340 - 350rpm and 2A."
If I was getting 340 - 350A out of a 5 foot diameter turbine, I could probably retire VERY RICH.... :D
There is no reference connected to 7812. The reference is taken from the VREF pin generated from the tl494 itself. I think you have it all wrong. This is not supposed to boost based on voltage read from the battery.
It should boost based on the current seen into the batteries.
Read this: to clear it out a bit: http://s4wsbox.com/?q=node/32
I attempted to explain there how it works.[ Parent ]
http://74.125.45.104/search?q=cache:m6Z7WI0vCU4J:www.s4wsbox.com/%3Fq%3Dnode/33+site:http://www.s4ws box.com/&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=15&gl=us&client=firefox-a
If you think its so bad I invite you to put it together properly (good layout) and test it. I dont force ppl to buy it or try to convince them about it, thats the reason I give schematics. You dont want to buy it or skeptical you have the map to build it and test for yourself. I have no plans to make a business out of it either, I posted it free for all.
[ Parent ]
I wont be making this one anymore, I will be replacing the tl494 with a small PIC and go MPPT all the way. Sure it will have to be more expensive as there would have to be much more protection for the micro, the 494 is a tough IC.
I have to finish older projects though.[ Parent ]
