wouldn't the output of the wind gen go to a voltage regulator to keep from
over charging the batteries?


"Rosalie B." wrote in message
...
"just me" wrote:

I'm going to buy a wind generator at the Annapolis boat show. Leaning
hard
towards an Air-X

Any thoughts? pros/cons? Who's using what?

Some people prefer solar panels, and we like them too, but we also
have a wind generator. It is true that the wind generator makes noise
and won't work when there's no wind, but the solar panels don't work
at night. So if you are in a place with a lot of sun (like the
tropics) and not too much wind, you get solar panels. If you are in a
cloudy rainy place where it is dark a lot (like in the north in the
winter), then a wind generator will help. Both of them increase
windage depending on how you have them mounted.

If we are at anchor or on a mooring and are going to be there for some
time, we have two extra solar panels to mount on the foredeck. We
also have two aft on the radar arch and dinghy davits. The wind
generator is on the other side of the radar arch. I don't think it
makes much if any more noise than the wind does (wind is very noisy),
and most of the noise and vibration are transmitted through the deck
to the aft cabin where we sleep. If we are at anchor somewhere and
the wind picks up during the night, we have an audible cue.

We have an Air Marine 403 and we have to shut if off because it will
overcharge the batteries - 20 knots will put in 10 amps, so if we have
20 knot winds (or over) for a long time (like a day or more) and
we are also running the engine to run the refrigeration twice a day,
and we also have the solar panels beaming their energy into the boat,
eventually we have to shut down the windgen. I guess we just don't
use that much power. In any case, we have the solar panels set to run
fans if the batteries are topped up, and when the fan noise gets
annoying, we shut off the wind gen.

We also have to shut it off if we are motoring as it makes the
alternator crazy, and if we are sailing, the sails take most of the
wind (as they should).