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More turbine install


Here is a picture of where the 8-3 with ground UF underground cable enters the power station. You see two more black lightning arrestors mounted to the side of the 4" square metal box. Here I am preotecting the 3 hotwires from the turbine again. I have 2 arrestors at the base of the tower and two more here. This is to provide extra protection to the ARE wind turbine controller and Outback FM80 wind controller which contains sensitive electronics. This equipment really needs to be protected. You see on the bottom of the 4 inch box, there is a large wire coming out from the bottom. This wire is a ground wire that I ran directly from the ground rod outside the shack over to this box. This ground wire is specifically for the ground wires of the lighning arrestors to connect to. Normally you would just wire the lightning arrestors ground wires to the normal ground that runs from the box over to the ground in the controller and then to the outback FM80 and then to the FW-DC ditribution panel's ground. To me this does not make good sense. Why would you want to direct thigh voltage lightning over to the grounds located in your controllers  and distribution equipment? Instead I think it is better to isolate the lightning and direct it straight to the ground rod and bypass the grounds in the equipment.

I used 1" pvc conduit from the top of this box, across the ceiling and down to the  ARE turbine controller box. The 4 inch box came with only 1/2 inch knockouts which accomodated the arrestors ok but I had to drill a 1 inch hole for the 1" pvc connector. I used a 1" in hole saw and a cordless drill.


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Below  (left picture) is a picture of the ARE wind turbine controller on the left and the diversion load on the right. Picture on the right does not show the Outback FM80 wich would be mounted to the left of the ARE controller because the FM80 did not come till much late in the installation. Neither of these boxes is that heavy. I just used some deck screws and washers to mount these to the 3/4 inch plywood.  The diversion load is made up of 6 light sockets with these screw in heating elements. The screw in just like a regular light bulb. I had to use another piece of plywood to mount the diversion load  to. I also needed to pay special attention to how close the diversion load was in relation to its surroundings. A.R.E recommends keeping it away from anything 18 inches above, and 12 inches on all other sides. Of course you would not have anything anywhere near the front of it because these things can glow red hot  and possibly cause a fire!!


ldiversion load wind turbine   outback flexware

Below is a closer view of the worlds first (i believe) MPPT wind turbine contoller (for battery charging)  made by Outback for the ARE 110 - 2.5 kw wind turbine. Outback has modified the FM80 and programmed it with a new mathematical algorithm so that it will work with ARE's wind turbine. Its called the Windtracker 80. If you go under the advanced menu then under MPPT mode, you can change the mode to wind turbine.   There is also a "Wind" menu which displays a code and a key. I found out from ARE that this is the password protection in order to get into the FM-80 and change the power curve information. This means that theoretically , if you new the code then you could adjust the power curve settings to work with a home Brew Axial flux wind turbine or any other turbine for that matter. Outback and ARE are the only ones with the passcode and will not give it out.

See below:



    outback fm80   FM-80  FM80 OUTBACK POWER   


The picture below on the left shows the modified FM80.

The picture below on the right shows the Outback modified FM80 wind controller mounted to the left of the ARE controller. I waited for this controller for about a year an finally received it on September 18 2008.

ARE and Outback took a long time to work things out with testing, equipment lableing, manuals, and testing of prototypes.They finally pulled through. Before I got the outback,
my  turbine (in 25 to 30  MPH winds) would only put out about 800 watts , wide open just before furling. Now.. with the Outback, in estimated wind speeds of 15 to 20 MPH winds , the Outback FM80 was showing readings between 1000 to 1500 watts output ( I do not have an annenometer so I am approximating the wind speed with the Beaufort scale techniques so these are just ESTIMATIONS on wind speeds). This morning (sept 20 2008) there were some pretty good gusts of wind and the turbine was putting out sustained 2500 to 3000 watts ( at this time the wind turbine never furled) . The ARE turbine is only rated for 2500 watts. Pretty impressive. I can't wait to see the output in some 25 to 30 mph winds. It is interesting that Outback Power has not made any kind of announcement or anything about this new controller as of sept 2008. This is the first MPPT wind controller anywhere in the world  that I know of thats made specifically for battery charging!!!!! and will revolutionize the wind industry as we know it. I believe it will only be a matter of time before other turbine manufacturers like Proven and Bergy start working with Outback Power to make MPPT controllers for their battery charging turbines as well.

MPPT FOR WIND TURBINE  WIND TURBINE mppt CONTROLLER

Below is a shot of the inside of the ARE controller. 

l          ARE CONTROLLER

I used 1" rigid pvc for the conduit  and #8 THHN wire between the 4 " square box  (the one that I refered to earlier where the turbine wires enter the building and had 2 lightning arrestors) and the bottom of the ARE controller box transtioning into the the LB/ aka a sharp elbow with a cover on it. There was a reason for the LB. ARE only puts conduit knockouts in the bottom of their controller box. From the 4" metal box I went out of the top, across the ceiling and down the left side of the controller box and back up into the bottom of the controller box with the LB. I personally think that having a knockout or two on the top of the controller box would be an inprovement. ARE says you void the warrantee if you drill new holes so I opted for the funky conduit run.

 I used 3/4 metal flexible conduit and # 8 THHN copper wires to run from the ARE controller to the diversion load. I used 3/4 metal flexible conduit and 6-3 thhn wire (I ran out of 8-3) from the ARE controller to the Outback FM80 MPPT wind turbine controller (A specially modified FM80- tentatively called the Windtracker 80). I used a plactic flex conduit that I found and have no idea where it came from along with 6-3 to go from the FM-80 MPPT wind controller  to the FW-DC distribution panel. I also needed to run #10 solid from the ARE controller mother board to the DC bussbar in the FW-DC to power up the controller mother board and electronics. I ran the #10 in the same conduit as the 6-3 thhn wire.
Initially , the ARE controller connected directly to the FW-DC. But, after the FM80 finally came (after a year of waiting) I had to add the FM80 in between the ARE controller and the FW-DC.

CLICK the manual link to download the A.R.E. 48V wind turbine manual.



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