Vertical Axis WInd Turbine Project

Updated 24 January 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/

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

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5 Comments

  1. 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

  2. Have you tried setting output of wind turbine to 24 volts and use that as input to solar charge controller as interim solution?

  3. 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.

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