Problem with Kiss wind generator and LVM dump load regulator

[la7qz]

Hi

I have a weird problem with a Kiss wind generator and a LVM dump load regulator on a friend's boat. The Kiss is a three phase permanent magnet alternator. The three phases are brought down the mast and there is a switch (to short the phases and stop the turbine) and a rectifier in a box inside the boat.

Kiss actually recommend using the wind generator without a regulator, but they assume a battery bank of around 500Ah (not uncommon on sailboats these days) which would be able to take the average output of the turbine as a maintenance charge without problems. However, the boat only has a battery bank of 220Ah and has no room for more batteries without a serious redesign, so we installed a LVM 12V / 40A dump load regulator. (Normally sold with the Aerogen 6 wind generator.)

When I installed the wind generator there was of course no wind (what else is new?). The owner went back to the US before the install was finished and a couple of weeks ago his father came to the island and took the boat sailing for a week. He reported that he never saw the wind generator spin even in 20 - 25 knot winds.

I went to the boat this morning and after some experimentation found that the LVM regulator was preventing the wind generator from spinning. In other words, the wind generator was behaving as if the output terminals were shorted. The wind generator worked fine when I connected it direct to the batteries (as per Kiss' recommendation). I saw 12A in one gust which looks normal to me. Battery voltage was quite low at 12.1V at rest, dropping to 11.9 when I turned on a 1.5A load (a light so I could see what I was doing.)

I assumed the regulator must be faulty, so I took it back to the workshop and hooked up a variable power supply and a small 12V battery and connected a light bulb in place of the dump load. I slowly increased the voltage from the power supply until I was seeing a charge going into the battery. When I increased the voltage further, the light bulb (dump load) started glowing at 13.9V and was fully lit at 14.2V across teh battery poles. There was no load on the power supply when the battery was disconnected. I'm seeing a 0.45V volage drop through the regulator. To me this indicates that the regulator is working fine.

I'm stumped. The wind generator is obviously working fine and I left it pumping up those poor depleted batteries (I'll turn it off in a couple of days), the regulator seems to work just fine on the bench, but when I combine the two, the wind generator only spins very slowly in high gusts. It seems it spins slightly easier than when the three phases are shorted to stop it which I think would be explained by the difference between a direct short between the phases and a short on the DC side of the rectifier.

Any ideas??

Owen

[vincecastro]

Just an idea...

I don't know how you wired it but the dump load regulator should be connected direct to the battery terminals and not the output from the turbine.  Try to connect the regulator to different battery terminals that the turbine is not connected to.

[la7qz]

Hi

The regulator has input wires for the turbine, output wires to charge two battery banks and output wires for the dump load. I wired it as per the instruction manual that came with it.

Owen

[richhagen]

While I read that this is a "controller for wind", and I have to assume that you hooked it up per the manufacturers specifications, if "the wind generator was behaving as if the output terminals were shorted." then it will not spin up.  It may be that the voltage across the batteries at the time was high enough that the controller diverted the power to the dump load, effectively shorting out the turbine.  If there were solar panels, or if it was being charged from the motor this would not seem too terribly surprising.  Also, if the wind turbine brought the battery voltage up too quickly because of the size of the bank, I would expect the turbine to spin up in a gust or steady wind, reach cut in, and then when the voltage quickly rises to the diversion voltage, and the dump load is connected - if the dump load is large enough to stall out the turbine - expect it to slow down quickly as it stalls.  This cycle would then repeat.  

It would seem that you would be able to reconnect the controller as a dump load only controller and wire the rectified output of the turbine directly to the batteries.  You might have to see if you can adjust the voltage at which controller dumps so that it is a bit higher, in that it may interfere with other charging sources as it is.  

At any rate, these are just possiblilities, Rich Hagen

[Flux]

I don't have enough details to be sure on this one but I feel fairly sure that the LVM will be rectified before the controller, probably on the mill.

I get the impression that you are feeding ac into the LVM controller and that is where your trouble lies. Feed the rectifier output to the controller and it will probably work.

You should be able to get the details from LVM, there is no reason why their controller shouldn't work if you connect it correctly. I know nothing about the KISS but can't see any possible reason why it shouldn't work with a controller after the rectifier and I am pretty sure LVM do it that way.

Flux

[la7qz]

Hi

As stated in the original post, "The Kiss is a three phase permanent magnet alternator. The three phases are brought down the mast and there is a switch (to short the phases and stop the turbine) and a rectifier in a box inside the boat."

I was feeding the DC output from the rectifier into the LVM regulator. When I bypass the regulator by moving this connection direct to the batteries, the turbine works fine and charges as expected. I have considered the possibility of a blown diode causing there to be some AC on the outputs of the regulator, but I would expect to see some vibration in the turbine then. It is in fact running very smooth and quiet.

"It would seem that you would be able to reconnect the controller as a dump load only controller and wire the rectified output of the turbine directly to the batteries."

It is not possible to connect this particular regulator to the batteries only as a dump load. It is built to divert the power that comes in on the input terminals to the dump load when the measured voltage on the batteries reaches 13.9 to 14.2V and above. The regulator is built for and normally sold with the Aerogen 6 wind turbine and is designed for charging sources up to 40A, but I can not see any reason it would not work with any wind turbine or other charging source with a DC output. It is completely baked in epoxy with only a small hole for the potentionmeter that adjusts the cutin voltage, so no modifications would be possible. And it did seem to work just fine on the bench with a variable voltage DC power supply as the charging source. It was not designed to divert the power at the battery terminals to a dump load, only the energy that goes through it from the input terminals to the battery terminals.

It was not a case of the battery voltage being high enough for the dump load to cut in. The owner's father took the boat sailing for a week and never ever saw the turbine spin. Not when sailing, not when anchored over night with the engine stopped and consuming power for lights, the fridge etc. There are no solar panels. The only other charging source is the engine which is rarely used on a sailboat except for leaving and entering port and for charging the batteries when there are no other functioning charging sources.

The turbine wasn't spinning up and then stopping, it was not spinning at all, or only occasionally spinning very slowly in gusts. Way below cutin RPM. Maybe something like one complete revolution in a couple of seconds, and only in the strongest gusts. When turning it by hand, it felt stiff, like stirring molasses. This is the same way it behaves when the three phases are shorted by the stop switch. When I arrived on the boat yesterday, the house bank was at 12.1V at rest dropping to 11.9 when I turned on a 1.5V load (a lamp). In other words, the house bank was very nearly empty. We have had high winds for several days, so this again confirms that the turbine has in fact never charged when the regulator was in the circuit. The starter battery which was connected to the other output of the regulator was at 12.6V which is normal since this battery is only used for cranking the engine. The battery voltages were confirmed by the onboard Link 2000 battery monitor as well as my own multimeter.

When I bypassed the regulator, the turbine started charging and seems to be working normally. In fact, I'm quite impressed by the performance and how quiet it is. Looking out my hatch now at the boat which is moored 200 yards away from mine I can see the turbine spinning quite happily. I'll go over there later today and possibly tomorrow to check the battery voltage and shut the turbine down when the batteries are fully charged.

Owen

[Flux]

Sorry I can't help, I had no reason to assume the LVM regulator was anything other than a dump load. Without their circuit I can't help and if you can't get in to modify it then you are stuck. It may not be compatible, it may need connecting in a different way or you may have damaged it.

Probably would have been cheaper to buy a dump regulator designed for this duty that just dumped directly from the battery such as the C40. Possibly LVM have done something to protect the battery in case of a failure in the controller but without details I can't tell you how to adapt it.

To be honest I can't see how any form of regulator is going to work if it starts life in the short circuit mode, I still think there is something silly going on. If it is below regulating volts it should not prevent start up whether it dumps before or after the rectifier.

Flux

[Bruce S]

la7qz;

   I took a look at the LVM regulator site and dug down into the regulator installations.

One of the things they say and I'm not sure which regulator you're testing, but the standard one according to their install manual shows the regulator not between the 'mill and battery but in parrallel with the battery along with a dump load wire so to speak.

The other one is what they call a twin-battery unit that is installed between the battery and 'mill.

Here's a link to the manual in case it helps. Strange that the one would be in parrallel with the  battery but that's what they have shown and would explain why the 'mill works when its removed.

http://www.unlimited-power.co.uk/a4_marine_wind_gen_manual.pdf

Hope this helps;

Bruce S

[Flux]

Thanks Bruce

I couldn't find much about the regulator on the LVM site, I didn't think to look in the wind generator pdf.

I assume this is the TB regulator. I see absolutely no reason why this wont work with the Kiss machine if the rectifier output is fed into the regulator input with correct polarity. If it is clamping the wind gen there must be something wrong with it or the input is above the sense voltage such as using the wrong voltage unit. It is possible that you have damaged one of the series blocking diodes ( it has 2 so you could try the other battery outlet).

There is no way this should act as more than a series diode when the generator input is below sense volts, so it should always start up. Beyond regulating volts it should pwm dump before the blocking diode but that will load the mill as does the battery.

Flux

[la7qz]

Hi again

Yes, it's the twin battery unit which is designed to be installed between the mill and the batteries. I wired it as shown in the manual and connected one output wire to the house bank and the other to the starter battery. When I removed it, I moved the positive wire coming from the rectifier to the positive pole of the house battery and the negative wire to the the negative pole (via the shunt for the link 2000 battery monitor.) In this configuration the turbine works beautifully.

The only thing I did different when I tested it on the bench with a power supply as the charging source was that I only used only one battery connected to one of the outputs. I tested both the outputs on the regulator independently, but not together. I can re-run the test with two batteries on Monday morning (one on each output), but don't really think it will make any difference. It used a 12V 7A sealed lead acid battery for the test as I did not want to wait forever to charge up a bigger battery to the point where the dump load would kick in. (I was putting a maximum of around 1.5A into the battery, but only very briefly.) As said, the regulator seems to work just fine on the bench.

As Flux says, when I saw the regulator was clamping the turbine, I assumed it must be faulty which is why I took it back to the shop to test it, but on the bench it behaves as expected.

Maybe it is time to take this one back to the shop that sold it and look for a different dump load regulator for this installation. Unfortunately, the LVM regulator is the only dump load regulator that is available on the island so it would have to be shipped in or the owner could bring it with him when he returns to the boat in January. Any recommendations? If it was me, I'd just monitor the battery voltage manually, but this boat is offered for charter when the owner is not aboard, so has to cater to crew who are not familiar with the systems. Better to make it foolproof. (If fools weren't so damned ingenious...)

Owen

[Flux]

I am at a loss to explain that one. I see absolutely no reason why it should short the mill when it doesn't draw current from the power supply. I don't fully understand what LVM are doing in that regulator or where they are taking the reference voltage, but even so it should work fine.

There are plenty of regulators about but that still doesn't explain why you are having trouble. Most of the others such as Marlec and the common Xantrex and tristar are pure shunt regulators so you would have to watch that they don't start shunting other charging sources on a boat.

Flux

[Waterlogged]

Owen, I am by no means an expert, but a couple of thoughts come to mind.

1. maybe the rectified DC needs a smoothing capacitor.
   
2. maybe too much line resistance between the regulator and battery. The regulator may be reading a higher voltage than the battery is seeing.
   
3. dirty battery terminals.
   
   

Hope this helps.

Rod

[la7qz]

Hi again:

Waterlogged wrote (::: )

:::   1. maybe the rectified DC needs a smoothing capacitor.

Except that when it's connected to the regulator, the turbine never spins fast enough to produce anything that would need smoothing.

:::   2. maybe too much line resistance between the regulator and battery.

:::   The regulator may be reading a higher voltage than the battery is seeing.

The positive output wires from the regulator are connected direct to the batteries. The negative wire from the reg is connected to the shunt for the Link 2000 battery monitor. This connection is sound (all new wire and clean contacts). I have not actually tested the connection back from the shunt to the batteries, but the Link 2000 which gets its negative reading from the terminal on the shunt is reading the same battery voltage as my multimeter direct across the battery poles. When the turbine is charging (with the regulator bypassed,) the Link 2000 is showing the same charging current as my clamp ammeter (within a few percent which is normal with the lower accuracy of a clamp meter). The Link 2000 also shows normal values when the batteries are beeing charged by the engine.

:::   3. dirty battery terminals.

The battery terminals are clean. Dirty battery terminals is rarely a problem on a yacht except in cases where the batteries have been installed in the engine compartment. (They are not on this yacht.)

I'll go back and check the connection back from the shunt to the negative battery poles, but doubt there is anything wrong with it. It is however, the only bit of wiring in this installation that was not done by me with new wires and terminals.

Oh, and in case anyone was wondering, both the turbine and the regulator are brand new.

Owen

Hope this helps.

Rod

[Flux]

I just wonder if the shunt in the negative lead is confusing the sensing on the LVM regulator. There is nothing in their information to see where they are sensing. If we had a circuit of their regulator it may have been easier to spot why it is clamping.

Flux

[la7qz]

His

Interesting suggestion. I can't really see how that would happen, but I can certainly try to bypass the shunt as a test.

However, the owner definitely wants the power coming from his wind turbine to be registered by the Link 2000. (The thing monitors the batteries and attempts to keep tabs on what goes in and what goes out.) Looks like that means going to a different dump regulator then.

Any suggestions for something that would be available on the market would be welcome. I've seen a few homebrew designs, but I don't have time (or availability of of components) to build anything on my spare time and if I do it on company time, my company will charge him $65 per hour (I only get a small fraction of that), so it'll probably be cheaper for him to buy something ready made. The boat is here and the owner will be returning from the US in January, so he could bring a regulator with him.

Owen

[snowcrow]

  Hi la7qz, I've been using a Xantrex C35 PWM Solar Charge Controller for the past 4 years, and have found it to be a very reliable and versatile unit.  Here is a link to a Xantrex C40 PWM Solar Charge Controller which also features a Diversion Controller Mode.

http://stores.mavericksolar.com/Detail.bok?no=56

Blessings, Snow Crow

[la7qz]

Thanks for that.

I've been looking at the C40 (It's not available here, so the owner would have to bring one when he returns to the boat in January.)

The problem is that I can not seem to find any suitable dump loads for using this regulator with the Kiss mill. The maximum we'd want to dump is probably around 40A. I got a few suggestions on the IRQ yesterday, but not really any that would be suitable to install in the engine compartment of a sailboat.

The dump loads that came with the LVM regulator will of course have to go back to the shop if we can persuade them to take it back. Since they sold the guy the Kiss and LVM regulator together, I would hope the're willing to take the regulator back.

Owen

[TomW]

(blank)

[snowcrow]

  Owen, If this is a big boat we are talking about, that has fresh water, with a  hot water tank, then a low voltage hot water heating element maybe the way to go.

  If so, here is a link: http://www.hydrogenappliances.com/hotwater.html  You might want to shop around, I think the price is a little high.

Blessings, Snow Crow

[la7qz]

Hi

The hot water heater is definitely a good idea, but would complicate matters a bit too much in this particular installation and budget. I'm not sure whether there is a water heater on this boat, but if there is, it won't have room for two heater elements and he probably wouldn't want to remove the 120V element.

That said, I appreciate the link and have bookmarked it for myself. My own boat is never connected to shore power and this is exactly what I would want to use for a dump load once I get my own turbine flying. At the moment I only have 165W of PV, so I don't have any excess energy to dump.

I contacted a company called Avtron and they have given me the following quote for a resistor that I believe would be perfect for the application:

-----------------

Avtron Dynamic Braking Resistor with the following ratings:

Rating:  45 Amps Continuous

Resistance:  0.38 Ohms (+5,-5%)

Resistor Type:  Avtron Edgewound Resistors Type AER

Enclosure Type:  Open coil, bracket mounted (no enclosure)

Avtron Part Number:  AER3-45-B1  

UNIT PRICE:  $75.00 USD, Each (one Piece) - $60.00 USD, Each (Two or More) Ex Works, USA

----------------

Owen