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Forum Index : Windmills : Chinese unit up and working

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Bushman

Regular Member

Joined: 24/04/2007
Location: Australia
Posts: 41

Posted: 09:26pm 19 Dec 2008

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Hi all,

Haven't been on this forum for a while due to building a new office/studio at our place in the bush. I bought an amazingly cheap Chinese windvane unit that had been used as a demo by the importer. The power is needed only to maintain a 100AH deep cycle battery running the laptop, external LCD screen and the wireless repeater through an inverter.

Found the usual problems with the Chinese unit - misaligned drill holes etc but overall, the unit is built like a brick dunny and worth every cent paid. I added one of the wonderful Microtac 330 split ring units that cost as much as the mill, but that saved a lot of messing about making a 3-phase split ring. Because the Microtac is fully sealed, it requires no maintenance and was fitted into the top of the pole after a bit of minor engineering. This means only the top 100mm of cable turns, elminating any possibility of wind-up inside the pole.

The base of the pole was dynabolted to a concrete pad, the guy wires placed, then a rope run through a notch cut into a convenient tree and tied to the towbar of the car - up it went with no trouble, guys were adjusted and the job was done.

The 3-phase runs from the vane to the controller where it is rectified to 12V DC, then with only a metre or so to the battery. It was actually blowing quite well even when we lifted the unit into place and as the wind strengthened, we were getting over 4 Amps into the battery.

So with that little mission completed, its back to building the F&P unit to power a similar system for the house, where the satellite dish and woreless modem are located. This should kjeep me out of the pub for another few months.

Have not worked out how to post pictures here, but I have a couple if anyone is interested

Cheers

Alan

Gill

Senior Member

Joined: 11/11/2006
Location: Australia
Posts: 669

Posted: 03:26am 20 Dec 2008

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Thanks Alan, appriciate the update. Good to hear another successful mill in operation.

To post pics use the icon of the tree with the up arrow then follow the prompts. Glenn has it now that incomming pics are correctly resized for the forum if you don't have them less than the 500 picxels wide required.

Would love to see a couple of shots of the project.

was working fine... til the smoke got out.
Cheers Gill _Cairns, FNQ

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