To my knowledge, no one has been able to produce enough power with any similar device to power your RV.
So, I would look at some proven alternative technology like solar panels and batteries.
To my knowledge, no one has been able to produce enough power with any similar device to power your RV.
So, I would look at some proven alternative technology like solar panels and batteries.
I did some rough number crunching based on your 6 feet of head and 100gpm. I came up with about 60 watts. Utilizing the waterwheel factory calculations, I came up with 96 watts on the shaft. However, the fine print will tell you to reduce that number by 1/3 to � to allow for gearing and battery losses, which would yield somewhere between 48 and 64 watts.
If your car wash design includes shutting down the water flow for breaks in customer flow (to save energy), the repeated stopping and starting of the water flow will severely impact the total quantity of power produced.
You would probably be better off to put whatever money you have set aside for the water wheel into energy conservation measures. If you have already conserved energy to the extent possible in your design, and still want to incorporate generation, I would suggest looking at putting solar on the roof.
Great info on a solar MPPT controller. Should give you enough info to design one for your use.
"My point was to illustrate what it must be like for those 840 million extremely wealthy people to be stuck on Earth with the remaining 5 billion or so people. They are terribly out numbered."
Sunour, I think you are being a little to subtle. I am not sure that most americans realize that they are in "those 840 million extremely wealthy people". The entire population of the US is about 230 million, so that would leave 610 million other extremely wealthy people in the world. Americans that are living near poverty are "rich" on a purely economic standard of comparision. Arguing quality of life, is a different matter.
So, for everyone else, do you feel extremely rich and/or outnumbered ?
In re-reading my own post, the first line sounds like I may have been recomending solder over compression. Although I may actually lean that way, I was simply answering the original question. It would have been helpful if I had made that more clear.
The clarification of full compression vs crimp was provided primarily for those people that do not understand the difference, not "to correct you". I was about 95% certain of what you meant. And I am sure that you will catch me in a similar mistake of using shorthand when I should not, if you haven't already.
I think that we both agree that a good full compression connection is better than a poor job of soldering and a good job of soldering is better than a poor compression connection. Either connection will perform well, if properly made.
The only point that I would debate with you (and I do mean debate or discuss, not argue) is the one over solder being more likely to fail when it gets hot.
In my experiance, if your connection gets that hot, it is going to give you trouble sooner or later, regardless of what type of connection you have. While the compression connection may seem more mechanically sound (especially after it cools off) the damage that will lead to electrical failure is done and and it will eventually show up. The same thing can be said about the soldered connection if it happens to cool and "resolder itself". Mechanically it may be sound, but it will eventually become an electrical problem.
It is a pay me now or pay me later situation.
If your cable and connector are adequately sized for the intended use, there is no danger of overheating the connection except in a shorted condition. Even then your breakers of fuses should eliminte the short before it becomes a problem.
If you do decide to use comression lugs, make sure that you use a full compression lug and die, which is what I believe Sunour is refering to. Partial compression (which is what I think of when I hear the word crimp) is a connection looking to cause trouble.
However, once you have identified which specific percussion drill rig you want to use (and how deep you think you will be driving the well) and an approximate size and height for your windmill, ask your question again. With some idea of the expected loads and direction of load, I might have a different opinion.
If you want to synchronize so that the generators excess power flows into the grid (and you get paid for it), you had better call your utility and check with them. The interconnection requirements vary between utilities, and the rules for a emergency or standby generator interconnection are often different than the requirements for an alternative energy installation.
Vertical machines have their uses, you just keep making totally unrealistic claims for yours. It takes a certain amount of twisting force to turn a generator to produce 1000 watts. (by the way 1000 watts for 1 hour is one kwh)
There is no way you produce 1000 watts in a 10 mph wind with that small of a turbine. It simply violates the laws of physics.
You do not get my point, I do not object to your machine. Sold by honest people and priced right, it would be useful.
But you show every sign of being dishonest. And it is overpriced for what it delivers.
And every time somebody makes that point, you just increase the numbers.
Note that William did not respond to your question directly. He now says that they have improved their figures at 10mph. Not by 10 or 20 or even 30 percent, but by 854 percent.
Take the time to examine the wind machines made by reputable companies. You will see that with 3 bladed propellers 23-25 feet in diameter, they cannot generate 1000 watts with a 10 mph wind speed. And William wants us to believe that one of his engineers has figured out a way to do it with a turbine that measures 16 inches in diameter by 27 inches tall.
What a snake oil salesman.
The disturbing thing is that despite his �no false promises� statement, I find his statements to be mis-leading at best, and in some cases outright falsehoods.
A 3 kw machine, at a 50+ mph wind speed. At 30 mph, it is more comparable to a 1 kw machine. In fact, at 15, 20, and 25 mph, the Bergey XL1 will out perform his machine.
He claims that his machine is capable of 4,000 kwh per MONTH. (Not only in his statement here, but it is repeated multiple times on his website.) It is not. A 3kw machine has a theoretical gross output of 2,160kwh a month. 3kw x 24hours x 30days.
In reality, this machine would not obtain 4,000 kwh per YEAR at most wind sites in the US. 1,500-2,500 kwh per YEAR (depending on your site) would be a much more reasonable expectation.
Unless he is including a lot of extras with his machine (which you cannot determine from his website), it is overpriced (in my opinion) for what it will produce.
Caveat Emptor
All of the transformers that I am aware of, will produce 220 single phase (european power). Connecting an american 220 device to a single phase 220 transformer will either smoke the device, or smoke the transformer.
Sorry if my verbal shorthand was misleading.
But, back to the solar question.
You did your calculations for 120 volts when you needed to be on the 12V side.
To produce 79 watts on the 120V side, you are going to be pulling about 90 watts on the 12V side, depending on the specs for your inverter. 90watts/12v=7.5 amps.
So, your 18AH battery will last about 2 hours. You would also be exceeding the 5.4 amp current. (Are you sure that is a discharge current and not a charging current limit ?) If you really need the three hours (and to help prolong the battery life), I would either go with a larger battery or wire two of the UB12180�s in parallel.
Your solar panel is way to small to support your intended usage. The 20 watt rating is a full sun rating, which is for a stationary mounted panel that is pointing south and aligned for the sun angle. In that situation, it would take about 4.5 hours to produce the 90 watts required for one hour of playstation time. Many US locations do not get 4.5 hours of full sun, for parts of the year.
In a flat mount (and mobile) situation, your panel will produce significantly less than the 20 watt rating. My guess is that you have about 1/10th of the PV power that you would need to make the system reliable.
If you already have the inverter, you could do an experiment. With the battery fully charged, hook up the inverter and play station and see how long you can run it. Next day, wire the PV panel directly to the battery and lay the panel flat in the yard. At the end of the day, hook up the inverter and play station, and see how long you can run it.
Inverters that are designed for solar applications generally have a blocking diode or equivalent circuitry in them. If you are using an automotive type inverter, you will definitely need a blocking diode to prevent discharge during non-sun hours.
If you end up linking multiple smaller panels, you should also have by-pass diodes on each panel to prevent them from affecting the systems output as individual panels are shaded or otherwise limited in output.
A stand alone inverter works under the logic that it will only accept generation for the amount of load on the system, whether that is battery charging or the house load. They will work without being plugged into the grid. If plugged in, they will only accept power from the grid to charge the batteries or carry load. They do not put power out on to the grid, under any conditions. THIS is what you have.
An intertie inverter has a different logic that says I will accept all of the generation available, and put the excess at a higher potential than the grid, so that it will flow outward.
So, to do what you want, you need a new inverter. (Make sure it is an intertie with batteries, some intertie inverters are designed to function W/O batteries and have no provision for them)
Your other choice is to install what you have, and forget the intertie until you see how much excess you actually have. Since you have frequent grid outages, I doubt that you will have much (if any) excess.
"A dump load would only run when the batteries were charged and there wasn't sufficient load to use all the power that is being enerated..correct? "
Partially correct. A dump load is not designed "to use all of the power" that could be generated. It is designed to put a base load on the wind turbine when the inverter is not accepting enough power from the wind turbine (medium-high winds and low electrical load). This prevents the wind turbine from going into a "no load" condition and overspeeding.
As such, it should be wired in so that it dumps excess generation from the wind turbine, not the solar panels.
If you do decide to go with the intertie system, you need to check with the local utility on their requirements for an intertie. Although most utilities accept running the meter backwards, some do not and require two meters, one incoming and one outgoing.
You kinda blew off the comment about AC & DC disconnects with your "code is the last thing on anyones mind" comment. Although most intertie inverters will recognize a grid outage and disconnect from the grid for the duration, some utilities will require a visible disconnect that can be physically opened and locked out by them during outages, so that they know their personnel will not be harmed by your system. DC disconnects (particularly fused disconnects or breakers), should be installed, both for your safety and convenience.
You could build a "windmill" and then utilize a v-belt drive, chain drive or other gearing to eliminate both problems. If I were to attempt it, I would take a look for a cheap source for a truck alternator or some diesel powered equipment alternator. These tend to be higher amperage output and are available in voltages higher than 12 vdc.
The other two items for consideration are parasitic load and maintenence.
Vehicle alternators utilize a small amount of electicity to energize the field. So, you are consuming some of what you generate, to generate more. So with x amount of wind and two identically sized alternators, the permanent magnet alternator will put more juice in storage.
If we assume that an alternator will last 100,000 miles without need of repair and that your average vehicle speed is 40mph, your usefull life of an alternator would be about 2500 hours. If you assume it turns 24 hours a day, the life would be just over 100 days. If you change the assumption to it only turns about 1 third of the time, it would still only last about 1 year before needing repair/replacement. How often do you want to climb (or lower) the tower ?
These two factors are the reasons that most people will recommend not using vehicle alternators in wind power applications.
Having said that, the best all around reference I have seen is "The Solar Living Resource Book" by John Schaffer & Doug Pratt. Doug gives a lot of practical tips on everything from batteries to wind turbines. It is not a "step by step how to manual". It is more of a catalog with articles and simple explainations of how the various equipment works, both as individual items and as systems. It also points out common mistakes people make. It is about $30 retail, so you might want to check out the local library and see if they have a copy, so you can read it before putting out the bucks.
If you are looking for something on wind power, try "Wind Energy Basics" by Paul Gripe.
You say they are producing it. No, they may have taken a few orders for it, but they have not delivered any of them to anyone.
The first public showing of the prototype is scheduled for August.
(By the way, the smallest machine is supposed to produce 10,000 watts, not volts)
You posted the site link and asked "what do you think ? ". Roland gave you his opinion. Then you start insulting him because he doesn't agree with you. That is no way to win an argument or settle a difference of opinion. I think that you owe him an apology.
Roland has a higher level of understanding of engineering/scientific principles than most of the people posting to these boards. I am sure that if you had asked him for clarification of his opinion, he would have provided it.
So why don't you explain to us why this device should not be considered perpetual motion ?
The other Item that you should add to the installation is a thermostatic switch with the thermostat (or sensor) mounted as high up in the roof ridge or peak as is convenient. You pick the tempurature (I like about 120 degrees). The fan will not come on until that temp is reached and will shut off when the temp falls below it. Depending on the house design and roof color, the results will very, but my fan runs about 10 minutes an hour on a 90 degree day and no more than 30 minutes an hour on a 102-105 degree day.
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