Inspeed anemometer kit. anyone use one?

[Jerry]

The kit arived yesterday. Its on the mast today. Of cource there is no wind. I think the no wind rules aply to anemometers as well as wind generators on the day of install.

Has anyone tryed one of these kits. Here a couple pictures. The one on the mast is about 5 ft ahead of one of the test wind generators.

The digital readout in the meter picture is just to th right of the old analog anemometer. I put it there to see how acurate the old meter is.

Jerry

[Jerry]

Oh by the way. That 125 # is  I think the minutes since I turned the unit on. The wind speed shows up larger and above that.

Jerry

[Dave B]

Jerry,

  Never used one of those anemometers and made one of my own way back when as well. I use the Davis equipment now. Let us know how it works out, price ?  PS. What does the DOT think of your turbine in that photo ? It is what it is isn't it ?  Dave B.

[Perry1]

I use their ano and I have had good luck with it. Reads into the parallel port on my computer. Their software is OK.

Somewhere there is an intersection with a lot of wrecks 

Perry

[tecker]

Good data. Where did you get the banana plug inserts ?

[Jerry]

Jerry,

  Never used one of those anemometers and made one of my own way back when as well. I use the Davis equipment now. Let us know how it works out, price ?  PS. What does the DOT think of your turbine in that photo ? It is what it is isn't it ?  Dave B.

I thought some one might notice that. The local scrap metal buyer/seller has these signs for sale. Honest I didn't do it and I have recipt to prove it officer LOL.

My wife makes me paint these things, don't tell her I missed one. OH the state surplus sales also sales these here.

This is the $59 kit. No ports that I can see. I'm hoping to calibrate the home built analog with it.

Jerry

[fabricator]

Good data. Where did you get the banana plug inserts ?

Radio shacks got em.

[admin]

I've used the Inspeed anemometer, it's pretty good. Certainly not a precision instrument, but the price is right.
The software is OK, wouldn't run on Wine on Linux, but haven't tried it with newer Linux yet.

And a plug for one of our sponsors -- APRS World makes some excellent precision wind monitoring equipment, at a reasonable cost -- more expensive than Davis, but way cheaper than NRG etc.

Etesian is also worth a look....nice folks, we just haven't tried their stuff yet.

DAN FINK
(admin)

[Jerry]

Well  we have some more wind today. I put the littel inspeed display next to the old home built meter to see how far off the mark the home built is. I know the Inspeed is not the most acurate but its a bunch better then the home brew unit. Although below 20 MPH they seem to be close. Another problem in compaireing these 2 is the home built is 10 ft behind the Inspeed but also in the shadow of the shed roof peak (5 ft above it) and behind (7 ft below) 2 wind generators. So I'll use the Inspeed #s as the corect #s in my test proceedures for this small group of machines.

I put the Garbogen back on line. I had left its Neg lead disconected during some wireing changes. Its 100% OK. Just operator eror DUH.

The Garbogen went over the cheap 20 amp $3 Harbor Freights meters limet frequently. So I've connected the Garbogen to a 30 amp analog amp meter for tommorows winds and weather mans pridicted storm.

I had one master 40 amp fuse on the battery plus for all the meters. Well amperage must have went to 50 plus today cause that 40 amp fuse poped big time. I replaced it with a 100 amp. All is well now. There was 650 watts coming in from these small machines off and on today.

The garbogen hit 400 watts a few times today by itself. Here are a couple meter readings I was able to catch with the camera.

Jerry

[admin]

Wow, what an array of Chinese multimeters!

It wouldn't be all that difficult to log all your data to an SD card and live display  instead. Shunts are cheap on Ebay....a bit more than Harbor Freight multimeters, but not much. And batteries are not required.

Still, I love the approach. Hits close to home here LOL

DAN F

[Jerry]

Wow, what an array of Chinese multimeters!

It wouldn't be all that difficult to log all your data to an SD card and live display  instead. Shunts are cheap on Ebay....a bit more than Harbor Freight multimeters, but not much. And batteries are not required.

Still, I love the approach. Hits close to home here LOL

DAN F

Hi Dan F.

Could  show a block diagram of how your above data loging would work. Please forgive me as I'm quite computer illiterate. Shunts are easy to build from scratch as well. I remember from the old board a design that I use and have used for shunts that works quite well. Its simply 12" of #10ga. wire.  You connect this 10ga. bewtween the power sorce + and the load +. You conect a small wire to each end of the 10ga.  These small wires feed a MV. milivolt scale on any meter. Each MV. = 1 amp. How would I connect this data to an SD card and live display. I'm ready just tell me how.

Jerry

[zvizdic]

I use this one.
http://www.costco.ca/Browse/Product.aspx?Prodid=10330550&lang=en-CA

[Jerry]

I use this one.
http://www.costco.ca/Browse/Product.aspx?Prodid=10330550&lang=en-CA

Will this unit also read MPH? Thats an awsome price. What is the mph readout time? Is it real time or delayed?

Thanks for the share.

Jerry

[admin]

That Costco one doesn't appear to log data.....essential for wind turbine work.
All you really need is wind miles -- then you can divide by time to get average wind speed.
DAN F

[TomW]

I use this one.
http://www.costco.ca/Browse/Product.aspx?Prodid=10330550&lang=en-CA

Will this unit also read MPH? Thats an awsome price. What is the mph readout time? Is it real time or delayed?

Thanks for the share.

Jerry

The reviews I read on it were not exactly glowing so beware of that.

Tom

[rossw]

All you really need is wind miles -- then you can divide by time to get average wind speed.

I've been logging meterological data every minute for 25 years, and wind speed and direction every 5 seconds for the last 6 years.

Recording wind-run, then dividing by time might give you an average wind speed - but is that really of any use at all for POWER generation?

Examples: Lets assume a pretty average 10' turbine.
24 hours of wind at 5 miles/hr.    Average speed: 5 miles/hr.  Production: around 0.192kWh/day
12 hours of wind at 10 miles/hr, 12 hrs dead calm.  Average: 5 miles/hr.  Production: around 0.768kWh/day
6 hours of wind at 20 miles/hr, 18 hrs dead calm. Average: 5 miles/hr. Production: over 3kWh/day


If you want to know generating potential, you need MUCH more information than merely the "average wind speed".

[Rover]

I agree with RossW,

I have a lower market anenometer (Lacrosse, part of a full wireless package, bought at Costco a few years back for ~ 90$). I like the unit for everything but wind speed. Honestly it does that fairly well, slow updates  though for a normal user (not one with a wind turbine).  I do not use it for any calculations or data storage

I have a home made logging system, transmits to the house , numbers stored in a database from numerous ammeters and recorded voltage. (I don't have a wind speed portion)

My next step would be to have an anenometer that jived with my system, basically if I wantend to know peak production and wind speed, I'd have both. Means a system that samples wind speed and anything else (turbine amperage , voltage) at as close to real time as possible (under a sec) in order to get a feel for what happened. (In my case I would just add the anenometer reads to the existing system).

Averaging could be interesting, but I would want peak production, and an acculumation (not average) of the W/hr produced.

just me being goofy,

Rover

[Jerry]

My reson for real time wind speed data is to confirm changes in an exsisting wind generator have improved or degraded that units preformance. I think if a wind generators real time #s have improved its a good chance its preformance for an HR, a day, 7 days , a mounth or 10 years have also been improved and I don't have to waite a month to find out.

I'm just funny that way. Don't get me wrong I think long term data logging is also very important. I just want to know. Does this machine cut in at 5 mph or 15 mph. And whats it doing at 30 mph.

Jerry

[rossw]

My reson for real time wind speed data is to confirm changes in an exsisting wind generator have improved or degraded that units preformance.

Ahhh.

Perhaps because of another active thread at the moment from someone wanting to measure wind at his site to determine where's best to site his turbine(s), I'm probably being more sensitive than necessary about saying "average wind speed ain't worth a damn".

Your case is a whole different kettle of fish

[admin]

Ross;

Of course we log all the data we can up here.....but...

Most people who want small wind can't afford to fly a decent logging anemometer at hub height for a year before deciding whether to invest in wind power or not. And a year isn't really long enough---for example winter 2009-2010 is famous here in Colorado, we were 50% below normal for wind all over the state.

So basically what a Wind Site Assessor will do is take average wind speed data at a given height AGL from somewhere like AWS Truewind (or a cheap anemometer that can count wind miles), de-rate it for surface friction (the alpha exponent), and plug it into a Weibull curve with k=2 (Rayleigh). Really good assessors can tweak the k factor, but it's surprisingly accurate at most sites, once you get up into laminar flow. THEN calculate energy output, and de-rate that for turbulence intensity (TI). It was a heckuva 4-day class; should have been 6 days.

In addition to logging wind data and turbine watts, we will soon be adding an RPM sensor to our best site up here. Will be cool to see actual tip speed ratio.

DAN F

[rossw]

Most people who want small wind can't afford to fly a decent logging anemometer

There are some very affordable, quite usable weatherstations including anemometers that will give very useful output, but your point is still reasonable. If you try to get a specialist "logging anemometer" expect to pay BIG bux.  If you set your sights on an inexpensive weatherstation and a small PIC-based logger (or just download the weather once a week/month) you can do it for $100 or less if you try.

So basically what a Wind Site Assessor will do is take average wind speed data at a given height AGL from somewhere like AWS Truewind (or a cheap anemometer that can count wind miles), de-rate it for surface friction (the alpha exponent), and plug it into a Weibull curve with k=2 (Rayleigh). Really good assessors can tweak the k factor, but it's surprisingly accurate at most sites, once you get up into laminar flow. THEN calculate energy output, and de-rate that for turbulence intensity (TI). It was a heckuva 4-day class; should have been 6 days.

But that's nothing even remotely similar to your "implication" of (a user) just using a wind-run meter and calculating average speed (without hiring a site assessor with all the clever tools and resources an average DIY person won't have access to).

*MY* point was that there is little actual correlation between "average wind speed" and "achieved power". Sure, there are complex statistical models, but that isn't really within reach of the AVERAGE forum user, is it?

[admin]

Actually, there are spreadsheets that do the wind speed vs. energy analysis available free on the internet.
I use the one from Bergey, and plug in power curves from other turbines that are being considered for the site.
Handy stuff, as most people are forced to make due only with average wind speed to make the decision about diving into wind power.

*MY* point is basically me whining  -- about the lack of decent wind data at a reasonable price in my state (and many others). Go to Wisconsin, and it's all free on the internet. But here in Colorado the choices are a $1000/year subscription to data, or $250 for 24 hours of access. ouch! NREL has free data.....at 10 meters, which is laughably short.  I can't reverse-engineer their data to a higher height, I can only take data from higher MET towers and adjust it for closer to the ground.

Our state has a great anemometer loan program, but it doesn't cover the cost of the tower.

DAN F

[wooferhound]

Here is my elementary anemometer mounted 7 feet up over the dead tomatoes in my garden
When it's spinning Fast, the wind is blowing hard
When it's spinning Slow, then there is just a breeze
When it's not spinning, the wind sucks, which is normal here in North Alabama
I also hope that when it spins it will scare away the birds . . .

[Jerry]

Ross;

Of course we log all the data we can up here.....but...

Most people who want small wind can't afford to fly a decent logging anemometer at hub height for a year before deciding whether to invest in wind power or not. And a year isn't really long enough---for example winter 2009-2010 is famous here in Colorado, we were 50% below normal for wind all over the state.

So basically what a Wind Site Assessor will do is take average wind speed data at a given height AGL from somewhere like AWS Truewind (or a cheap anemometer that can count wind miles), de-rate it for surface friction (the alpha exponent), and plug it into a Weibull curve with k=2 (Rayleigh). Really good assessors can tweak the k factor, but it's surprisingly accurate at most sites, once you get up into laminar flow. THEN calculate energy output, and de-rate that for turbulence intensity (TI). It was a heckuva 4-day class; should have been 6 days.

In addition to logging wind data and turbine watts, we will soon be adding an RPM sensor to our best site up here. Will be cool to see actual tip speed ratio.

DAN F how about inbeding a thermal sensore also. This turbine could gather all sorts of info.

Jerry

Dan F

[Antero]

I had Inspeed unit in my place.
It lasted just few months.
I do not need any instrument to measure windspeed.
I hear it from the trees and from my windgenerator and see from battery monitor in my living room.
My local weather station gives me accurate windspeeds in internet;  http://ilmatieteenlaitos.fi/saa/Kustavi

This unit is better, if you want to measure;   http://www2.powerpredictor.com/

I know several places here in Finland, where it has been working good and reliable, for a long time.

Antero