Pwm is maybe going to work, but then your turbine will only really see battery voltage, so 15v. Think of it the same as direct connecting to the batteries.
Of you are thinking, man this is a crapshoot trying to pick a controller, you are right. There are very few true wind controllers on the market.
I still recommend ts45 tristar controlling a dump load and the inputs direct connected to the battery. It may cost a bit more, but if your goal is 10 kwh per day you are going to need to put some decent controls on this thing.
I just had the best wind day ever and logged 20 kwh.
Yeah I think you and Scruff might be right. When I was up all night reading about different methods of charging batteries, this is almost exactly what I came up to build. I can tell you this much a google search says it is $185 on Amazon and that is not bad. I can not build something like it for that price.
Lack of controllers is why I decided to just take one step at a time and keep it simple. Because I have no idea how this thing is going to perform. BUT hooking it up like you guys suggest, it does not matter how it performs. I could put out 18v or 50v and it won't matter. Then I can use a voltage sensing relay and make a clipper circuit as an over speed control device for when the wind blows a little to hard for my liking. Not that the tristar is going to care, but that I do not want damage to be done to the mill, in the event we get 50 mph winds.
According to your wiring diagram, maybe I should also have said voltage sensing relay control something that disconnects in an under voltage situation?
? Say I have a 12v bank and hardly no wind or 9v worth of wind, wouldn't I be better off disconnecting the battery from the mill at that point?? If I am worried that it will free spin, well yes it will, but only until it gets back up to a set charging voltage again, then it switches back to being connected to the battery. How does that sound??
Edit. The trstar does shut off at 9v. But it might be nice to add a circuit like I said to disconnect the battery from the mill at a certain voltage as well. Say at 21v if you are running a 24v bank. No sense wasting anything charging the wire to the mill and the coils in a low voltage output situation. Because if the mill is putting out 16v, the tristar will power up at that voltage (powers up at 9v), but it is not going to charge a 24v bank.
I suppose one could make it so it just shorts the 3 phases and stops the whole thing, but that is a ton of wasted energy if your rig likes 15mph wind and the wind is blowing at 25mph. You can't stop it in an under voltage situation, because then it would not know when to start again and reconnect to the battery.
Yeah I think so.
Since my mill is wound with #14 and I am really only looking to put out 20 amps, I think a couple of 30 amp relays and a voltage sensing relay could be had for pretty cheap. Then I just need to pick my resistors for the clipper circuit. That would need to be decided on an individual build bases. On mine, I would probably only want to clip 1/3 of it's capabilities before total shut down, because it is a vawt and over speed on a vawt is rarely a problem. If anything most do not spin fast enough for the design of the generator.