Note of caution.
I've been an Electronics Tech. for 25 years and have experience with utility scale wind turbines and the power conversion technologies they use. 200VDC could cause severe death or injury. The only thing I know of less forgiving is a wife who has proof that you've told something and been wrong.....
For safety reasons I'd say stay at 48V or less unless you know what your doing or have someone handy who does and never work on anything over 50V without someone nearby in case you do screw up.
Another thing to consider, currently I'm a Tech. at an electronics design/manufacturing company and have access to the prototyping lab. This isn't something that can be done with a screwdriver and a cheap multimeter. I'm putting up with the low pay, nightshift and general BS of the place because from 2:30 to 6AM 4 nights a week I get to "play with the toys". Have to hide everything from nosey Engineers when I leave in the morning..... Being able to play with a 4 channel scope with all the goodies, priceless.
I've been experimenting with an idea for a system that would use a battery bank of about 200V. To simulate this I'm using caps charged with household AC through a rectifier/thermistor combination. Most electronics use switched mode power supplies (SMPS) that run off rectified AC to provide the low DC voltages they use and I've taken that concept and applied it to RE. If you have a desktop/tower PC it probably uses something like I'm working on but instead of 6 or 7 different voltages I'm only using one at a time.
The concept for the system is that the turbine, battery bank and main wiring would be at the high DC voltage and use an SMPS for each DC voltage required or one to supply each device. An inverter for "standard" 110 or 220VAC for larger appliances is down the road a bit as is a driver for CFLs.
The big advantages of working with such a high voltage to start with is the current required per Watt is smaller saving on wire size/loss and the rectification losses become negligable. Cheap and plentiful transistors exist that work well in that voltage/current range (horizontal output drivers for TVs/monitors for example) and integrated circuits designed for just such uses. Everything I've done so far is "off the shelf" for any TV repair shop that has a well stocked parts inventory with the exception of the tranformers and cores.
Being able to maintian the system/s with common parts is one of the design considerations.
The eventual plan is to have 3 smaller turbines (redundancy) and a standby gas/diesel/whatever gennie and tell the power company to get thier poles off the property. Oh, BTW, this project is aimed at my Fiance's property. That she has a home on a class 4 ridge had nothing to do with the proposal. If she lived at the bottom of the Grand Canyon I'd have asked her anyway. (Hydro?)
Anyone know a Minister that would administer wedding vows on a platform 60' up a tower? Have to beef it up for us, 2 witnesses and the clergy.....
I already have a down and dirty 200VDC/12VDC (192V average input) converter that can put out 50A at 12V (600W) using a pair of transistors and a hand wound transformer with a ferrite core, plus other ancillary pieces, that at the upper end of the output is over 90% efficient and has an "idle" draw of 5mA (1W). Switching frequency is about 30 kHz and uses a torroidial transformer for those interested.
I've been watching this board for over a year and am impressed with the ideas that come up here. Small windpower is my main interest/focus right now. I've experimented with a couple of small generators of different design from any here and if I can work out a couple of problems I'll post details of a design for a genny that will work efficiently at lower RPM than the dual rotor type. More difficult to build and more "touchy" than the dual rotors, I'm considering bailing the concept and just building a high voltage dual rotor.