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Forum Index : Windmills : Feeding a Water Heater

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Vasco

Newbie

Joined: 17/10/2007
Location: Portugal
Posts: 6

Posted: 12:24pm 17 Oct 2007

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Hi,
I am a wind power enthusiaste and would like to compliment you all in this first contact. It is an excellent forum.
Down to business....I am looking for a robust design to feed a water heater via a windmill....(I know...a lot of Amps....)

any ideas???

Regards
Vasco

martinjsto

Senior Member

Joined: 09/10/2007
Location: Australia
Posts: 149

Posted: 12:36pm 21 Oct 2007

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hi vasco,
the f&p creates ideal power for water heaters
using a 12v element and a charge controler with a shunt load or a dump arangement.
1 or two wind gens wired together will create ample power to charge a 12v battery the excess power being made has to be redirected, this is usualy into a shunt, a metal strip able to disipate heat, i actualy use the excess to power up first cooling fan inside the controler, then a 60w 12 downlight globe, then another 60w globe if overpower continues, burning off the power untill battery voltage recovers to 13.6 volts ( i callibrated the controler using my car) you can of course use this excess to heat all the water you like, within reason lol, i have made heating ellements using old toasters, the silicon board and the wire is cut and re wrapped to achieve the resistance required, then drop i water presto, hot water.
good luck
martin

free power for all
McAlinden WA

Highlander

Senior Member

Joined: 03/10/2006
Location: Australia
Posts: 266

Posted: 07:55am 22 Oct 2007

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Hi Vasco, first of all, if your in Portugal you won't find an F&P easily.
If you want to heat water I'de suggest solar,(gas boosted) they are far more efficient.
A conventional electric water heater has an element of 4000 to 6000 watts so there is no way in hell you will run your hot water system off one or two F&P's.
keep in mind, anything that creates heat needs a lot of energy.

Central Victorian highlands

Vasco

Newbie

Joined: 17/10/2007
Location: Portugal
Posts: 6

Posted: 03:34pm 22 Oct 2007

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Martinjst / Highlander,
Thanks,
Indeed it would be difficult to find a F&P in Portugal...our washing machines are generally front loaded. However I could look for another source for the generator...(did anybody tried a Air Conditioning motor i,e, the fan drive or the compressor drive? what about a microwave rotating motor?). Suggestions for sources of possible genrators will be welcome?
For my water heater, I was thinking more in line with (a) non-regulated power supply feeding some sorte of pregressive resistence (?) to take whatever comes out of the generator... I would like to avoid all other electric/electronic components...Just heating water.....
Many thanks

Regards
Vasco

Vasco

Newbie

Joined: 17/10/2007
Location: Portugal
Posts: 6

Posted: 03:39pm 22 Oct 2007

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Martinjst,
I liked your heating elements made of a toster remains...Thanks

Regards
Vasco

Vasco

Newbie

Joined: 17/10/2007
Location: Portugal
Posts: 6

Posted: 05:25pm 31 Oct 2007

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Gents,
I found this Question/Answer session in "FuturEmergy.co.UK" on this issue...Interesting views.....
Q. Our intention is to use a wind powered generator output to supplement the heating of an existing circulated hot water heating system. The site is an open rural location. We would like to avoid having to have banks of lead acid batteries and would like to feed the heater element directly with the output from the wind generator. From our researches we know that there are heater elements and associated pipework that can be incorporated into existing circulated hot water circuits and this is what we would like to power from the wind generator. The problem will be locating a low voltage heating element. The 3 phase output of the generator will probably necessitate doing a DC conversion and feeding this to the heater element.|

A. If your intention is to make the in-line heating tank with associate paperwork, then you could use 12V 300W elements and connect them in series to give 36V or 48V worth of heaters. These heaters cannot however be driven directly form the turbine, which will impose a load of around 1200W at 48V, when using 4 x 300W 12V heaters. The heavy load that these elements present to the turbine will prevent it from starting up, and as such you will require to use batteries and a "Load Controller" to connect the power from the turbine to your heaters.

Regards
Vasco

Highlander

Senior Member

Joined: 03/10/2006
Location: Australia
Posts: 266

Posted: 07:31pm 31 Oct 2007

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Hi Vasco, a lot of your questions and answers to questions you may have in the future have already been covered in past forums.
I suggest read a lot of the old threads, you'll learn a lot.

To answer your query, yes you need some sort of control system.
If you place a load/drain on a mill which is constant, the mill won't have the grunt to power a load at low rpm so it will never even get going.
If however you balance your alternator/mill to produce your required voltage at around 200 rpm then the blades will be spinning well enough to THEN place a load on the system, But not too much of a load or it will act as a brake.
The benefit of incorporating batteries is that the mill will spin freely untill it starts producing a higher voltage than the batteries, when it exceeds the batt voltage it will then start to charge/feed them, a dump controller is also required to get rid of excess power or the batteries will overcharge. Be warned most solar controllers don't have this function. you can use the dump as a water heating element.
But seriously you are creating a lot of losses with a system like this, they're really for producing electricity
If you want to heat water solar is the way to go.

Central Victorian highlands

GWatPE

Senior Member

Joined: 01/09/2006
Location: Australia
Posts: 2127

Posted: 10:12pm 31 Oct 2007

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Hi Vasco,

I am in agreement with Highlander. Passive Solar hot water systems are the way to go. Heating water with thin strands of nichrome is asking for corrosion problems and you will probably get a short service life.

good luck with your venture.

cheers, Gordon.

become more energy aware

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