"400 watt" eBay/Chinese wind turbine

[makenzie71]

Okay I'm in the midst of Christmas chaos so I'm not doing this one like the others...I will come back later with measurements and stuff.  However, this one I think is a bit special and wanted to upload a video of it.  No, it's not a very good video, but it's good enough to show my initial findings.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppD_-ygINuY&feature=youtu.be

Highest I saw was tying it direct to a 175w LED light bar...it got up to 30v and 7amps working the drill as hard as it would go...about 250rpm...fried my light bar .  The video above it maxes out at about 125rpm going to two 12v car batteries.

This is the turbine: https://www.ebay.com/itm/400W-Wind-Turbine-Generator-DC-12V-24V-3-Blades-Waterproof-Charge-Controller/312889456541?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649

Of course, out of the box, the "controller" doesn't work and starts braking at about 6v so I'll probably, in the end, get the thing for about half price.  But neither of the other ones did this well with the drill.

NOTE: The sudden stop in the video is because the charge controller itks connected to throws the brakes on at just over 30vdc...which overamps my drill and shuts it down.

[makenzie71]

I still haven't gotten around to posting all the tear down pictures and measurements but they're coming...in the mean time, though, I wanted to share another aspect of this mill that made it my favorite so far!  After doing some turning tests I started hearing a rattle...so I opened it up!  Guess what I found!

https://youtu.be/8RD_ndkUE3s

Edit to post a new link...I'm making a new channel just to post this stuff.  Too much personal stuff on my main youtube bit to share as much as I want to share this stuff

[JW]

Haaa!!

How did that washer not do any damage 

Noticed the kids making noise in the back ground, I was talking on the phone with one of  my computer developer friends tonight and my grandson was running around making noise.

Speaking of website development we have it made...

[makenzie71]

It knocked around the magnets a little and made a little mess but it doesn't seem like any real damage is done.  I'm hoping to have this one up in the air in the next couple days and see what it does.

[makenzie71]

Jeez I can't seem to post anything right tonight...finally got the link posted correctly.

[MattM]

There was another video linked to from your video that seems to suggest it is about 10% advertised output.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=co3bR9Go24I

[makenzie71]

https://youtu.be/TS6ZZzovB_I

I actually ran this one on a drill just to confirm operation...I do that with every mill that comes in as soon as I pull them out of the box.  It was doing over 100w before it kicked over 30v (brake operation on the charge controller I was running).  As said below I got it to kick out 7 amps through the same rectifier earlier (210 watts roughly).  I don't know that it'll do 400w (I actually doubt it'll do that kind of power), but I do think that guy either did something wrong or wasn't in appropriate wind.

[makenzie71]

Alrighty then!

This mill isn't too terribly different from the 500 watt model I snagged off eBay...in construction, anyway.  The slip ring is the same, the rotor is the same, the hub assembly is the same.  Things that are different:

This 400 watt stator is wound in 18g wire.



There's still 36 coils and 12 magnets on the stator.

This one arrived with some "assembly" problems:





Then, as seen in prior posts, there was a huge honkin lock washer crammed under the rotor.

I'll spare the pictures of the numerous cosmetic flaws...runs in the pain, dents, casting marks, and so on...just assume it's awful.

My immediate inclination is that it will track terribly with this tiny, downward tail:



...but it actually did pretty well.

biggest hiccup the thing had was startup wind.  It took quite a gust to get the blades turning...once turning they kept turning, though, even after the wind died down to mostly nothing.

This video is most of the story I've already spread out here, you can skip toward the end of it to see output in our little blow last night...much higher than expected: https://youtu.be/rSDeAEUpWX4

[makenzie71]

762 watts!

https://youtu.be/dM4OzRTgk-0

[Adriaan Kragten]

As this wind turbine has no safety system which limits the maximum power aerodynamically, it isn't strange that it has a high peak power at very high wind gusts. The flutter at high tip speeds will finally increase the airfoil resistance and so this resistance will limit the maximum rotational speed. But I am afraid that the blades won't live long if they have fluttered for enough hours as flutter gives a high fatigue stress.

[makenzie71]

This one doesn’t “flutter”.  It’s solid no matter how hard the wind hits it, and i think the blades do self-regulate a bit.

It’s the 500 that’s fluttering/buzzing...and it has pretty flimsy blades...i don’t think those blades will really hold u0 to that kind of abuse.  It’s already lost one as it is :/

[Adriaan Kragten]

I have watched the movie and you say that it makes a lot of noise, so I thought that this was the one for which the blades were fluttering as fluttering comes with a lot of noise. I now remember the manufacture of the 6-bladed water pumper. It was a German Lubing. It is still on the market and you can find a picture of it if you type Lubing windkraftanlagen in Google. I hope that they have stiffened the blades in the meantime. It had six free blades so different from normal water pumpers where the blades are mounted on a spider web structure.

[makenzie71]

The flutter from the other one was so loud that you could hear it inthe video for this one...i tried to mention it for the sake of clarifying that this one is more stable...i probable could gave done a better job of that.  I really like the blades on this one despite their need for a stronger wind to get started.  They’re smooth and very quiet in comparison.

[MattM]

When I looked it uo, Adrian, this came up:

The blades look like oars.

The same search results brought up something even uglier for blades:

[Adriaan Kragten]

The one we have tested was the 6-bladed one of the upper photo. The rotor turns behind the tower and the blades make a certain angle backwards. This makes that the rotor works also as a vane and no extra vane is needed. There is a small crank mechanism in the aluminium housing and a small piston pump with a very small stroke is moving at the bottom of the tower pipe. This windmill has no safety system and at high wind speeds, it turns rather fast. This windmill is meant for pumping drinking water of cattle if the water level is only some meters below the earth surface.

[makenzie71]

886 WATTS

https://youtu.be/VKq2039oDrA

Of course it took unreasonable wind to get that wattage but today it's making 350~425 in 25mph wind.

I keep asking the seller if he'll get more of these things and he keeps just saying they're out of stock :/

[makenzie71]

How quiet it is

https://youtu.be/-PzCqV-SyMk

[makenzie71]

I needed to make room for another turbine so my original 400w Chinese Air X clone had to come down after exactly one year.  Most of it looks just like it did going up.  I've been really happy with this turbine and the way it's performed, but I got it for $90 haha.  When I went to get more, though, the guy said "sold out" and while I think I found the same turbine from another eBay vendor it's much more expensive from them...which makes it not worth investing in. 

https://youtu.be/I3i3MOp7Mqk