Author Topic: 3.2 meter ferrite magnet MPPT wind turbine  (Read 61268 times)

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Offline ChrisOlson

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part 4 - it's running!
« Reply #15 on: January 15, 2012, 12:27:28 pm »
Pictures are fine.  But movies are cooler.


The gen runs so fast on this turbine that it looks like it's going backwards at slow speed in the video.  It started up at about 2.5 m/s and it takes awhile with the blades running on pure drag to get it spooled up in light wind.  When the rotor hits about 120 rpm, the airfoils start making decent lift and it comes to life.  Once it's running the heavy generator mass seems to help keep its output very smooth, without the ammeter wandering all over the scale.

The new turbine is delivering right around 1 kW @ 9 m/s (20 mph).  Seen one peak at 2,272 watts so far.  My anemometer recorded a peak gust of 11.6 m/s (26 mph) that corresponds with the 2.27 kW power peak.  It's running right around 70-75 volts @ 9 m/s and 1 kW.

The wind always stops blowing when I put up a new turbine.  But it started picking up about 10:00 this morning.  1.46 kWh so far today from it, and counting......

This turbine flat out RUNS - and the trans isn't even broke in yet.
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Chris

Offline ChrisOlson

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Re: 3.2 meter ferrite magnet MPPT wind turbine
« Reply #16 on: January 15, 2012, 02:49:12 pm »
I like the look of those blades and will be anxious to hear of their performance with the new turbine.

Dave, these 3.2 meter blades are basically useless below 120 rpm.  Once they get to 120 they start making decent lift and they accelerate VERY fast.  They got a higher Cp than the GOE222's and it really shows in the higher wind speeds.  This 3.2 meter is literally walking all over the 3.8 meter machines here today in decent wind.  It's .8 kWh ahead of the closest 3.8 meter turbine, and putting on more distance with every hour.
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Offline Dave B.

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Re: 3.2 meter ferrite magnet MPPT wind turbine
« Reply #17 on: January 15, 2012, 04:28:22 pm »
Great Chris, videos are very cool. I have always been a fan of large pitch at the root for blades, you don't see it much for home brew because of the extra work and the assumption that there is little work done on the inner 1/3 of the blade. A tapered twisted blade uses all of the blade in all wind speeds efficiently, that's why the blades look as they do. A large drop at the root is not just for start up, it pulls hard for it's own slower tip speed at any rpm for that section of the blade.

 Keep us posted, this has been a great project for others to learn from as well.  Dave B.

Offline artv

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Re: 3.2 meter ferrite magnet MPPT wind turbine
« Reply #18 on: January 15, 2012, 06:23:26 pm »
Chris;
I find your work to be, the best of the best ,excellent
I have been logged on now for about 90 minutes trying to load that link you gave about water pumping ,in the other thread ...........not gonna happen
But I'll take your word for it ....
Your lucky your not my nieghbour , I'd drive you crazy with questions :)
Thanks for your postes.....invaluable........Art V

Offline ChrisOlson

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Re: 3.2 meter ferrite magnet MPPT wind turbine
« Reply #19 on: January 15, 2012, 09:14:55 pm »
A tapered twisted blade uses all of the blade in all wind speeds efficiently, that's why the blades look as they do.

Dave, these blades have 18° pitch at the root and 1.5° at the tip.  They're an S809 airfoil, which is used on most of the commercial turbines today.  The S809 is symmetrical except for a "cusp" on the trailing edge of the wind facing side of the blade.  They like to run from 6.5-7.0 TSR, and will run quite well down to 6.0 TSR.  Below 6 their Cp drops off pretty fast and they stall very easily.

I tweaked the power curve in the Classic's graphic editor today to let the turbine run at higher voltage and 7.0 TSR instead of 6.5.  That got me another 120 watts @ 9 m/s.

This turbine is quite noisy at higher wind speeds.  It sounds like somebody whipping three 1/2" cables thru the air at high speed.  At 5-9 m/s it's not too bad.  But at 10-12 m/s it sings pretty good - the rotor is running well over 500 rpm @ 12 m/s and I got just shy of 2.9 kW from it so far, which pushed the Classic to 95 amps output.  Believe me, a 3.2 meter turbine @ 2.9 kW output is screaming like a banshee.  I'm going to tune that back a bit by "clamping" the input voltage down a bit in the Classic's graphic editor to cut it back on the top end.  But for now it's a new "toy" and I want to see what it'll do   :)

We still got good wind tonight but it's tamed down a bit from what it was earlier.  It's averaging 9-10 m/s right now and supposed to die down further tonight.  But I'm happy with it - it had a good first day's run on the tower - 10.1 kWh since 10:00 AM.

What's really cool is that I ran a permanent ethernet cable from the Classic to my home network wireless router.  I downloaded a thing off Midnite Solar's website that lets me access the Classic over my network with my laptop.  I can sit right in my easy chair and watch my turbine's performance on gauges and stuff on my laptop.  Never had anything like that before and it's cooler than hell.

Just kind of a sidenote on setting up the Classic 150 for your home computer network - when I first set it up I used DHCP but I couldn't find it on the network.  Something either mucked up in my Workgroup or whatever, and it wouldn't show up.  I gave it a static IP address and then it showed up and the Local Status Panel in my computer can find it.  Don't know what the deal is with that.  But it works.

Edit on the blade topic -
Dave, I got another set of these blades here and I measured them up this morning.  I don't know if it would be possible to carve these or not.  You'd have to use blanks that are 4" thick x 10" wide.  These blades appear to be designed so the entire length of the blade runs at the same angle of attack.

The airfoils are almost perfectly symmetrical except for about the last 1/2" of the trailing edge where there's a slight "cusp" on the wind-facing side.  This is the airfoil these blades use.  It doesn't even look like it would work, or generate any lift, but it does:


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Chris

Offline Dave B.

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Re: 3.2 meter ferrite magnet MPPT wind turbine
« Reply #20 on: January 16, 2012, 01:58:12 pm »
Chris,

Thanks for the info. on the blades, it's all a matching thing for a system as you certainly know. I like thise blades. Your Classic should help you tweak the system and it's great to hear you are monitoring now from your easy chair. I do this with mine as well and I'm sure you could go remote with it also, it is very cool stuff indeed. Keep us posted on the performance of this machine, you have many followers now over here and few if any telling you it shouldn't be done this way or that. (Cool videos)   Dave B

Offline ChrisOlson

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Re: 3.2 meter ferrite magnet MPPT wind turbine
« Reply #21 on: January 16, 2012, 02:40:01 pm »
I found a little "trick" in adjusting the power curve to make the turbine run quieter.  I cut the thing in way early (about TSR 6), then let the voltage climb by 4 volts for 2 amps output up to where the rotor is running at TSR 7, or a little better.  Then flatten the curve out a little bit and gradually "lug" the rotor back down to TSR 6 by the time the wind speed gets up to 12 m/s.

This makes the rotor run slower at lower wind speeds, which helps the noise a lot and doesn't really hurt output very much.  Then it lets it speed up to maximum efficiency in the midrange wind speeds where the noise from the wind helps dampen some of the noise from the rotor.  On the top end it keeps the rotor speed down to 450 rpm and limits output to about 2.2 kW.  That's working really good.
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Chris

Offline bvan1941

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Re: 3.2 meter ferrite magnet MPPT wind turbine
« Reply #22 on: January 16, 2012, 03:07:40 pm »
Chris,
really, really nice design, engineering concepts and actual working units with predicted results !!
Whats even better, your increasing the limits of output and efficiency in the normal ranges of wind that we realistically see. Kind of makes us laugh at the "pro's" claims for the junk they advertise as "break through" in micro wind technology!
Keep up the great work and documentation. You have a lot of fans out here.
Bill

Offline ChrisOlson

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Re: 3.2 meter ferrite magnet MPPT wind turbine
« Reply #23 on: January 16, 2012, 03:21:53 pm »
Not totally predicted because I ended up having to run the blades a bit faster than I originally calculated I would.  I'm still trying to "tweak" out a power curve that doesn't lose anything to a direct hooked machine in the low winds (due to controller loss), and run at peak efficiency in the midrange wind speeds.

In higher winds you can open this thing right up and let it scream.  But that's really not practical for the long run because it will shorten the life of the blades.  By "capping" the voltage at about 90 it makes all the power you need in high winds anyway, without stressing stuff out.  It's kind of fun to push everything right to the smoke limit to see what it'll do.  But I'm concentrating on tuning the power curve for midrange right now.

There's supposed to be a "dithering" feature for the Classic coming out in a firmware update.  I haven't checked to see if that's available yet.  But this feature lets the Classic "dither" the power curve to "learn" the peak power point.  That would be kind of fun to see what it does.
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Offline Watt

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Re: 3.2 meter ferrite magnet MPPT wind turbine
« Reply #24 on: January 17, 2012, 08:10:12 pm »
Not totally predicted because I ended up having to run the blades a bit faster than I originally calculated I would.  I'm still trying to "tweak" out a power curve that doesn't lose anything to a direct hooked machine in the low winds (due to controller loss), and run at peak efficiency in the midrange wind speeds.

In higher winds you can open this thing right up and let it scream.  But that's really not practical for the long run because it will shorten the life of the blades.  By "capping" the voltage at about 90 it makes all the power you need in high winds anyway, without stressing stuff out.  It's kind of fun to push everything right to the smoke limit to see what it'll do.  But I'm concentrating on tuning the power curve for midrange right now.

There's supposed to be a "dithering" feature for the Classic coming out in a firmware update.  I haven't checked to see if that's available yet.  But this feature lets the Classic "dither" the power curve to "learn" the peak power point.  That would be kind of fun to see what it does.
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Chris

Very nice Chris. 

Be careful pushing that classic to the " smoke limit ", that will for sure cause you to park your new toy until a replacement arrives.   :o

Keep us posted for sure. 
CEO of this Dis-Organization....

Offline halfcrazy

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Re: 3.2 meter ferrite magnet MPPT wind turbine
« Reply #25 on: January 18, 2012, 06:03:07 am »
Not totally predicted because I ended up having to run the blades a bit faster than I originally calculated I would.  I'm still trying to "tweak" out a power curve that doesn't lose anything to a direct hooked machine in the low winds (due to controller loss), and run at peak efficiency in the midrange wind speeds.

In higher winds you can open this thing right up and let it scream.  But that's really not practical for the long run because it will shorten the life of the blades.  By "capping" the voltage at about 90 it makes all the power you need in high winds anyway, without stressing stuff out.  It's kind of fun to push everything right to the smoke limit to see what it'll do.  But I'm concentrating on tuning the power curve for midrange right now.

There's supposed to be a "dithering" feature for the Classic coming out in a firmware update.  I haven't checked to see if that's available yet.  But this feature lets the Classic "dither" the power curve to "learn" the peak power point.  That would be kind of fun to see what it does.
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Chris

Very nice Chris. 

Be careful pushing that classic to the " smoke limit ", that will for sure cause you to park your new toy until a replacement arrives.   :o

Keep us posted for sure.

Oh Chris knows the Warranty guy at MidNite it wouldn't take long for me I mean them to get him a new Classic ::)

Ryan

Offline ChrisOlson

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Re: 3.2 meter ferrite magnet MPPT wind turbine
« Reply #26 on: January 18, 2012, 01:26:43 pm »
When you first put it in with a new turbine you have to see what it'll do.  You just have to do it.  It's like if you manage to cob onto a '68 426 Hemi Roadrunner.  You're just going to drive it around like an old Grandma?  Yeah, right.  You and I both know you're going to smolder at least one set of tires off it just because you have see how many city blocks you can paint continuous stripes on the road.

I got it "tuned back" a little now by not letting the voltage run as high.  But I just had to prove to myself that you can indeed get dang near 3 kW from a little 10 foot turbine if you let it run Balls Out (to borrow an old steam engine term).

One thing I learned by doing that is that the turbine refuses to furl at all if you start pushing it to 550+ rpm.  Keep the rotor speed down to 400-450 and it furls fine.  Don't really understand the dynamics behind that.  But it'll wake you right up when the ammeter needle heads to the top of the scale and you just stand there watching it going, "It should be furling Any Time Now®".  But it don't.  So you go, "WTF?????", rush out the door to take a look and the confounded thing is facing dead on into the wind running FFO (Flat Freaking Out).

At that point there was several courses of action that went thru my brain in a couple milliseconds, as to how I was going to handle this situation before I got something smoking.  But, fortunately, the wind gust died down and it cut back by itself.

Just like the Roadrunner deal, it all boils to to, "you just have to do it".  But I did learn some things from it:
  • The Classic has a built-in current limiter and I had to go back into the menu and manual and study up on that setting
  • I need to reduce the resistance in my clipper to put the turbine into harder "stall" and get the voltage down more when the clipper is being used.  Otherwise it'll just eventually burn up the clipper load in real wind.
  • A turbine won't furl if it's running too fast.
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Offline Jarrod9155

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Re: 3.2 meter ferrite magnet MPPT wind turbine
« Reply #27 on: January 18, 2012, 01:51:26 pm »
Most be mppt my turbine does the same thing if you let it build rpm on the top end no furl !!  My cure was turning on my heating elements at the last two steps of the curve .If I catch it just early enough before the blades get optimal tsr above 20 mph I start to stall them enough to engage furling  My prediction is if you do go with the goe222 blades you will find that controlling it above 20 mph plus winds will be fun !!! More the load it seems the faster they go!!
      In my case I should never reach 600 volts that's we're the magic smoke comes out of the inverter even in a runaway . But in your setup I bet that thing could easily reach your max volts .
       Looking good !!
    Maybe a omron relay to switch away your turbine in case of a runaway . I use one to switch on dump loads and switch of the turbine if the grid fails .
 
  Jarrod

Offline ChrisOlson

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Re: 3.2 meter ferrite magnet MPPT wind turbine
« Reply #28 on: January 18, 2012, 02:59:18 pm »
    Maybe a omron relay to switch away your turbine in case of a runaway . I use one to switch on dump loads and switch of the turbine if the grid fails .

Jarrod - I built a three phase wye resistor and am driving it with PWM using the Classic's Aux 2 output with a SSR.  I was going to do it with mechanical relays at first.  But then decided against that and built a system like it shows in the manual with "Ryan's Clipper" because that's proven and it works.

The biggest problem I got right now is that I turned down the voltage a bit and the clipper has too much resistance so it don't draw enough power.  I need to shorten the heating coil springs on my clipper resistors so it draws more power at lower voltage.  Then it will be fine.
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Offline rossw

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Re: 3.2 meter ferrite magnet MPPT wind turbine
« Reply #29 on: January 18, 2012, 11:59:54 pm »
The biggest problem I got right now is that I turned down the voltage a bit and the clipper has too much resistance so it don't draw enough power.  I need to shorten the heating coil springs on my clipper resistors so it draws more power at lower voltage.  Then it will be fine.

Is it practical to just "jumper" part of the coil? Might be quicker, easier and more versatile if you can bring in as much (or as little) resistance as you need? At least while you're fine-tuning it.

It's a b!tch when you take out a whisker too much and have to start again!