New to Wind Turbine technology

[Ronnn]

Hello to everyone. I'm Ron Becker and am planning to add a home built wind turbine to our off grid system. That 24v. system currently consists of:

8 Solarex 65w. panels in fixed array on roof.

12 Arco 35w on two ancient Zome Works trackers.

8 mystery panels, don't remember the wattage.

12 new Surrette S 530s

2 60 amp charge controllers from Outback,

VFX 3524 Inverter from Outback

10.5Kw generator [propane]

This all powers a passive/active solar adobe made by my wife and I. We built it with no mortgage or by your leave from anyone. The first joy of remote living!  We see and hear no body from our house. I wanted a place where we could turn 360 degrees and see nothing but trees and sky. Being in a small valley helps with that of course but to the SW we have a majestic view across the north Tularosa basin to the Chupadera mesa ridge about 15 miles away. At night we can see the lights of Carrizozo 14 miles away. It's a town of about 1200.

  We have been off grid since 1983. We were thirteen years w/o phone or running water and are still w/o TV. I'm a musician. My wife is a nurse with a few years to go to retirement. I'm still active playing and studying music. I like jazz and it's a very long learning curve. Other hobbies are recording and song writing, mountain biking, baking bread, and learning new stuff.

The questions alluded to above are mostly about wind power these days. All I know is it's time to do it. We are in an area on the NM wind map that is colored as excellent. But we are in a valley on top of a mesa at 7k feet. I'm pretty sure we could down rate it to good at least. And Windy Dankoff told me soon after we got here that in much of New Mexico there is either too much or too little wind and to get more pv. Since we had already started that way we just continued for many years. An area like ours is no good for the Air X variety of wind turbines and the big ones that could give us some power are too expensive for our off and on winds. Enter the Dans and their homebrew possibilities. I have their book on order and plan to buy the metal parts kit to be sure I get something that will furl properly, I hope, in our finicky winds. We can get 60+ mph gusts. We get lot's of fronts moving thru, these are always accompanied by several days of round the clock winds and cloudy to partly cloudy weather. Wind seems the perfect adjunct to our modest system. I plan to build more than one if I do ok with the 10 footer. Probably a smaller one to power the greenhouse pumps and lighting.

We are tree huggers since the 60s and have always believed in treading lightly. We have a composting toilet and our own well. We do a small amount of organic gardening and plan to expand that when my wife retires.

If anyone is still interested, you can see pics of our current system and our adobe fort at:

www.myspace.com/ron45becker

There are also some original songs there if you are interested in original music. These were recorded on solar energy here in my mac based recording studio. I hope to get to know some of you.

Ron

[Tink]

Ron,

I'm in the Whit Mtns. in AZ and I never thought we were getting enough wind to justify a wind turbine. I hate gasoline gennys and don't even own one. Though I recently replaced my L16s with a Crown 24volt 935amphour battery and needed more amps to charge it properly so I did the research into wind turbines and found myself here at this forum also. You will get some very excellent advice here and a lot of ideas. After monitoring my wind at this location with a cheap wind meter from LaCrosse I decided a 10' Axial Flux Turbine was just the ticket. I'm glad I decided to get one. Although not working at this time due to a faulty stator that is in the process of being repaired, I can see it was a good decision to go this route. In The short week and in calm winds that it was working in I realized it would be a great addition to my system. Good luck with your project.

Tink

[Ronnn]

Thanks for the encouragement. I used to to doubt the efficacy of a turbine here but it makes sense with a large enough turbine. I chose the ten footer too.  I  couldn't justify buying a Bergy or other commercial unit this size but I hope I can make this one for less than 1k. I'm going to buy the metal parts kit and magnets from the Dans.

This seems wise for the first go round since I'm not much of a metal worker. What altitude are you at? We have White Mountains in N.M. too but I doubt it's the same range. Ours start about 70 miles east of here near Soccoro. Hiway  60 goes thru them. What town are you near. I love maps.

 If you built your own turbine, do you mind sharing what it cost? I'm just curious to know what I'm facing. Seems like the metal and magnets will be close to 700. We are also upgrading our PV system and the panels are going to be a big hit. So the full kit was out for us. What is the topography around your place? We are in a small valley on top of a mesa. I always figured there would be a lot of turbulence here from the rim of the mesa which begins to rise about 30 feet from the house and goes up about 300 feet or so. In the other direction the land slopes away for about 2k feet toward the SW. This is the direction of the prevailing winds here....more or less. There are pictures of our location at the link below my signature. There are some shots from a half mile from the house which a give a good idea of the topography here. I have nothing to go on regarding how suitable a location we are in so it's good to know of someone also in a mountainous region doing what I want to do. Hope you holidays are smooth..... and windy if you get your stator up and running by then.

Ron

http://www.myspace.com/ron45becker

[ghurd]

Not sure about that pic of the old hippie on you site,

but your system does not sound very big for 100% off grid.

A small windmill would make a bigger dent in the propane bill than most people would expect.

Cost depends on what can be locally scrounged/salvaged, and the labor cost.

Keep an eye on what the wind "feels like" for a month and record it, maybe in a 1 to 5 stars format.  Record the "feels like" solar too.

You might have these types of generic figures in your '83-'09 mental data base.  Seems like every time the propane genny desperately needs started, it is winter, raining, and windy out?

I figure a 100W or 400W windmill would make an enormous difference,

and a 10' could change your whole life.

Santa can bring the wife an LCD TV?  LOL.

G-

[Ronnn]

NIce to hear from you ghurd. Yea it's seems a bit small these days but we began with 4 panels and 4 batts w/no controler and some dc lights and wire, That's it. We were happy as clams. For us, off grid is a life choice not based on economics or how much electricity we can make. We are adding between 6 and 10 KC 130 pv panels within the next month. We have propane fridges and no micro wave, and efficient lighting and don't have a tv on all the time. We don't watch tv but do buy movies and watch those. Now computers, that's another story. We do have a light comercial grade esspresso machine that gets fired  up a few days a week for about 10 minutes. And everything is on power strips. The only fanthom load is the 900 mgHz phone charger.

 I got the Homebrew book from the Dans yesterday but don't know exactly when I'll begin the project. I still have to buy about 700 bux worth of stuff to start the project. We aren't in a hurry. But as you say it will make a large difference in our generator use. We have only lately been using it more than a few hours per month. That should soon be reduced by a lot.

Ron

[ghurd]

Sounds like you are not really hurting for more electric...

And you are thinking about reducing the propane bill.

Adding all those new PVs will make a regular fridge possible, and very cost effective.

A small microwave could dent the propane bill too. (microwaved coffee and microwavable frozen burritos are necessities around here)

And with 800~1300W more PV, a pre-heater with a dump load controller and all the other stuff that goes with it, could put a dent in the hot water propane.

Question.  Washing machine?  Gas or electric or laundromat or washboard or ?

G-

[Tink]

Ron,

I have about $2,100 in mine but I was able to use old sch40 fence pipe I had laying around and I got a great deal on ebay on the 1/4" wire rope not to mention the 100amp rectifier on ebay also. I got a huge heat sink from a TV repair place here in Show Low for $10 and I'm still waiting for big winds while my turbine is flying to fully test it. After a week of mild winds my stator developed a short and I took it down and tore it apart and decided to return it to Dan for replacement or repair. Just my dumb luck. While it was flying I got a good idea of the performance I can expect at this location. I was getting 12amps from a 12mph wind. this makes it worthwhile for me. I'm on a downward slop to the south of me and the turbine is 120 feet from my power shed uphill. The tower is 43' high. I've been using my 4x4 Toyota to raise and lower it. I found a worm driven hoist for $10 at a roadside swap in St. Johns the other day that I'll be using and that will be much safer. I built a heater/dump load from 6 Ohmite C300KR50E resistors and 2 of the Ohmite C300K1R0E so I can dump 1534 watts at 53 amps and 29 volts if need be. I'm using a C40 Xantrex for the dump load controler that I may have to change out for a C60 that I thought I had in the first place. I have these along with an ampmeter and shunt and rectifier and shut-off mounted in my power shed for now and will have to move the heater in the summer when it gets too hot in there anyway. I had bought the $1,750 kit form Dan and did all the rest of the work myself. I plan to build one from scratch as soon as I can afford a better wielder and have the time to devote to making one. I work full time and that takes 12 hours of my days as it is. I didn't have the time or finances to attend their workshop and I'm glad I got the first one in kit form. Now I can use it as a pattern for future ones. I am not a good weilder to say the least. I did look around for a local wielder to do the weilding for me and did decide to wield the tower myself...so far it is holding together. Dan's book is very informative and I also have Hugh Piggott's book. I used ideas from both sources. I looked at your link and it looks like you have a pretty nice set up. I'm at 6,500 feet and get mild winds here often. I haven't seen any wind over 48mph so far and that was rare. We do often get sustained winds of 20mph for a few days at a time. Over the ridge and up near the highway it gets real windy. i wouldn't want a wind turbine up there. A neighbor has a few of the little commercial 400watt turbines up there and he can't run them in the high winds. I'm about 40 miles from the NM border near Concho, AZ. I hope you had a great holiday.

Tink