I have been doing alternative energy for quite some time now, and although I started with solar panels, I nevertheless studied the topic of wind generators, too, hoping to use windmills to cover periods of cloudy weather with rain and wind.
I didn’t buy anything at random and began to study the question on the reviews of Comrade Peling , who ate a solar-powered dog and tested a bunch of windmills.
As a result, this review was found.
A comparison of this windmill with reviews of earlier ones confirmed the conclusions of a Peling colleague for me, and a year ago the same windmill was ordered from the Chinese on Ali, right here .
At that time, a windmill with delivery cost about 16 thousand rubles with courier delivery to the threshold. Now this windmill certainly costs less, about 11 thousand.
The windmill arrived and was assembled so that then all winter and the next summer lay in the annex. There was no time and money for the manufacture of the mast and installation. But in the end, having put aside all my affairs by force, I bought pipes - a solid pipe 6 meters long with an internal diameter of 50 mm, and a 2 m pipe with an external diameter of 47 mm. A short pipe was inserted into a thicker one to a depth of 50 cm, after which it was pinned with a piece of reinforcement and scalded along the upper edge of the larger pipe. A cross from a pair of corners of 50x50 mm 1 meter long was welded from below in a larger pipe, and for reinforcement, L-shaped reinforcements of 10 mm reinforcement were welded, which additionally connected the mast pipe to the cross.
Here's the video: I began to make a mast of a 400 W windmill
A little below the end of the thin pipe, a hole was drilled in a larger one, over which was a bar for fastening an IP65 outdoor electrical box in which it was planned to make a connection of a three-wire wire from a wind generator to a discharge cable. Above the pipe joint, 3 “ears” were welded for fastening the stretch marks and a U-shaped bracket bent from the reinforcement for fastening the overhead line suspension cable. But in the future, I refused the idea of ​​an overhead line and the outlet cable was laid underground.
Another video: I completed the mast of the windmill
After the mast was painted with a primer and white street paint for metal - it was time to install it. I didn’t put a windmill near the house - there are trees more than 6 m tall nearby, in addition, some models of windmills make a strong and unpleasant noise. In addition, when the propeller hub is destroyed, the blades fly far and wide. The risk of catching a flying blade with a skull or going to court if it flies to a neighbor - well, nafig.
As a result, a place for the windmill was allocated at the end of the garden, on the one hand, a long cable was required, from the house to the windmill it turned out 95 m. On the other hand, there is an open area favorable for the operation of the windmill and noise will not hinder anyone.
A foundation pit was dug 150x150x70 cm. Initially, I was going to make a foundation pit 1 meter deep, but there was only land on a bayonet with a shovel, then the dense clay that I had to hammer with a crowbar.
A mast was put into the pit on old bricks installed level on top of the gravel pillow. An additional reinforcement was imposed on the crosspiece for better fastening of the base in a concrete monolith which was flooded in a day. What took 6 bags of cement M400. While the cement was setting, the remaining purchases were made - 100 m of PVC cable in double insulation 3x2.5 mm2 and 100 m of red double corrugation for underground work with an inner diameter of 40 mm. Smaller and cheaper than the red corrugation was simply not in the store.
After that, dangerous acrobatics began - having extended my large aluminum three-legged ladder to the maximum length, I climbed through a cable through the mast and installed a wind generator. He still had no stretch marks - he didn’t have any money to buy cables and other things at that time, the mast was bent, the wind suddenly decided to start blowing, the sun went down and the dusk was thick, the stairs swayed and it was very “point” to fly down from there and get fallen from above followed by a wind generator.
But finally, the wires from the generator and the exhaust cable were connected, insulated and laid in the pipe, the windmill was installed and the windshield collet was tightened, after which I finally got down. Hands shook significantly, to be honest. Gathering tools in the dark and removing the stairs, I went to rest.
The next day was marked by pulling the corrugation on 100 m of cable. First, 7 meters of black street corrugation for climbing the mast. And again, balancing on an unstable ladder to secure the corrugations to the mast with ties. Then began even more fun - putting on the red underground corrugation on the cable. It is sold in bays of 50 m each with black plastic couplings and a probe wire passed inside. Which, as if evil, broke off and had to cut the corrugation, stretch the wire, insert pieces of street black corrugation of a smaller diameter at the joints and connect them on top with a black heat shrink. The same shrinkage had to be worn over the standard coupling, which simply mechanically connects this corrugation and does not provide joint sealing.
Combining the black and red corrugations at a height of 1 m above the ground level on the mast, I began to bury it, but the process was interrupted and while the corrugation lies simply on the ground. The rise on the wall of the house was also done in a black corrugation, a hole was drilled in the foam block of the wall and the cable with the corrugation was inserted inside and connected to a 16-pole input circuit breaker on 16A.
From the machine, 3 wires of 6 mm2 go to a 3-phase controller, from it 2 wires of 6 mm2 24V are already going to the wattmeter connected through the MC4 connectors for solar panels and after the control device to the battery. Windmill finally a year after the purchase was installed was able to work.
The windmill stood, there was already a wind and it began to spin, but without stretch marks the mast began to swing very much. A cable, tensioners, locks was purchased. But I could not fill in the anchors of the stretch marks, the weather turned bad and it began to freeze at night - I had to hammer pieces of a rectangular pipe at an angle of 45 degrees and fix the stretch marks for them.
Another video: 420 Watt windmill - an intermediate result
Another video: Solar system and a wind generator
The windmill is connected, it does not swing anymore thanks to the extensions that hold it. But as it turned out - I just do not have a wind strong enough and stable to give noticeable power.
Another video: Windmill - conclusions
For those who are too lazy to watch the video - a windmill makes sense only if you have a constant and strong wind of more than 7-10 m / s. It is CONSTANT, and not gusts of 7-15 m / s as I usually have in weather forecasts. In other cases, the money that you have to spend on buying a wind generator and installing its mast is better to invest in something else. In solar panels, batteries, high-quality gasoline or diesel generator for bad weather or the construction of a mini-hydroelectric power station if conditions allow. There, the Chinese three-phase charge controller from the wind turbine just makes sense, and you can use this Chinese generator .
And yet - it’s better not to install the Chinese controller for the wind generator if it does not work for you constantly, otherwise the controller will consume more than the total amount of wind turbines. It is better to put a three-phase diode bridge of suitable current power and connect it to the input of either a PWR Solar 80 charge controller, or to the input of a GRID inverter that merges directly into the house network. But GRID must be connected to the state. network, the output of the inverter of the solar system can not be connected - the equipment will burn. Such an addition.
UPD. I shot a video with a windmill, the wind rose and it began to spin somehow.
See for yourself, decide for yourself to have or not to have (c)
Part 2: habr.com/en/post/475176