AirX -- there may be hope

[Bigbear]

I have had nothing but bad luck with the AirX, until last night.  I have spoke with the manufacture via email several times, and tried several fixes.  Including new wires, raised it to 50 ft., adjusted the potentiometer so it would start charging sooner, but nothing has helped.  Here is an email I just sent to Jim at Southwest wind.:

Good Morning Jim, after making the adjustment, it did not seem to help.  BUT!!!!, a strange thing happened last night.  We had some wind come through last night, I would guess about 10 MPH to 20 MPH.  I looked up at the AirX and it was spinning and the red charge light was on.  I could not believe it, this is the first time I have ever saw the light on, or the machine spin like that.  Now comes the unusual part.  We were running the generator so the laundry could be done, and it also runs the Xantrex 40+ charger.  I had my wife go inside and check the TriMetric battery monitor, and the voltage was at 14.1, it varied from 14.1 to 14.3 and all seemed fine.  When the laundry was done, I shut off the generator and watched the turbine and the battery voltage.  It continued to spin and the red light stayed on until the voltage hit 13.9, at that point the light went off and the machine stopped.  I started the generator back up, (with charger going) when the voltage hit 14 volts the wind generator started to spin and the light came back on.  When I shut down the generator, the same thing happened, at 13.9 it stopped working.  It seems like it is working backwards, I had all but given up on the AirX ever producing power, but I now have hope.  What can we do to fix it?

Does anybody have any ideas, just short of an expensive paper weight.

Thanks, BEAR

[tecker]

It sould as though the added voltage corn fused the control on the X

[Brian H]

 Sounds like the generator is functioning as a motor...? Are you using the right kind of charge controller? Is it hooked up backwards, maybe? Don't know that much about it myself, as I don't have any wind power, yet. I have had my eye on an Air-X as a possibility in the future, so I'll be watching this thread to see how this all works out. Good Luck!

 Not to make light of your problems, but instead of a paperweight, it might make a nifty ceiling fan...just kidding, sorry, couldn't resist...  };-)

Brian H

[DanB]

No - the AirX would not run as a motor.

Bear - you're not running the AirX through the C40 are you?

[Bigbear]

Dan, I have the AirX run to a stop switch, and then to the batteries.  Both the Neg, and Pos. hook to the heavy copper buss bars that each battery hooks too.  The charger, solar controler, AirX all hook to the buss bars.  AirX says to run it right to the batteries.  I have 8 batteries, with each battery hooked to the buss bars seperate.  I can isolate any one battery by removing just one wire to that battery.  BEAR

[Flux]

What is this stop switch?

"Dan, I have the AirX run to a stop switch, and then to the batteries. "

That doesn't make sense to me unless you are open circuiting the AirX with your stop switch. If you have a conventional shunt switch then you will short the batteries.

I have no idea what happens to an AirX on open circuit. It does seem as though something is seriously wrong as normally charging the batteries would cause AirX to shut down not run as it seems to do in your case.

Somehow I think you have screwed up the regulator card, but as I have no idea of the circuit there is little I can offer in the way of help. It would be interesting to see a diagram of how you really have connected it.

Flux

[Bigbear]

Flux, the stop switch has three wires, the AirX + goes to the center, a + wire going to the battery +, and the third wire goes to the - of the AirX and also to the - on the battery.  If you throw the switch one way, it lets the power go to the batteries, center position it is open, and the other position, it shorts out the turbine and causes it to stop.

Now that I think about it, it seems that the only way the AirX was allowed to operate is if the battery voltage is above 13.9 volts.  My battery charger had the batteries up over 14 volts, and that seemed to let the AirX start to work.  The AirX monitors the battery voltage, and is supposed to stop charging at about 14 volts, and slow the blades to a near stop condition.  Maybe the AirX circuit board is not working right, and has the start charging set point at 13.9 volts.  It is supposed to start at about 12.5 and stop at 14.1 or so.  BEAR

[Flux]

Thanks, that does seem to be acceptable to short the turbine according to the manual.

Have you tried setting the regulator to it highest setting, I believe you can set it well above 14v. The first thing is to make it go into charge mode, you can always worry about setting the regulator volts later.

I didn't think there was a lower limit to the voltage, I would have expected it to always be in charging mode if you set the regulator pot right up.

It's difficult messing with this thing up in the air, perhaps you need to try to drive it with the blades off with something on the ground while you fiddle with the pot setting especially if you don't have a lot of wind.

Unfortunately it is a high speed machine and you will not hand crank it fast enough, but a drill or something may work.

flux

[Bigbear]

Here is a diagram, (I hope).  Raised the voltage up according to what I was told from Southwest wind.  Turned the unit with a cordless drill and it put out 14 to 15 volts, not sure what speed it was turning, had the wife watching the meter, while I was running the drill.

[Flux]

That looks ok. the only effect anything should have on the AirX is from the change in battery volts.

As far as I know if you leave it open circuit it should start up in the wind and if it runs up to a significant speed it should go into brake mode, then restart and keep doing this. If it will never start in the wind on open circuit then it is not working right.

If it starts on open circuit but doesn't start when connected to the battery then the regulator is set lower than the battery volts or is faulty.

I see you don't have an ammeter in the AirX circuit, it is very difficult to know what is happening without one. The fact that it is spinning at speed doesn't necessarily mean that it is charging.

Flux

[Rock]

Air X is a funny machine.  1st of all Southwest claims to have a MPPT charging controler on this unit.  From my research SW data says that the onboard charge controller will come on when battery voltage reaches 50 VDC (on a 48 VDC nominal machine) and charge at a constant voltage of 56 VDC until battery reaches 54 VDC and then it kinda shuts itself off.  NEVER to charge the battery again (even in high winds) unless battery voltage falls below 50 VDC again.  

I would bet that while you were using large loads (even with generator on) the draw on the batteries caused a quick drop in voltage that activated the Air X's controller to start a charging cycle.  I think you have solar panels and if they are for a 12 volt system and are putting out 14 to 17 volts and that is what the bus bars are seeing then so is the controller in the Air X.  

Hince, the only time your Air X will "SEE" a drop in voltage in at night when the wind is blowing or during large loading of batts.  

[kenputer]

I agree about the solar panels,air-x might be reading the higher voltage and going into stall,take the solar and connect directly on the batteries.

ken

[boB]

Looks to me like the Air-X spins and lights its LED when the battery

voltage is high, as it is when your generator is running.  This is like

running the Air-X into an open circuit.  That is, when the Air-X output

voltage would be close to the same as the battery voltage and little or

no current would be passing either way (no load).

I think that's what Flux was eluding to also ?

Did you actually measure current FROM the Air-X ?

boB

K7IQ

[tecker]

yep

[Bigbear]

Sorry about that, I do have a TriMetric wired into the system that I did not add to the drawing.  You guys bring up a good point that the AirX should spin freely when in the open position.  I have set the switch to open a couple times when the wind was blowing, but nothing changed.  But!!, that was also in the daytime, with the solar panels working and I think your right, the AirX thinks the batteries are charged and thus won't spin.  We have had several night winds that should have made it spin and it did not.  I am going to lower the tower today and set the voltage regulator all the way up and see what happens.  Jim at southwest wind said their might be a problem with the board, and they would replace it.

I'm not sure how I would connect the solar panels to the batteries so they would be isolated from the AirX with the buss bar system I have.  It seems to me that anything connected to the buss bars would have a somewhat accurate reading on the battery voltage.

boB, I only measured volts coming from the AirX when I did the bench test.

BEAR

[Flux]

Set the pot right up and try again, then the solar shouldn't bring it into brake mode.

You should be able to run it with the regulator set high for test.  If your solar controller is set for dump then you could leave it set high. Otherwise when you have proved it works you will need to set its regulator to hold the volts down to a safe float charge.

 When it is working right and running on its own regulator it will stay braked when the solar keeps the volts up to float, but with load on the batteries it should start operating.

For your testing you can either disable the solar or put a heavy load on the battery to keep volts low, but with the pot set right up I don't think your solar should bring it into brake mode.

The fact that you could drive it and produce volts without it stalling your drill or whatever you were driving it with just suggests to me that the regulator is set too low. I doubt that you could have driven it up to 14v if it was in brake mode.

If you have a couple of spare car batteries I would get it working on its own and prove that it is working properly then if it fails on the main system you have something odd that is not obvious to us from your description.

Flux

[Rock]

I agree that putting the solar input directly on the batteries will  help but will not completely solve your issue.

The only way to maximize the Air X (WITH SOLAR) is to make it think the batteries are low and need charged. Or make it think the batts never reach 54 VDC or 13.5 VDC in your case, after an initial voltage drop to activate the AirX's controller.

I am not an electrical engineer but some sort of blocking diode might do this.  The Air X's controller will see zero volts dc??  Maybe just some device that show a 2 VDC drop between its out put and the batteries so Air X "thinks" the batts are low.