While Concrete is curing...I'm A' Thinkin'

[freejuice]

 

 Hi Everyone,

 Status report: All four guy locations have been poured with 15-80lb of concrete for my 60ft 4inch, sch40 tower to perch my 10 footer on.

 All told, the tower ate 91 bags of concrete, yes I know there is a rapid approach to the law of diminishing returns when you mix your own concrete v. a cement truck delivering it by the yard, however a lot of things ( especially the weather and all this rain) conspired against me, so I had to "mule it"

So as I wait to let the concrete cure I was thumbing through the Dan's and Hugh's latest wind turbine recipe books...I just got Hugh's today in the mail....nice... he puts some effort into those blades! If you folks don't have it, you should really have both books, Dan's and Hugh's!

 But what really caught my eye was a stator recipe for winding one up for grid tie with a sunny boy grid tie inverter....so that got me thinking and I need the vast experience of this forums brain trust to help me, so here goes:

 Since I intentionally overbuilt my tower for later upgrades in turbine size (with some additional modifications in the future to handle a larger turbine)

 I was wondering if I took the Dan's 17 footer ( 18 inch steel disc rotors) and used the same size magnets they list and wound a stator for grid tying,( no batteries) what would be the specifics such as wire size, number of turns, type of grid tie inverter etc.?

 Anyone gone this route care to share? Or is there a few electrical gurus out there lurking in the shadows care to step forward on this one? I won't name any names like those Dan fellows, Flux, Tom, Ghurd, even Hugh  ) and  other experts out there I faild to mention that might be able to shed some light on this?

 All the best,

 Gavin

tweaked intro. DanG.

[Airstream]

We want to know... Where are you in the world?

Wind average you will be harvesting? You have any historical data?

Details I can't help with but knowing 9-12 or 12-16 mph (1 mile(s) per hour = 0.44704 meters per second) would help guard against mismatches...

[freejuice]

Hi Airstream,

 Sorry about the lack of information. I was thinking if I had something that could generate the voltage for a grid tie inverter, and I could keep it furling without burning up a stator I was good to go. But it appears its more complicated than that.

Here's some extra information, I'm in the upstate of South Carolina, close toe the mountains, the wind is low to moderate, I would say it averages about 7-10 miles an hour when its blowing..sometimes nothing at all, but if I had to "guesstimate" I would think it was 7-10 miles an hour for about 10-12 hours a day. Yet, just a few days ago we had some 25-30 miles an hour winds for a few days (very rare) but it does happen living in the foothills of the mountains....

Sorry I should have done some hard numbers with an aeronometer before asking.

I realize now was I had posed a very broad question.

My idea situation is to also add solar...eventually I want to have about a 4kw+ system of panels also grid tied. I want to use both wind and solar, yet remain on the grid, using net metering for a kw-kw exchange.

While I can reduce my energy consumption I still have get the misses and the child on board to the concept of conservation. So instead of fighting the long battle, it would simply be easier to harp about using so much power while simply feeding back into the grid when generating with wind and solar.

I would like to see the 17 foot mill taking care of about 25 percent of my montly energy needs while the solar system does bulk of the work....my problem is I dont have any idea what the monthly average is for a wind generator that the Dan's 17 footer could produce?

 I was hoping it could take care of about 25% of my monthly energy needs, if it's more I can subtract solar panels from the future system or add if the wind gen produces less on average.

 Thanks,

 Gavin

[freejuice]

 DanG, What is a "Tweaked Intro"?

  Did I do something wrong, a forum violation?

[TomW]

Just means he made the intro more indicative of the content. It usually helps get more clicks if it has a topical intro text.

Just guessing, never saw the original.

No violation.

Tom

[Timeless Turbines]

     I to would like to build big, 20 footer, When I talked to Windy Boy inverter Guy he said, build it for 240 volt it would be far better, not to have to change voltage from 48 to 240. I think with out batteries you would need a voltage regulator in the system, I am planing on using 20 - 100lb 12V batteries at 240V to be a voltage stabilization device. The rectifiers at the Other Power Store, are rated 200 volt, anybody know to do better than that for 240v.