Question about the midnite classic charge controllers...

[makenzie71]

My Heli is a 48v turbine, but one of the things I'm struggling with right now is dropping that 48v to a 24v bank (all of my load is on the 24v bank).  This is going to be a problem that nickel and dimes my budget out from under me so I'm considering ditching the bandaid methods and looking at a proper charge controller.  Can the Midnight controllers handle running a 48v turbine on a 24v battery bank?

[kitestrings]

Hi mak,

I'm by no means an expert, but we've used two Classics for a several years now (on wind).  The beauty with them is that you put in the power curve of the turbine and they attempt to follow it, given the limitations of the wind available.  In our case we have a 48V bank, but the turbine runs from cut-in at about 58-60V up to 120-140V, so it is taking a higher, variable input voltage and bucking it down to a palatable level for the the batteries.  I don't know without researching what the range is - could we drop to a 24V bank; I'm not sure.

You might ask the same question here to be sure.  The thing I'd give MS highest marks on overall is their support:

http://midniteftp.com/forum/index.php?PHPSESSID=b4c4b58582740d9d6c27aa7b1bed4c5e&board=2.0

Best, ~ks

[Adriaan Kragten]

May be it is possible to modify the existing winding of the generator such that it supplies the double current at half the voltage. This is only possible if the generator has an even number of coils per phase which are all connected in series. Assume that it has six coils per phase. These six coils are divided into two strings of three coils and these two strings are connected in parallel. Such a modified winding is shown in figure 2 of my public report KD 341

[bigrockcandymountain]

Yes, you can use the classic for your application.  They are excellent.  Get the 150v model.  It will put out like 90 amps so 2kw or so in 24v.  It can peak higher, that is a continuous rating. 

Your heli might even make more power by letting the voltage run up a bit higher. 

You'll also like the aux output terminals.  There are 2 and you can program them to do lots of cool things, dump loads etc.  Actually, with one classic, you can run almost unlimited watts.  Just direct connect to the batteries all the other turbines and use solid state relays and dump loads controlled by the aux terminals. 

One thing though is they expect you have a clipper for wind.  The classic will just let the turbine freewheel when the batteries are charged without some kind of clipper. 

[kitestrings]

Right.  You can also make your own clipper, and control it off Aux2.  Aux2 is a PWM output, and you can set a high voltage limit (PV V on high) that will keep the turbine loaded when this happens.  This is what we did and it works quite well, but it does tie up one set of contacts, and you'll easily  find more potential uses than the two available.

[margusten]

Hi mak,

I have brilliant idea.
Heli is 48V, You need to connect it to 48V battery bank.
You can divide Your bank to 2 24V batteries.
You need 2 1000W identical inverters to connect to 24 banks.
That's it.
I see You understand that these inverters not working with 48V battery.

BR,

Margus

[makenzie71]

Midnite took a look at my channel and made me a killer offer for two Classic 150's...anyone wanna donate $700 to my channel   Gonna be going lunchless for a few weeks and selling scraps to get'em, but man they'd cure a LOT of my problems!

[Scruff]

They're asking you to pay to advertise for them? Er....

[makenzie71]

Well there was no contingency on the offer that I talk them up...it was more of "your channel looks neat, here's a discount"

At the end of the day, though, I need the controllers and I have a limited budget...kinda gotta take what you can get sometimes haha

[Scruff]

Fair enough...I must wander over to the channel....

I've thought about doing the youtoob thing and cashing in on the swag....I'm probably too honest, opinionated and rigorous to entice the big manufacturers. Besides I notice by prefered flavours don't advertise/promo like their competitors. There's probably something to that.

To my credit I reckon my probing questions, observations and discussion is the reason Sterling Power turned off the comments to their videos. 
Someone else beat me to Victron. It seems like propaganda works best when nobody answers.

[makenzie71]

I don't trust any video about a product published by the product manufacturer haha.