I tend to agree with most of what you are getting at. I use human control but the mill and solar seldom get ahead of loads so it usually involves  feeding grid into the outback to keep the batteries in a safe range. Despite my ~950 AH 24 volt gas tank I don't make enough to keep ahead of loads for long. Adding a couple turbines this fall I hope.

Cheers.

TomW

Cheers.

TomW

Possibly?  Somehow?  I am a butt-head for offering a circuit that "is expected to fill the obvious gap between NO controller and a complicated or expensive controller".

Possibly?  Somehow?  I am a butt-head for offering a circuit that cost LESS than it's parts cost?  Certainly less than a decent factory made PCB costs?  Probably less than SHIPPING the parts cost?

Possibly?  Somehow?  I am a butt-head for offering a circuit that "will not provide anything close to optimum battery lifetime".

Possibly?  Somehow?  I am a butt-head for offering a circuit that will "prevent long-term overcharge, which results in excessive water use and higher battery temperatures"?

Possibly?  Somehow?  The part about "the switching point would need to be set to an
appropriate float voltage for the battery type used" being user adjustable with the
blue thingy with the screw.  
Some people will call it a pot, or maybe a rheostat, or even a `variable resistor'.  
I did not intend to confuse anyone, so I apologize. I wrote the `Diary' for people new to this stuff.

Possibly?  Somehow?  The part about "I would have to question if charging at float voltage would result in complete recharge in most systems".  Me too.

Possibly?  Somehow?  The part about  "It depends on the load profile, battery capacity and source current capability as to whether the discharge/recharge cycle would allow complete recharge" would depend on the hysteresis?

Possibly?  Somehow?  The part about "would require a much longer charge time" means between 90% and 95% of the full charge?  Maybe it comes from "to get that last few percent of capacity"?

Possibly?  Somehow?  "Everyone has their own ideas of what is best"?  Really? Srtunning revollation.  Somehow that turns into all the other BS?

Possibly?  Somehow?  A lot of people have a small windmill.  
They may have $0 in the whole system?
They may want to not ruin the battery due to chronic undercharge? (Isn't that what you always say?)

Possibly?  Somehow?  A lot of people may not be worried about the last 1% of battery capacity?

Possibly?  Somehow?  A lot of people may only be worried about boiling their batteries dry?

Possibly?  Somehow?  

So somehow you "understand the attraction of an inexpensive, simple device to purportedly handle the two needs of control, I think it only does one adequately" though you missed the whole point...

""The circuit design was intended for the smaller systems.  
It is expected to fill the obvious gap between NO controller and a complicated or expensive controller.
The major design parameters were proper function, versatility, simplicity, ease in understanding, trouble shooting, and obtaining parts. And low cost.""

I never said it was perfect.
I said "The circuit design was intended for the smaller systems.  
It is expected to fill the obvious gap between NO controller and a complicated or expensive controller."

I told more than one person something else would be better for their system.  

i am late to the party as usual
some years ago i pushed for a controller on the old board, but got no traction

and have been away far more than present for quite some time as well, so i don't know all the underpinnings of ongoing dialog so forgive me my ignorance.

i looked over your controller and i found it to be an elegant solution to a problem where there is a void,, wow what a concept,, find and need and fill it!

maybe it ain't perfect? but what is?

i like it!

perhaps it is version 1? with improved and expanded versions to come?

just remember my old friend,,

"no good deed goes unpunished" :)

if only the manufactures of controllers were held to account for some of their
claims, ,,,, ya right!

keep up the good work.

Imagine a windmill made up of an old copier stepper motor, a PVC pipe blade that's charging an old car battery back in grandma's shed. 0$ budget there, the whole thing is made of scrap items. A dump controller & a headlight bulb as the dump load would be the best (and only) option.

Never mind the few percents of battery capacity not being charged.
Never mind the battery's optimum lifetime, it was already too old.

But it works. And provides enough light considering the 0$ investment.

Maybe RE community should be divided in two: "high society folks" and the rest:

High society refers here not to their financial status or education level but to their approach on a RE system. Those people will never connect two wires without proper connectors. They will care for their battery bank very much - they will heat them or cool them, check them every hour or so. They will eventually buy the Xantrex.

The rest - the "masses" will go on with the twisted wire method. Their batteries are rarely new ones, their windmills are all made of scrap and held together with lots of duct tape. They will not buy the Xantrex. They don't really need to. It would be like dressing the donkey in velvet clothes.

The whole idea is that "the masses" will always love a simple and cheap device that can handle the job. "Set it and forget it" is what makes them happy. They do know it's limited in what it can do, but maybe they won't ask for more - considering the purchase price and the usually pretty basic needs.

So G, the masses are grateful to you.

SamoaPower:  I understand where you are coming from, and your statments are mostly valid, however, remember that some here are trying to subsidize there power usage with RE because they simply cannot continue to meet the rizing cost of living off the grid.  This alone means a limited budget.

I have to take exception here.

A dump controller CAN and it is ABLE regulate the battery charge even with multiple charging profile.

There are at least two type so dump controllers, the most common is the BANG-BANG circuit, the simplest, where the load is full OFF-Full ON.
This type does not give a good charging battery profile and does not guaranteed good battery life.

The PROPORTIONAL DUMP CONTROLLER does guarantee a good battery charging profile and at the same time protects the wind mill and the generator.

The proportional dump controller, needs to operate at least 20 to 100 times faster than the wind mill's generator rate of power generation, to allow the proper profile charging control for good battery life.

Ghurd's simple design is geared as a bang-bang controller and it has is place in many wind mill systems.

The Proportional Dump controller does require additional circuitry to properly load the generator into limiting the power voltage level to below battery voltage levels and in addition it may need a circuit to define the battery charging profile from Float, Bulk and even equalizing voltages.

A Proportional Dump Controller needs to be close to the battery bank to minimize the errors in the charging profiles.

LASTLY, one needs to really understand the requirements of the battery charging profile, and at the same time, understand the behavior of the wind mill and its power generation and how to limit this power in an organized and efficient manner to accomplish the proper steps in the process of battery charging and to accomplish the battery charging profiles needed to extend the battery life to its maximum.

The main point here is that MOST of these BANG-BANG experimenters in this type of groups DO NOT want or desire to implement the necessary steps to accomplish a good battery charging controller if the controller COST SOME MONEY -- they want it -- free and well designed.

I hope I got that right;-)

However , if it is directed towards the picaxe and Ghurd type of controllers, then it might be directed in the wrong direction or is misleading.

The way I see G- and others building these, is in the true fashion of getting in a learning the "everything" part of their homebuilt systems.

The amount of information that people learn from doing it themselves is enormous. Right or wrong.

And of course with full disclosure , I must say that I have for the past year had the greatest pleasure of assisting G- with the design and testing of his unit. AND I have 8 of these currently working in various fashions.
Not all of those units are set to dump the charges ( but when used as a diversion dump) are set at 14.4Vdc. It never would've entered my mind to set them at anything other than a full charge. The systems I help with, are surely way different than most.  I help build system with cast-off stuff Like Sub-C NiCd batteries, hundreds of them and they are all carefully set to maintain the voltage max of the batteries not a sub-charge.

On a side note: those wondering about the use of G-'s dump controller for 24V , YES it does work, however, make sure to do two things that will keep you from burning through 'FETs . 1.) cut the run as explained . 2.) start with a hysteresis setting of .14ish. And then let it fly ":-)"
Note: This test was setup using 3 HF PV's connected directly to the dump controller battery connections , a little guessing for which resistor(s) the 51k was not to be found so I used a couple to get around 60k, to use for HY and 10 1.5Ah Bruce packs in parallel at the 19.2Vdc pins.
No cool flickering pics, but the cute little yellow LED was doing it's job like it was designed to .

SomaPower: You are correct about using items correctly, though and dump controller shouldn't  be used to control the speed of the WT, that should be part of the design of the WT not the down stream electronics that take care of the batteries.

Could you possibly expound on your thought here about what you meant ?

Almost all of my batteries are basically $2-$5 scrap I dragged home from a recycler, YES I am still using 2 of those $5 L16P trojans from a couple years ago even.
Why would I ever want to pay tons of money for a fancy controller for those?
 I do want to NOT over charge them to like 16-18V or such though as that would not be good for a 12V system right!

If my $500 inverter will handle around 15V and I dump power at say 14V then I am protecting more that just the scrap batteries, I am protecting my 5K inverter also.

I have a couple things I will want to run only when I have good winds. I think Ghurds controller will be perfect for this. Connect 1 small battery, set the dump voltage to where I want the battery to just sit at, when I get wind and power I will exceed the dump voltage setting and the dumpload should turn on and that's what I will want. If for some reason I decide I need that battery to run a load it will be sitting there full charged ready to be used.

At the low low price Ghurd is asking, I can get 2 controllers or more. I never leave anything alone and always moving and swapping stuff. So it's easy enough to set one controller for my normal charge volts I want most the time, set a second to a higher volts for equalizing charge, whenever I feel like it just swap the controllers for a short while.

Not everyone puts all their batteries in one bank either. I don't!
 So that would mean buy a controller for each bank I guess. Some of us do want to fly more than 1 genny also. So for 3 gennies and 3 banks I would need 3 controllers, for scrap batteries costing me maybe $20 per bank mostly less. Nope not gonna buy 3 fancy high cost controllers for those.

Something I may try, since the smaller banks would charge full faster than a large bank if the gennies and such are equal is run the dump from 2 smaller banks to the larger bank, then dump the larger bank as needed. If it works this would stop me from dumping power at 2 small banks while the large bank still needs charging. Don't need the fancy stuff for that either.

Ghurds controller is probably about perfect for many things where a fancy high cost controller would never even be considered.

 Being low cost there are some odd uses a few may be good for also. I may have a load I want to run as a dump and also on a switch when I want it even when not dumping. I may run it on a relay. It would be good to set a controller to about 13.5V for the relay, incase the relay burns up have a second load on a second controller set to dump at say 13.8V or 14V for a backup. I won't need to worry about that for awhile, but I been doing allot with 12V fans, lights, and such recently. Gonna try some 12V Ni-chrome wire heaters soon I think when I have time.

"A lot of people may only be worried about boiling their batteries dry"
 I think I fall into that group somewhat.

"It is expected to fill the obvious gap between NO controller and a complicated or expensive controller."
 I generally fall into the NO controller group.

I'm burried in trees in full bloom right now still so only flying 1 small genny that's not doing anything at 17' but soon if I am home more gennies will go back up at about 25' and the trees will be dying out so I will get wind again. If home durring the winter I will be thinning out these darned thick trees this year. I used to get wind better than this, the trees have grown allot!
.
nothing to lose

I am sorry to see that due to Ghurd's incorrect assumption that this post was directed specifically to him, in spite of my statement, "My intention is not to offer a critique of individual designs but to discuss the general concepts.", this post has turned into a meeting of the Ghurd Rah-Rah Fan Club. It's a shame that he discounts work done by others as being worthy of consideration.

It's also too bad that so few responded to the main issue of proper battery charging. My intention here was to point out to the newbies and those who have not yet learned enough about charging batteries, that simple bang-bang controllers will cost them significantly in the long run. I think it's penny wise and pound foolish to save $100 on a controller at the cost of multiple $100s in battery longevity. Of course, if you're only playing at this game and only have junk for equipment, than I guess it doesn't matter. And yes, disaray1, I do take RE seriously - I've too much invested not to.