(Prior conversation left below for context, long ago)
One of my contacts, in St. Augustine, is absolutely smitten with the D400
unit. Purports to be absolutely silent (based on his observation directly,
and telling the story of two friends who'd just installed a KISS and D400,
went around some harbour listening to various of each and the one with the
KISS called his installer back and went for a 400), and happy up to 40kts,
putting out up to 500 watts.
Costs nearly double the KISS - and my anal balancing of the blade has, thus
far (through about 30 knots) had it VERY quiet.
During the last couple of weeks with the wind up in the 20s frequently, it's
also allowed us to not run our Honda eu2000i at all, and between the solar
(370w) and the KISS, not only keep our batteries at "full" but even got into
the slightly positive cumulative AH range (~30), nearly never seen other
than during equalization. This is much more the nature of our expected use,
but, of course, we've yet to make it to the EC, so we don't experience this
all the time.
It takes gusts over 30 to make our prop sound a bit like a small airplane's,
but otherwise it's a very quiet whoosh, or inaudible.
I recently had occasion to rebuild the seals and bearings recepticals
section and replace the blades; I think one of my logs detailed that, but it
suffices to say that I was VERY careful with my balancing. The effect has
been to have no tail flutter (usual with KISS) at higher winds, and, short
of going up, making sure it can't rotate, holding a sheet of paper closer
and closer so as to induce a cut by the tips, to the eye, it appears the
tips are exactly in line, something the US distributor, svhotwire.com, says
never happens. Perhaps I just got lucky, but I'd bet it's the balancing.
So, if you're experiencing more noise than you like, take the blade off and,
using your spindle which came with it (don't have one? I finally, long
after I ordered a replacement, found mine, thus I have a spare - and you
have to use it due to the taper in the hub) balance it to the degree that it
takes a full minute for the "heavy" blade to rotate down from horizontal.
Really fiddly work (I'll post my modus if you haven't done it before, if you
like), and constant unmounting (from however you're supporting the spindle),
trimming, remounting and releveling (if you do as I did and have to provide
the second spindle surface), rinse, repeat, for however long it takes. I
have no more empirical evidence than that, but I can think of no other
reason for dramatically different results this time vs the
distributor-balanced bladeset which was mounted on our unit...
So, while I investigated the D400, and its specs are impressive (I know of
no direct, side by side, controlled wind, audio measurements of noise, but
the output and tolerance for high winds are interesting), I'll stick with
the KISS for now...
L8R
Skip and crew, currently near Hopetown over WiFi, still free...
--
Morgan 461 #2
SV Flying Pig KI4MPC
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"You are never given a wish without also being given the power to
make it come true. You may have to work for it however."
(and)
"There is no such thing as a problem without a gift for you in
its hand
(Richard Bach)
"Geoff Schultz" wrote in message
.. .
Gordon wrote in news:-
:
Do wind gens do the job? If you anchor, you tend to anchor out of the
wind. To be effective, you need 10+ knots of wind. If you are motoring,
the alternator will put out a lot more than a wind gen.
Wind gens are expensive and in some cases, quite noisy.
They need to be mounted high enough to be out of the way and be able
to catch the wind which makes them more difficult to service.
It all makes one wonder.
The one good thing is they work at night when solar doesn't.
G
Personally I think that a wind generator gives you a lot more bang for
the buck than do solar panels. At least that's true in the Caribbean
when you regularly get at 15 kt trade wind. Of course if you're anchored
in a sheltered spot, it's useless.
I can't agree with Skip on the KISS generator. I've had one for many
years and there are many short-comings. Their output curve looks
impressive, but the unit can't generate sustained power above about 18-
20kts. The issue is that there are internal thermal breakers which open
when the unit gets too hot. This leads to all kinds of other issues such
as the blades free-wheeling and the "stop" switch doesn't work anymore.
If I were buying a new unit today, I'd definately look at the Superwind
350, which has feathering blades and can sustain about 30A in any wind
above 12 m/s. It's more expensive and complex, which limits on-site
repairs, so you need to balance this with your needs.
I will also say that both the KISS and the Superwind are very quiet, with
the Superwind being the quietist of all. I can't stand the Air-Marine
generators, especially the ones with the older blades. I've re-anchored
after discovering that I was behind one.
Here are a set of links regarding these generators:
http://www.naviclub.com/Test_compara...nes_marine.pdf
http://www.superwind.de/download/manual.pdf
-- Geoff
www.GeoffSchultz.org