Help with ammeter selection.

[Electron Pump]

  I am confused about what kinda current I may see outta my little mill. I am putting up a 260v, 5100 rpm treadmill motor with a 6 blade set of the 60" carbon fiber Air-X knockoffs. The only ammeter I find on E-bay that says anything at all about wind power goes up to 600amps. I am figuring I may see up to 20 in a gale but I dont know. I found one at the lockal electronics store that goes up to 25amps. I bought a little automotive style one but I dont like the look. I want a pannnel mount.

  What advise can you guys offer. Also I made me a neo rotor for an automotive style alternator that I will be testing on the same power box in the near future.

[deloiter]

I have an identical system to yours except for using three of the Air-X knockoff blades.  I also had a set of carved blades with nearly identical results.  I managed to drop a wooden prop so the fibers run all the time now.  As I recall the max I saw was about 5.5 amps into about 14.5 volts or about 80 watts.  I was not able to measure the wind speed.  It's been running for over two years now and that's not too bad for what it is.  

A bit of advice if I may.  Pull the thing down every once in awhile and check the brushes.  I don't know if something got into my first motor, but the brushes went to pieces all of a sudden.  The second motor has be going for well over a year with little wear.

I would say a 10 amp scale will give you best resolution and still have adequate range.  Meters are cheap enough that you can always step up or just use a beefier shunt and scale up.  

I have since built a small version of the Piggott/Dans design with offset and furling tail and the fibers.  It uses twin 6" rotors and 8 mag to 6 coils three phase.  I built this entirely from black pipe with no welding.  I also have an 8 foot built from Piggots older book.  Best of luck!

Here are some meter sources I have used with success:

http://www.fairradio.com/catalog.php?mode=viewitem&item=4052

http://www.bgmicro.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=10362

http://www.mpja.com/prodinfo.asp?number=8732+ME

http://www.alltronics.com/cgi-bin/item/20U009/S/0%2D6%2DDCA%2DPanel%2DMeter

[jonas302]

I always thought Dans homebuilt one was the coolest

http://www.otherpower.com/otherpower_experiments_ammeter.html

[Electron Pump]

  You have answered my question. I really appreciate the effort you took to help me out.

[deloiter]

I contacted Ram and Martel and they felt their shipping departments couldn't possibly keep up with the demand should they replicate Dan's very cool creation.  Our loss I guess.

[Electron Pump]

  Deloiter, I have since got my mill up. The first day I had it up we had stronger winds than predicted. I saw constant 10a swinging near 15 in 35mph winds. When my batts got up near 14v I wanted to divert the power. I have a manual switching box. I switched off the batt connection and switched on the dump-load which was a car headlight. It popped like a fire cracker. At about 6:00 that evening the hub failed and I found it and what was left of my blades in a tree.

  I have ordered another set of the same type of blades and a beefy 1/4 inch billet aluminum hub/arbor rig. I have been researching dump loads and since I dont drain off of the battery as a dump I have had to makesome assumptions. I bought 4, 55watt automotive spotlight bulbs and found a large computer power supply. This power supply was out of a server so it was about 430watts meaning it has two large fans in it. I gutted it replacing one of the fans with an eaven larger fan and using the onboard switch to operate fans. They are connected to batt power so I alwayse have fan power because the batts are alwayse full when the dump is on.

  What Im worried about is when Im creating heat in the dump load I am also creating heat in my rotor and brushes. Ya know, Ive got to shut it down though.

  What kind of dump do you have since you have about the same power output. Well sounds like I have a little better. Those six blade rigs are CRAZY POWERFUL.

  If you want to E-Mail me I can be reached at kellyperry1971@yahoo.com

  I would like to converse further about this stuff with ya. Thankx for commenting on my post. Take it easy and keep tinkering.