Updated 29 April 2024
Check out the latest updates to this wind power project at the off-grid ham shack. https://oh8stn.org/blog/2024/01/23/charging-a-lifepo4-battery-with-wind-power/
Update 29APRIL2024
Since so many people are interested purchasing the wind turbine. I decided to post the links here.
The wind turbine is called ElvWis II 190-watt. It is made in Germany and available on eBay.
Disclosure: The link below is an affiliate links. This means that, at zero cost to you, I will earn an eBay Partner commission if you click through the link and finalize a purchase.
https://ebay.us/IQ26u8 (#sponsored link)
The challenge with the 190W ElvWiS II ALUMINUM Vertical Wind Generator has always been finding a proper charge controller for 4s LiFePO4. Although the Genasun works, it has no method of putting a load on the wind turbine, once the batteries are full. This will lead to the turbine spinning out of control and destroying itself.
Change of plan. I have decided to use this wind turbine to “charge” a DIY sand battery. The sand battery would use my wind turbine and solar panels (when the my storage is full), as a dump load for a sand battery. The sand battery would be used to augment the diesel heater, currently providing heat for the off-grid ham shack.
This is all just thoughts on a piece of paper for now, so bare with me.
Hello Operators.
In today’s episode of OH8STN Ham Radio, we are talking about generating power with a vertical axis wind turbine. The goal is a hybrid system using both wind and solar to power an off-grid Winlink RMS Gateway from my home station. The Vertical Axis Wind Turbine or micro wind generator is part of the Winlink RMS Gateway project you may have read about on https://oh8stn.org.
The VAWT project will be combined with the solar panels already up on the tower, and the 576wh LiFePO4 battery storage system we built on the channel last year.
Combining the Wind Turbine, solar panels and Lithium battery storage help create a hybrid Wind/Solar off grid power system, which should easily keep the Winlink Gateway powered up.
There are still things to do.
- Find a LiFePO4 compatible Wind charge controller with dump load.
- Find the sweet spot on the tower for best balance between strain on the tower and performance of the wind turbine.
- Add second set of aluminum hard points and guy loops to the tower just above the turbine.
- Measure torque placed on the tower in heavy winds.
- Find RF Quiet DC LED light strips for the operating space.
73
Julian oh8stn
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/c/oh8stn
TipJar: https://paypal.me/oh8stn/1usd
Share video URL: https://youtu.be/R9LfIme5qfU
Excellent, Julian, absolutely brilliant. For the wind unit, higher is better; I wouldn’t worry about those three birches as long as the rest of the circle is clear and the unit is positioned correctly. As for wind MPPT, I don’t know either. I’ll check around here, maybe somebody knows something…
In the meantime, keep pushing…
73 Garu
Thank you 🙏
Have you tried setting output of wind turbine to 24 volts and use that as input to solar charge controller as interim solution?
The wind turbine outputs 3-Phase AC
Just set the cutoff voltage on a own cobtroller at 13.4V on the wind generator and let the solar top off the lithium from there. Then you do not need a lithium specific controller. Lithium batteries don’t want to be at 100% anyway and wind gens tend to just mitigate loss at night and on cloudy days as opposed to topping off.