Hi all !
We have a cabin that is off-grid and we are thinking about building a wind generator to charge batteries. We would mainly use these batteries to go fishing with an electric motor. The designs with the Volvo brake discs seem to be the less complicated, so we bought a front wheel assembly and want to get things started ! But... we have a few questions. We would like to keep the size to about 7-8' diameter, to limit problems with balancing. Having that in mind, here are the questions:
Some designs have two rotors, others only have one and have laminates on the other side. After reading all the exemples from this site, I don't see a very big difference in performance, wether it is one or two rotor. Although, two rotos means the system is heavier, so a probably higher cut-in speed. What do you recommend for a 7-8' three blade?
Also, we are thinking of wiring our coils using three-phase, which seems to reduce the power loss a nice amount. Star seems to produce with less wind but produces less in high winds. We are not in a very windy area. Should we use star or delta ?
Another thing, our tower is located at about 75 feet from the battery location. That means a lot of line loss... We are thinking about using transformers to raise to voltage in the line, and lower it at the battery end, to reduce the loss. Is this something you guys have done ?
About regulation... We found a few designs floating around for electronic voltage regulators, but what do you guys use ? We would like to have something that stops charging when the batteries are full (we are not constantly around to make sure they don't over charge).
At last, but not least, we don't really know what wire gauge to use for the coils. Right now we are thinking to stick we the examples shown on this site, but since we don't want to build a 10' prop., would it be best to use a little finer gauge?
Sorry, this was long...! But we don't want to re invent the wheel and your input would be greatly appreciated !
Thanks
Vincent