Hi everyone. I am a new guy to the board but not so new a guy. Just new as a registered member. Briefly, we are in Alaska, have been off grid since 2005, wind and solar and run our house and a small business location without the assistance of the grid.
Anyway, the turbine we bought in 2005, at the recommendation of the local folks was a Whisper 200 on a 100 foot Rohn 45g. Bad choice, turbine anyway. The fact that we get weeks straight of 20-50mph wind at various times over the course of the winter really hurt the 200. The dealer apparently did not believe me when I said the peak gusts could top out well over 50mph. The little 200 fell apart about once a year, usually in January when we really needed it. January is too cold and windy to drop the tower so we would wait till summer to get it down. Besides, solar is kicking in really hard about mid March.
That is the short story. What I am facing today is the dead charge controller and solar dropping like a dead fly. The circuit board has been replaced several times as well as the whole controller itself. Fortunately it was under warranty except for one time and I just picked up a circuit board and replaced it myself. Today there are no circuit boards to be found so I am looking for other options. Oh, the 200 shrunk to a Whisper 100 during our last warranty work. This was at my request and they were happy to send out a new 100 instead of repairing the 200. The 100 has been fine so far........
This is a 48 volt battery and turbine. I know I could get a rectifier and hook up something like the Morningstar TS-45 as a diversion regulator, and that may be the end result but I would like to explore the possibility of using some of the parts of the SWWP controller. Specifically the rectifier. The thing has some beefy metal in it but I am not sure what is actually the rectifier part.
Three AC wires from the turbine go in one side and 2 DC wires go to the battery but there is a circuit board in between. That is what is throwing me. The circuit board. Anyone ever modified one of these things? I don't know the remaining life of the turbine itself so I did not want to throw a lot of money into a 'from the ground up" controller since I do not know what the replacement turbine will be.
Thanks,
Rick