BoatBanter.com - Wind Gen

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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

(solar and) Wind Gen

"Gordon" wrote in message
...
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

Hi, y'all,

This question (which included discussion on solar) came up in a list I'm on
a while ago. This was my response to the poster who had reliable 15-30 knot
winds, but was very far north (little solar time in the winter, and not
great angles at any time):

Hi, Bernie, and list,

Just like in real estate, location is everything.

The angle of the sun has a significant impact on the power generation
possible from panels. If you can manually aim them all the time,
they're very good.

If you've got consistent 15-30 where you're located (most folks try to
anchor in more protected areas so that many don't get the full benefit
of wind), I highly recommend the KISS, sold in the US by
svhotwire.com, John Gambill ). In 15-30,
consistent, with it on our arch, we'd get 10-30A. The sweet spot is
about 25knots, as it picks up rapidly over 15 knots. See the output curve
on the manufacturer's site. http://www.kissenergy.com/OutputCurve.html

I can't comment on the other units you cite, not having used them. I
can say that our KISS has had no troubles, but there are commonly
available repair parts (automotive bearings and rectifier, and perhaps
other parts, too; I don't recall beyond those). They're much quieter
at those wind levels, perhaps because it's a big blade footprint
allowing slower revs, and will, unlike some we see shutting down at
15knots, keep going up to 30 before shutting down (heat protection).
You can also set the rectifier for half-output which would allow it to
operate higher, or, just use the leash to wrap it to be offset (keep
the vane from pointing it directly into the wind) and keep it running
effectively at much higher winds, as we did during Hanna.

We have a relatively high electrical usage, including three computers,
and our 370W solar, fixed (no aiming) and KISS keep us full enough to
run the microwave here (about 24* sun angle at noon). In late August,
in Charleston, we got 20A from the solar, for a frame of reference.

HTH.

L8R

Skip, on wifi in Big Majors through Staniel Cay Yacht Club

Going further, if you're sailing, both can generate power, but the wind will
do it at night. Many of the non-KISS windgens top out at 4A, hardly enough
to even think about for us. In the case of KISS, power generation doesn't
really begin until 7-8 knots, at which point it's a very steep climb on the
output curve - nearly straight line. They (others) also shut down in
anything more than about 12 knots - it's really weird (for us, anyway) to
see windgens merrily whirling and then suddenly stop for several minutes.

So, you're correct about the anchorage issue. We've never been particularly
concerned about that, especially if we're going to be in a tropical
environment; wind is good :{)) - but if there were a lot of fetch, we would,
indeed, try to get behind some breakwater geography...

HTH

L8R

Skip, ashore, doing family duty, to return to Flying Pig June 9 for routine
maintenance chores and thence back to the Bahamas

--
Morgan 461 #2
SV Flying Pig KI4MPC
See our galleries at www.justpickone.org/skip/gallery !
Follow us at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TheFlyingPigLog
and/or http://groups.google.com/group/flyingpiglog

"Believe me, my young friend, there is *nothing*-absolutely nothing-half so
much worth doing as simply messing, messing-about-in-boats; messing about in
boats-or *with* boats.
In or out of 'em, it doesn't matter. Nothing seems really to matter, that's
the charm of it.
Whether you get away, or whether you don't; whether you arrive at your
destination or whether you reach somewhere else, or whether you never get
anywhere at all, you're always busy, and you never do anything in
particular; and when you've done it there's always something else to do, and
you can do it if you like, but you'd much better not."

(solar and) Wind Gen

"Flying Pig" wrote in news:gvek64$tl$1
@news.eternal-september.org:

Skip, on wifi in Big Majors through Staniel Cay Yacht Club

I've been aboard Flying Pig for many days as it passed through
Charleston a while back.

Otherpower.com has the wind genny to match Skip and Lydia's power
hunger....(c;]

http://www.otherpower.com/20page1.html

Noise? What noise??
"It went up with no problems. So far so good. It starts to furl around
2KW output (a heavier tail would help with this). The alternator seems
to stall the blades a bit (which we expected) in higher winds. The best
output I've seen yet is just over 3KW in 'moderate winds' (we've not had
any real winds here yet) and in low winds it seems excellent. In low
winds its producing about twice the power that my 17' machine does. I
attribute that to more swept area, a higher tower, and a better tower
location. In higher winds they do about the same. The blades always turn
pretty slowly and you cannot hear them ever - you can hear the
alternator grumble though -but it's not annoying. I don't think I've
seen over 200 rpm from it yet - though I've yet to check. I'll do a bit
more testing at some point and update this page. Since putting this up
I've moved my power system and unhooked my PV solar. It seems that even
in the calm summer winds this machine is producing all the power we
need, and between the two wind turbines I have surplus."

Hell, with 3KW of power, just trash all the sails and mount it to the
top of the mainmast. Remove the diesel and install an appropriate
traction motor and transmission out of a Prius! She'll do hull speed
all the time, not just when the wind's stiff....EVEN FASTER INTO THE
WIND!

3KW'll even power Lydia's laptop!....(c;]

--
-----
Larry

If a man goes way out into the woods all alone and says something,
is it still wrong, even though no woman hears him?

On Mon, 25 May 2009 13:47:17 -0400, "Wilbur Hubbard"
wrote:

The only "job" wind generators do well is disturb the peace and quite of an
otherwise peaceful anchorage.

Some are quieter than others.

On Mon, 25 May 2009 22:05:21 -0400, Wayne.B
wrote:

On Mon, 25 May 2009 13:47:17 -0400, "Wilbur Hubbard"
wrote:

The only "job" wind generators do well is disturb the peace and quite of an
otherwise peaceful anchorage.

Some are quieter than others.

Wilbur is not one of the quiet ones.

Wilbur should sign his Donor card. He is a perfect asshole.

"Wilbur Hubbard" wrote
boats with noisy wind generators are inhabited by assholes.

So what model are you using?

On Mon, 25 May 2009 13:47:17 -0400, "Wilbur Hubbard"
wrote:

The only "job" wind generators do well is disturb the peace and quite of an
otherwise peaceful anchorage. Look around at any and all sailboats using
wind generators and you will see selfish, inconsiderate jerks who think
their energy hog habits take precedence over the peace and quite of dozens
of boaters who have sensible energy requirements.

To put it bluntly, almost without exception, boats with noisy wind
generators are inhabited by assholes.

The ironic thing is the 2MW units the local power company owns are
actually pretty quiet. Just a soft whoosh three times a second, and a
little whine from the gears. Of course, if you put one of those high
revving yacht jobs on a 200 foot mast, it might not be so loud. The
high rev classic that pumped water on my uncles place wasn't super
loud. I don't remember much noise from the actual turbine, but the rod
to the pump clanked. I had a neighbor with a Rebel [first of the
fiberglass sailboats, 16 ft, 700 lbs.], and the halyard beat on the
mast day after day, year after year. Nobody cared.

Casady

Casady

On May 26, 10:18*am, Richard Casady
wrote:
On Mon, 25 May 2009 13:47:17 -0400, "Wilbur Hubbard"

wrote:
The only "job" wind generators do well is disturb the peace and quite of an
otherwise peaceful anchorage. Look around at any and all sailboats using
wind generators and you will see selfish, inconsiderate jerks who think
their energy hog habits take precedence over the peace and quite of dozens
of boaters who have sensible energy requirements.

.. I had a neighbor with a Rebel [first of the
fiberglass sailboats, 16 ft, 700 lbs.], and the halyard beat on the
mast day after day, year after year. Nobody cared.

We have a few wind gens here in the marina and they have never made
any annoying noise until the winds hit 110-120 in gusts. Then they
sounded like an indy car at full rev's until it came apart. Being it
was upwind I had a few seconds warning to expect a strong gust. A few
days later I found the field winding to it about 300 yards upwind from
the boat.

I love the sound of a marina full of lanyard slapping sailboats,
better than wind chimes... it drives the power boaters mad ;0)

Joe

Casady

Casady