They won't. The simple fact that solar has no moving parts and is constant will mean for a small scale project solar is always going to be better. If you have megawatt level turbines wind makes sense, but for diy? The fact it has moving parts alone makes it worse than solar.
The only way it would make sense is if you live in a place that gets a constant wind (Mountain pass, etc) and have incredibly low power requirements (sub-300 watts) at any given time. Dollar for dollar I just don't see the use case over buying off-the-shelf panels and wiring them to a car battery for power over night.
>more consistent.
depends on where you live >generate more power
very rarely gets over 2/3rds of max power >cheaper
unlikely, depends on the application
>works 12+ hours a day nearly every single day with no maintenance other than a hosing off now and then
I'd prefer periods of downtime with predictable frequency and length over completely random and unpredictable periods of downtime.
well for some of us being able to generate even inconsistently in the night or in snow days is importan as i wont be there every day
I only ask it to generate a little more power per day, or even per three days, than what my refrigerator and chest fridge consumes, not to be my main source of power, it will be my backup and maybe help the batteries stay more stable in time.
i also think that people should start insulating and lowering their power consumption instead of putting kw of power generation, i see this a ton
https://i.imgur.com/2thsqo9.jpg
Anyone with experience?
op what i seen most designs need to spin too fast for the generator to produce something useful, so i was thinking in using a bicycle transmission to gear it properly, and even use the gear change with a servo or something to be able to adapt it to the wind conditions
I've legit wanted to find some land where I can set up a hydro power setup. To me that's the perfect setup for off-grid living IF you have the setup for it.
It is and by far the cheapest when it comes to dollar to watts. No need to get fancy. Don't let perfect be the enemy of good. A simple 10/12SI alternator with an external regulator and rectifier will last a long time and is fairly straight forward. 24 volts is doable without a lot of money. It also helps with wire runs.
Should be able to do 40 amps max. Some models may list more but the 10si frame is designed around 40 amps continuous. A simple low cost inverter designed around this size and a slightly smaller charger power supply, like an IOTA would help with transmission distance. You could even use a car battery for the hydro since its always going to be topped off. Somewhat inefficient but simple, replaceable and rebuildable with off the shelf parts. Thats a max of about 1000 watts. After losses...Probably 700. Sizing the power supply is the trick, you want it to be a little smaller so you don't discharge the battery.
Golf carts could also be used, giving you a bit of storage room and would let you use a full sized charger. Might occasionally outpace the alternator though.
Other methods involve MPPT controllers and three phase PMA generators. Not off the shelf but a lot more efficient. If your battery bank is not that far away you could just run thick wires to the bank.
Because its expensive as frick and proprietary. good luck fixing it if they go out of business or you can no longer buy parts online.
Also I've seen cheaper turn key like home hydro.
I'd rather have something i can fix and you can get rebuild kits for a 10SI alternator literally at any auto parts store. Not as efficient as a PMA like you listed but efficiency is not everything, especially if you have enough water to offset that.
Back in the day a lot of people who lived/cruised on sailboats made wind generators out of surplus DC computer tape drive motors...they were OK for minimal needs like lighting, radios, etc. but once solar came along most people ditched them.
Biggest drawbacks were maintenance related, you do NOT want to be around one that comes apart, and they need quick attention in high winds to be safe, before thecwinds get too high. They are also noisy AF, they may not seem bad at first but over time they get annoying, especially if attached to a structure you're in.
On a sailboat at anchor you could run one up a mast on a halyard and have reasonably undisturbed air flow, but in an urban area with buildings or trees around you may also need to install a tower or mast to get clean enough wind to make it worth the trouble.
There's vertical axis ones that are safer and better in flukey winds, but they are the least efficient.
These are all big reasons why you don't see them at small scale in residential areas.
I'd just like to interject for a moment. What you're referring to as wind turbines, is in fact, GNU/wind turbines, or as I've recently taken to calling it, GNU plus wind turbines.
Wind turbines weren't even worth it when solar was 10x more expensive than today. People fall into the trap of seeing commercial kits rated 1000W or 2000W, then either buying said kits while doing the numbers on 500-1000W real world performance, or figuring that they can PrepHole a turbine of similar size (and those are already really big turbines, 2-3m diameter) on the cheap, and only in the last step figuring out that in regular winds, you're producing maybe 50W, 100W at best. VAWT is slightly better in efficiency, but still utterly terrible compared to solar.
Nowadays you can PrepHole solar at such a low cost that wind is only potentially relevant if you literally live on the poles with months of total darkness. Even then, it's arguable if a diesel generator isn't going to be cheaper.
They have some serious design issues that male them difficult to integrate properly into a off grid system. Most commercially available wind turbines are also tiny and worthless. You don't start hitting reliable and useful watts until the diameter is at least 10 ft of swept area. I consider 10 MPH to be the most important wind speed. Most wind turbines are rated at 25 MPH. 99% of the time unless you live in a high wind zone, 10 MPH is wat you can expect on a breezy day. You may get more but 10 MPH happens the most often. That means you need a larger diameter wind turbine.
Old water mill style turbines are actually great at producing power reliably. The efficiency is extremely high at sub 20 MPH winds. They get passed over a lot for a couple of reasons, one is your RPMS drop as you add more blades but you add torque. Overall power increases but with diminishing returns. A lot of people will get turned off when they LOSE power by adding to many blades. Its because the rpm drops but the PMA they use has a fixed torque requirement. You would need to rewire the PMA with thicker wire or stronger magnets to take advantage of the extra power. The other downside is above 20 MPH it basically wind walls and drops off. Three blades is great for grid power where you can dump all the watts you make all the time but with a battery, consistency is king. You want 200-500 watts or more all the time, every time it breezes. Keeping those batteries topped off. Availability of power is more important than peak output, especially coupled with solar.
All in all its only for the dedicated off gridder who wants more and you need the land and cleared space. A large farm would definitely benefit.
Some of the integration issues though cost money to fix. First of all you will NOT hook up a wind turbine to lithium batteries. The chance of over charge is to great and they can damage the BMS over time with pulsed and dirty DC output. I will continue in another post. Enjoy my book gays.
So MPPT is needed. This also helps with long wire runs. The other method involves a dump load. You hook up the wind turbine directly to the batteries and when it hits X voltage a relay closes and starts burning off powering a heating element. These are generally cheap but the low voltage of the wire, which is set at your battery voltage means lots of amps and thick wires so expensive if your batteries are more than 50 ft away. I only consider this practical at 48 volts. 24 is a stretch.
MPPT controllers require a voltage sensing brake to keep them from getting fried. Lets say you have wind storm and the batteries enter float, you now have no load keeping the rpm down. The wind turbine will free wheel and the voltage will spike. Potentially damaging the controller. Midnite classic is the only MPPT i know of that supports wind directly and hydro. They sell a clipper but its fricking expensive.
Lightning is also an issue. You want that tower down in a lightning storm unless you want to replace thousands of dollars of power electronics.
I've seen a guy on youtube make his own clipper. He had a simple dump load system. First dump load went to a DC to DC charger. He would directly hook up the turbine to some cheap marine batteries. They would hit some voltage point thats full, and the relay opened activating the DC to DC charge straight to his lithium bank. If the battery bank was full the lead voltage kept climbing to the next set point and the turbine would disconnect and run to his home made clipper. Thats three resistors with a dead short. It would heat the bank of resistors directly with no involvement from the battery. Just an idea. There is a lot to it. You are unlikely to be satisfied by a chinese wind turbine, something 99% of the sellers online sell. Most of the real wind turbine manufacturers are out of business. Bergey is still around but they no longer sell small turbines. Only 10 KW models. 50-60k i think.
I've never seen a DIY wind turbine where I was comfortable with the braking system. One big microburst downdraft gust and you've got a shrapnel bomb on your roof.
solar panels will be cheaper, easier, generate more power and be more consistent.
These statements might be true now, but could change soon.
They won't. The simple fact that solar has no moving parts and is constant will mean for a small scale project solar is always going to be better. If you have megawatt level turbines wind makes sense, but for diy? The fact it has moving parts alone makes it worse than solar.
The only way it would make sense is if you live in a place that gets a constant wind (Mountain pass, etc) and have incredibly low power requirements (sub-300 watts) at any given time. Dollar for dollar I just don't see the use case over buying off-the-shelf panels and wiring them to a car battery for power over night.
This man has never needed water pumped.into a cistern.
>doesn't work at night
>works 12+ hours a day nearly every single day with no maintenance other than a hosing off now and then
I'd prefer periods of downtime with predictable frequency and length over completely random and unpredictable periods of downtime.
>more consistent.
depends on where you live
>generate more power
very rarely gets over 2/3rds of max power
>cheaper
unlikely, depends on the application
Solar is far more scalable for small operations.
I am interested too
well for some of us being able to generate even inconsistently in the night or in snow days is importan as i wont be there every day
I only ask it to generate a little more power per day, or even per three days, than what my refrigerator and chest fridge consumes, not to be my main source of power, it will be my backup and maybe help the batteries stay more stable in time.
i also think that people should start insulating and lowering their power consumption instead of putting kw of power generation, i see this a ton
op what i seen most designs need to spin too fast for the generator to produce something useful, so i was thinking in using a bicycle transmission to gear it properly, and even use the gear change with a servo or something to be able to adapt it to the wind conditions
Yeah but they can be seen from the sky. You can hide a wind turbine under a tree.
I've legit wanted to find some land where I can set up a hydro power setup. To me that's the perfect setup for off-grid living IF you have the setup for it.
It is and by far the cheapest when it comes to dollar to watts. No need to get fancy. Don't let perfect be the enemy of good. A simple 10/12SI alternator with an external regulator and rectifier will last a long time and is fairly straight forward. 24 volts is doable without a lot of money. It also helps with wire runs.
Should be able to do 40 amps max. Some models may list more but the 10si frame is designed around 40 amps continuous. A simple low cost inverter designed around this size and a slightly smaller charger power supply, like an IOTA would help with transmission distance. You could even use a car battery for the hydro since its always going to be topped off. Somewhat inefficient but simple, replaceable and rebuildable with off the shelf parts. Thats a max of about 1000 watts. After losses...Probably 700. Sizing the power supply is the trick, you want it to be a little smaller so you don't discharge the battery.
Golf carts could also be used, giving you a bit of storage room and would let you use a full sized charger. Might occasionally outpace the alternator though.
Other methods involve MPPT controllers and three phase PMA generators. Not off the shelf but a lot more efficient. If your battery bank is not that far away you could just run thick wires to the bank.
why not just use a powerspout?
https://www.powerspout.com/
Because its expensive as frick and proprietary. good luck fixing it if they go out of business or you can no longer buy parts online.
Also I've seen cheaper turn key like home hydro.
I'd rather have something i can fix and you can get rebuild kits for a 10SI alternator literally at any auto parts store. Not as efficient as a PMA like you listed but efficiency is not everything, especially if you have enough water to offset that.
using it as a water pump is the only non-meme use I can think of
You know they make solar powered livestock wells now right?
solar water pumps are prety established tech but why not use both for redundancy?
If they were worth a frick
Every roof would have one
Back in the day a lot of people who lived/cruised on sailboats made wind generators out of surplus DC computer tape drive motors...they were OK for minimal needs like lighting, radios, etc. but once solar came along most people ditched them.
Biggest drawbacks were maintenance related, you do NOT want to be around one that comes apart, and they need quick attention in high winds to be safe, before thecwinds get too high. They are also noisy AF, they may not seem bad at first but over time they get annoying, especially if attached to a structure you're in.
On a sailboat at anchor you could run one up a mast on a halyard and have reasonably undisturbed air flow, but in an urban area with buildings or trees around you may also need to install a tower or mast to get clean enough wind to make it worth the trouble.
There's vertical axis ones that are safer and better in flukey winds, but they are the least efficient.
These are all big reasons why you don't see them at small scale in residential areas.
Great information, anon, ty!
RMS will explain it better than anyone here can
What does Richard Stallman have to do with wind turbines?
I'd just like to interject for a moment. What you're referring to as wind turbines, is in fact, GNU/wind turbines, or as I've recently taken to calling it, GNU plus wind turbines.
if you live anywhere that actually has strong wind that shits gonna get beat to frick
Just saw 5kWp half cut mono set for 1200 eurobucks. Yes, it's chinese. Yes, it can take snow loads.
Definitely worth it now.
>Definitely worth it now.
What is your personal experience with that units quality and longevity? How many have you personally installed and maintained?
Wind turbines weren't even worth it when solar was 10x more expensive than today. People fall into the trap of seeing commercial kits rated 1000W or 2000W, then either buying said kits while doing the numbers on 500-1000W real world performance, or figuring that they can PrepHole a turbine of similar size (and those are already really big turbines, 2-3m diameter) on the cheap, and only in the last step figuring out that in regular winds, you're producing maybe 50W, 100W at best. VAWT is slightly better in efficiency, but still utterly terrible compared to solar.
Nowadays you can PrepHole solar at such a low cost that wind is only potentially relevant if you literally live on the poles with months of total darkness. Even then, it's arguable if a diesel generator isn't going to be cheaper.
don't get duped, those little turbines cannot make 1500watts
at good efficiency, you would need a drag turbine the size of a house to get any power
0.12 x 10 meters tall x 10 meters wide x 5ms (average wind speed in most places) = 1500 watts
what about triboelectric turbines that exploit friction between certain materials?
They have some serious design issues that male them difficult to integrate properly into a off grid system. Most commercially available wind turbines are also tiny and worthless. You don't start hitting reliable and useful watts until the diameter is at least 10 ft of swept area. I consider 10 MPH to be the most important wind speed. Most wind turbines are rated at 25 MPH. 99% of the time unless you live in a high wind zone, 10 MPH is wat you can expect on a breezy day. You may get more but 10 MPH happens the most often. That means you need a larger diameter wind turbine.
Old water mill style turbines are actually great at producing power reliably. The efficiency is extremely high at sub 20 MPH winds. They get passed over a lot for a couple of reasons, one is your RPMS drop as you add more blades but you add torque. Overall power increases but with diminishing returns. A lot of people will get turned off when they LOSE power by adding to many blades. Its because the rpm drops but the PMA they use has a fixed torque requirement. You would need to rewire the PMA with thicker wire or stronger magnets to take advantage of the extra power. The other downside is above 20 MPH it basically wind walls and drops off. Three blades is great for grid power where you can dump all the watts you make all the time but with a battery, consistency is king. You want 200-500 watts or more all the time, every time it breezes. Keeping those batteries topped off. Availability of power is more important than peak output, especially coupled with solar.
All in all its only for the dedicated off gridder who wants more and you need the land and cleared space. A large farm would definitely benefit.
Some of the integration issues though cost money to fix. First of all you will NOT hook up a wind turbine to lithium batteries. The chance of over charge is to great and they can damage the BMS over time with pulsed and dirty DC output. I will continue in another post. Enjoy my book gays.
So MPPT is needed. This also helps with long wire runs. The other method involves a dump load. You hook up the wind turbine directly to the batteries and when it hits X voltage a relay closes and starts burning off powering a heating element. These are generally cheap but the low voltage of the wire, which is set at your battery voltage means lots of amps and thick wires so expensive if your batteries are more than 50 ft away. I only consider this practical at 48 volts. 24 is a stretch.
MPPT controllers require a voltage sensing brake to keep them from getting fried. Lets say you have wind storm and the batteries enter float, you now have no load keeping the rpm down. The wind turbine will free wheel and the voltage will spike. Potentially damaging the controller. Midnite classic is the only MPPT i know of that supports wind directly and hydro. They sell a clipper but its fricking expensive.
Lightning is also an issue. You want that tower down in a lightning storm unless you want to replace thousands of dollars of power electronics.
I've seen a guy on youtube make his own clipper. He had a simple dump load system. First dump load went to a DC to DC charger. He would directly hook up the turbine to some cheap marine batteries. They would hit some voltage point thats full, and the relay opened activating the DC to DC charge straight to his lithium bank. If the battery bank was full the lead voltage kept climbing to the next set point and the turbine would disconnect and run to his home made clipper. Thats three resistors with a dead short. It would heat the bank of resistors directly with no involvement from the battery. Just an idea. There is a lot to it. You are unlikely to be satisfied by a chinese wind turbine, something 99% of the sellers online sell. Most of the real wind turbine manufacturers are out of business. Bergey is still around but they no longer sell small turbines. Only 10 KW models. 50-60k i think.
I've never seen a DIY wind turbine where I was comfortable with the braking system. One big microburst downdraft gust and you've got a shrapnel bomb on your roof.
there are many designs that use bike wheels as the axis, so you could use their brakes
there are types with an enclosed ring I forget the specific name they're supposedly a little quieter but you don't get quite as much energy
great if you live in Louisiana, otherwise it's mostly limited to lighting applications so you can see at night.