Tuesday, January 4, 2011

RIP Genny



Spent all morning troubleshooting batteries because I'd been having problems with them going down way too soon (as the friends who were over here watching movies can attest to.) Not only that, but the charger kept bogging down and dieing. I disconnected all of the solar panels and wind genny and tested the voltage off and on several times through the morning and this afternoon. None were showing signs of much voltage drop. Basically as they have always been. I started connecting up all of the panels about 2:45 and then it came time to connect up the wind genny. As soon as I connected the positive side there was a sharp arc and flash. Looks like one of the windings in the alternator has gone to ground. I don't plan to try and repair it or get it repaired though because it just doesn't put out enough steady current because the wind isn't steady. However, right now it would be nice since its partly cloudy and very windy.

Note all the charge controllers. They were given to me by my nephew and I had intended to use them on the solar panels and use the big controller I got at Harbor Freight for the wind genny. Looks like now I'll use that for the panels and use one of the smaller ones for the battery in this trailer. Maybe more panels will come up later to use the rest on.

6 comments:

  1. Glad you found the problem. Now you will be able to light up the night. :-) It sure is a waste when good electricity goes to ground.

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  2. DD, I'm glad it was the winding rather than a dead short. That could have really caused problems.

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  3. Tffnguy

    That stinks that your wind generator crapped out. I had an great idea after a cup of coffee @ 4:30am this morning. A "urinal fuel cell" you can convert a fuel cell to convert "urine" to electricity. Hook it up to the legions urinals and you can have free power for life. "Hell, we can adapt that technology to fuel cell cars". Drink a cup of coffee in the morning and pee in your tank to get to work.

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  4. cc, since the party I've just been running the charger off of high octane urine. I'm going to have the stop that now because the octane is dropping fast.

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  5. Bummer about the wind generator. What's a new on cost?

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  6. Allen, I got that one on a closeout years ago and paid about $650 for it. They were discontinuing that model or it wold have cost somewhere around $950 I think. The newer model was exactly the same, but they used a three blade prop instead of two like on mine. (Supposed to cut down on vibration and noise.) Anyway I plan to try and add an external diode and see if I can use it like that. The weather is going to have to improve a lot around here first though.

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