Wind turbine

I'm just so curious...has anyone used one of these wind turbines?
Check this out at Amazon

Yaegarden 400W Wind Turbine Wind Power Generator Kit DC 24V Wind Generator 3 Blades with Controller https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07XMDZGH...abc_B6QH7ZASWNC9ZGRQH63N?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

you know, as a newbie to this Forum, I was going to asked the same question. just haven't gotten around to it.. But I believe the answer is probably very few.. For them to be portable for a situation like ours, I don't believe they are efficient enough...

then again I could be completely wrong also..

Quick rundown on wind turbines,

wind turbines need to be mounted as high as possible think 20ft+
the pole needs to be super strong
wind turbines like to have the wind in a certain window for example 10-40mph below 10 or above 40 they don't work. Note i used those numbers as an example the numbers might be more or might be less depending on the turbine.
having the actual perfect wind is rare
In very high wind the turbine needs to be brought down to earth unless the blades can be feathered.
wind turbines make noise some people find the noise very annoying. In fact there have been law suites over the noise.

So the big questions are do you want to deal with putting them up and taking them down. Dealing with a heavy bulking pole and dealing with the noise? All for a very intermittent power source.

Jimindenver did a review on one hopefully he will chime in here.

Highdesertranger

Ok I do believe that answered my question. Lol thanks, one more thing I don't need to think about.

They seem to be useful if all or most of the conditions above are met and if you can or want to leave them up for extended periods.

There is one group of nomads who seem to have have adopted them into their lifestyle and don't find it inconvenient moving the windmill from one location to another.  Those people have the windmill fastened to the top of the mast on their sailboat.

MG

"Those people have the windmill fastened to the top of the mast on their sailboat."

hahahaha yep that will work.

Highdesertranger

The 400 watt wind turbine that I have requires 23.5 MPH wind speeds to produce 400 watts. It is rarely at high enough wind speeds to do any good and not worth the effort to carry it and the mast. Add in the effort to put up and take down every few weeks and it becomes a real hassle for very little power.

Thanks Jim. Pretty much what I understood. Highdesertranger

get a 1600 watt seven blade that will produce SOMETHING at lower wind speeds.

I saw a "Mad Scientist" video yesterday on YouTube where a set of three helix wind vanes turned a brushless permanent magnet generator much like an ebike motor laying on it's side each producing 450 watts each with 2 solar panels above to run a hydro pump for a garden. It was mounted permanently and made to solve the cloudy windy day/sunny day charging problem. Has anybody tried something like that. His argument was traditional directional wind mills took too long and required too much wind energy to start generation and that these would spin in 2 MPH wind I believe.

Yeah, but you can always mount that thing on the roof, then drive around...BINGO !!!!......400watts !

^^^ Might be a good way to power a cooler on an ice cream truck! Lol!!!

MGfromBC said:

Those people have the windmill fastened to the top of the mast on their sailboat.

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However, when sailing with the wind, you get closer and closer to the speed of the wind, which means the wind through the turbine gets closer to zero. That becomes less of a problem when tacking, though.

The sailboat's mast-mounted wind turbine might provide useful amounts of power while the vessel is at anchor.

Wind turbines need to be installed very high, and then they only work when there is strong wind, but not TOO strong,
in which case I would have to worry that it will fall apart and will hit me in the head.

I will let Al Gore handle it.

I thought of mast mounting a wind turbine when I lived on a sail boat for a year. But I didnt have the $$.

I'd love to one day have another cal 26 and mount about 2kw of solar panels and a wind turbine up there. Forget the sails and just use 12v trolling motors. XD

I did use a 12v trolling motor once when I had the sailboat. And old one from the 60s that I repaired off of ebay. It moved the boat way faster than I thought it would have. But I didnt go far cuz I didnt have much battery backup. Haha. Didnt wanna get stranded. The mast wasn't connected then cuz i bought it with hurricane damage as is.

I have seen them mounted low on sailboats and also have seen them low on RVs. On the sail boat on a pole on the push pit about the height of the boom. On thé RV it had a pole that folded up to about 4 or five feet above the roof, when driving it sat just above the bumper when folded down. I don’t know how well they worked or how much they charged but they have been around for many years now so I would think that with some research you could find out if somebody makes one that would work. I could easily have a pole at the back of my kurbmaster that could be 15 to 20 feet high off the ground. I have wondered how they would work, it would be pretty easy to raise and lower a pole like this. If you could remove the unit and store it inside when not in use. The question is do they make a small enough unit that can generate a reasonable amount of power, because on cold rainy days when your solar is not keeping up it would be a nice alternative. I think it is an interesting idea, the cost of such a unit may be the only hold out.

I saw a multi directional helix set up on a off grid hydroponics set up that used a 450 watt generator made with permanent magnets sort of like a brushless electric bike wheel turned on it's side. he had a set of three with three solar panels mounted above them to run the pumps explaining that most times when the sun wasn't shinning the wind was blowing at least 2 MPH which was the threshold for his generators.

It is not very enjoyable to camp in wind strong enough to generate much in the way of power. So the best places to go for wind energy are pretty much places you would hope to avoid when camping. Especially if you have a tall vehicle and don't want your paint job grit blasted.

jimindenver said:

get a 1600 watt seven blade that will produce SOMETHING at lower wind speeds.

Click to expand...

I watched the video just now where you and Bob were discussing your experiment and mentioned this.  I'm curious, what is the difference between the 400 watt one and a 1600 watt one that a higher watt windmill can produce power at lower speeds?

I'm sure there's some kind of physics here I don't understand. lol