RPMs

[dlenox]

Dale,

As an alternative - a couple years ago I worked with Glen Hurd concerning a similar circuit.  It is a modification of Glen's charge controller and it uses voltage to engage a SSR/Relay to provide auto-shutdown capabilities.

I don't think that Glens website has been promoting this circuit, but it is available in 12v/24v/48v versions, mine was a 48v turbine.

Looks like Brian's circuit uses RPM's instead, which is interesting.  Brian did you include the ability to use different # magnets in the turbine?  Differences between a 10' and 17' number of magnets can throw off the count, as the calculation typically takes into account 1/2 the number of magnets on a single rotor.  The 10' turbine uses 12 magnets while the 17' turbine uses 16 magnets.

I'm not sure if this calculation also assumes that the ratio between magnets and coils is 4:3, with Chris Olson's radial turbine he is using 12 mags and 18 coils, not sure if it would work there....

Dan Lenox

[BrianSmith]

It has the ability to set the number of magnetic poles the phase will see.  To my mind if there are 16 magnets for example, it should see 8 cycles per revolution on any phase.

[BrianSmith]

I am not sure what you are referring to in the 4:3 ratio part.
If the phase will see an integer number of cycles per revolution, it should work, if not then it won't unless I add some more smarts....

[jarrod9155]

 Brian got your unit in thee mail thanks again , Now how would you like it hooked up to the generator

[BrianSmith]

Jarrod,

I put some info on how to connect it up and install it on the website, but the basic connections are: 

1.  Connect battery GND to the GND pin
2.  Connect 12V battery to V+ pin.
3.  Connect any of the 3 phase inputs from the generator to the PH_INPUT pin. 


You can connect to either the MTA connector or there are 3 quick connect pins at the bottom you can use as well.

I would make sure the generator is off before connecting it up.  You can use little jumper wires for this as it doesn't use very much power. 

Once its connected and powered the display and push button can be used to read the RPMs and configure the # of magnetic poles and any RPM alarm outputs speeds you want to setup.  The alarm outputs are open collector transistors to ground.  There is a diagram that shows some sample circuits as well. 

https://sites.google.com/site/rpmmeter/

Thanks for testing it!  Email me if you have any problems.

[Boss]

How is the testing of this device coming along? My CNC blade designer is needing basic info from our system RPM included as well wind speed logging
 

[fabricator]

I have one up and running, it is ultra easy to install and so far it performs as  advertised, Brian talked about adding a RS232 port for data logging.

[BrianSmith]

Thanks for testing it fabricator. 

I have another two out for testing beside fabricators.  I think in another week or two it will be tested enough to call it good.  Dave in Canada is going to run one on a 12v, 24v, and 48v system, so that should cover just about everything.  I can't get a status on the third unit, it might still be in the envelope.....     

Once testing is done I will post a note on here and you can order one.  I am going to make read out in 5rpm steps instead of the current 10 rpm steps in the final version.

So I am trying to decide what to add to the RPM meter to make a more useful / bigger meter.  I am thinking about adding current/ voltage/ power measurement to it as well as giving you two individual big multi- FET outputs you can program to run off of voltage, or RPM thresholds, even let you do some PWM control of them for a couple of thresholds.  This would have a serial port on it for programming as well as a display for real time readout when the computer isn't connected and would do a bit of logging so you could record the RPMs, AMPs, battery volts, and power collected during the day.

Any other ideas for features that would be nice to have?

I ordered a proto PCB to test the new extra features (current and voltage and energy measurement and RS-232).  Will probably make it depopable so you only need to pay for what you need.  Once I get the proto in and working I will put something on the web.

[Boss]

Cool cool cool. Our brainiac just returned from a 11k mile motorcycle trip around the states, he is asleep now and once he recovers, I will start talking to him about what type of data he needs for the custom blade design for our 10 footer. At this point we're thinking RPM, and wind speed piped via rs232 to his portable data logger, but the volt-amps might tell us important info as well.
Building an anemometer, is next on our diy project list
Please do keep us posted.   

[BrianSmith]

Let us know how the anemometer goes.  I have an interest in one as well.  Thanks

[klsmurf]

Hey Brian, Would your meter be compatible or have a possible work around for us folks with small DC mills? Once you get all the bells and whistles included in the final version, it might be of intrest to us.   Kevin

[Boss]

BrianSmith wrote

Let us know how the anemometer goes.  I have an interest in one as well.

Your design takes analog input counts pulses divides by dip switch settings, hmmm, why couldn't we make a diy anemometer   (crap that word is harder to spell than pronounce) with a hall effect sender and receiver and use the output to be counted by your  circuit as well?

[rickysmartz]

Fabricator,
I think Dan Lennox's power dashboard software uses the wild A/C from the genny to give RPMs as well as lots of other cool stuff- but I see he's replied to this thread so maybe I havn't understood your question?
Richard

[BrianSmith]

Boss,

If you knew the ratio of pulses to wind speed from your anemometer, it would be pretty easy to do and display a lookup for that to give a windspeed output.

Klsmurf,

Not sure what you are asking about / need for the smaller Dc mills.  It would work with anything from 12V to 48V.   I guess it could also work even lower (6V) as well I suppose.  It won't really matter for current or voltage.  If it gets too low, the RPM might get squirrely...

[ghurd]

Not sure what you are asking about / need for the smaller Dc mills.

I believe he means "will it work for an Ametek?"
G-

[Boss]

I apologize in advance for my ignorance about our wind turbine. I hope my saving grace is that I am trying to learn. This latest step of learning about TSR and angle of blade attack, battery load, and effeiency of blade design has me pushing my limits of my reasoning.
Here is my main bogglle:
I added twice the battery bank, unaware of the basic principle that as the generator is loaded down of course the RPMS drop, leaving us with lower TSR.
Once Kevin returned and I had a chance to talk to him about the problems of the turbine since adding twice as many batteries, lengthening the blades (not realizing the off-set was not leaving the blades facing the wind properly, this problem I will deal with by going back to 10 foot blade set.)

We will be designing new blades, but like everything with our turbine each bit of knowledge leads one down a deeper rabbit hole.  Our  latest study suggests there is a lot more to this TSR power curve issue than I thought. Reading  http://www.thebackshed.com/windmill/articles/DonBrown1.asp & a basic search here of "TSR"
The notion we are kicking around now is, we need a RPM reading off the mill, combined with blade diameter to determine tip speed in various winds, then we need to know a side by side comparison of wind speed to calculate our optimal TSR. Once we can log this information, we will set the battery bank size back to where it was when our turbine was pumping out 25 to 30 amp @ 24v in good strong winds.
We would remove two batteries at a time and measure the TSR until we find the ideal load size . Then adding batteries until we figure out what a proper blade angle ought to be to keep the TSR optimal.
this make any sense to anyone?
So yeah Brian the device you are building seems perfect for testing blade design, especially if it has inputs for analog signal from a anemometer and the single phase reading from the turbine, and a digital output based on X time frame samples of both signals side by side, heck yeah

[fabricator]

Thanks for testing it fabricator. 

I have another two out for testing beside fabricators.  I think in another week or two it will be tested enough to call it good.  Dave in Canada is going to run one on a 12v, 24v, and 48v system, so that should cover just about everything.  I can't get a status on the third unit, it might still be in the envelope.....     

Once testing is done I will post a note on here and you can order one.  I am going to make read out in 5rpm steps instead of the current 10 rpm steps in the final version.

So I am trying to decide what to add to the RPM meter to make a more useful / bigger meter.  I am thinking about adding current/ voltage/ power measurement to it as well as giving you two individual big multi- FET outputs you can program to run off of voltage, or RPM thresholds, even let you do some PWM control of them for a couple of thresholds.  This would have a serial port on it for programming as well as a display for real time readout when the computer isn't connected and would do a bit of logging so you could record the RPMs, AMPs, battery volts, and power collected during the day.

Any other ideas for features that would be nice to have?

I ordered a proto PCB to test the new extra features (current and voltage and energy measurement and RS-232).  Will probably make it depopable so you only need to pay for what you need.  Once I get the proto in and working I will put something on the web.

I like those ideas a LOT, the amps and volts would be great, and also I have to harp on this but panel mounting would make it a more civilized, and remember you are competing with comparable units costing five or more times what you have on your website, a lot of us are not afraid to pay the price for a more useful unit.

[klsmurf]

[quote author=BrianSmith link=topic=143777.msg972345#msg972345 date=1283447929

Klsmurf,

Not sure what you are asking about / need for the smaller Dc mills.  It would work with anything from 12V to 48V.   I guess it could also work even lower (6V) as well I suppose.  It won't really matter for current or voltage.  If it gets too low, the RPM might get squirrely...
[/quote]

Brian, My little genny produces DC directly. Your meter is wired to the 6mill on the AC side before it is rectified right? I've got separate meters for Amps,Volts and even RPMs with a bicycle computer, but it would be handy for an all in one the works off DC.

[BrianSmith]

Klsmurf,

If your mill puts out DC, its being rectified on the mill and possibly filtered.  You might be able to still measure RPMs if you can see a wide enough difference in the voltage or current waveform to determine the residual AC signature.  If not, don't think you can do RPMs unless you add some type of pickup near the mill blades that can determine the rotations. 

Fab,

I will think about making it more panel mount friendly.  Probably it will involve making the display and pushbuttons accessible from the backside.

Boss,

I will see about having one more input for an anemometer input.  The poor little PIC is going to have an uphill road figuring out everything coming at it... 

[jarrod9155]

Hey its jarood I have one of the demos finally got to hooking it up i know sorry for the delay some other things came up but anyway my genny has 16 mags per rotor 32 total with both rotors and im only able to program 15 poles were i believe i need 16 . I know most machines over 10 foot blades use 12 or more mags like 12 poles 16 poles and so on .Let me know if there is a quick fix .

[fabricator]

Yep, if you have 16 mags per rotor program it for 8 and it will work, I had that problem and that's what Brian told me to do.

[BrianSmith]

Fabricators got it.  The poles are for N / S pairs so 16 mags should be set for 8.  Thanks.

[jarrod9155]

Cool I will give it a shot , thanks