I can't stand my wind gen...

[billknny]

Originally Posted by TJ D

Hello forum,

I had a KISS wind generator sitting in the lazarette for years, and finally got around to installing it. I hate it. I'd never been around one in 20 knots or more before, and the noise it produces when it starts to whine is just about like nails on a chalkboard to me.

Sure, I like the high output, but I would trade a little less power to get my blessed silence back. We pretty much have the thing shut off all the time anyway.

Anybody have some good experience with a silent one? We obviously still want some output, but I just don't want to feel like I'm next to a jet turbine in everything over 20 knots...

Suggestions solicited! There just might be a very good deal on a KISS to be had here soon as well.

Thanks, TJ

If YOU can't stand your wind generator, imagine how your neighbors in the anchorage feel about it...

Noisy WGs are the number one reason that we have felt the need to relocate after setting our anchor! I am sure there are people we think we are just antisocial when they arrive and then we pull up and move 300 yards away...

I have had WGs, and I found them to be a poor investment. Take the same money, and add solar panels and battery capacity and you will generate far more watts per dollar over a year--or even over the average week.

[Mike OReilly]

I have solar, wind and a small portable gas generator (and the engine alternator). My primary charger is solar, which I estimate provides about 75% - 80% of our 320 amp-hr bank’s needs. Most of the rest is wind, with a tiny contribution made by our gas generator. For example, last season with more than eight weeks at the same anchorage (no alternator), I ran the gas generator four separate times, for a total of about 10 hrs. The rest is solar and wind.

Wind is useful — very useful at times. Without it, I would definitely have to run the gas generator many times more than I do now. My wind gen (Silentwind) is many factors quieter than my gas generator. And I picked my generator specifically b/c it was rated the quietest of all: the Yamaha 1000 watt.

When outfitting a sailboat for long-term cruising I would definitely prioritize solar first. The problem with most cruising-sized monohulls is the limited space to located all the panels needed. And shading is a constant reality. This is where a windgen can excel; it’s footprint is small, and it can produce a lot of power in the right conditions, and it often excels just when solar does not.

BTW, when I was buying my windgen, noise was a primary concern. I inherited an old Air-X, and used it for a few seasons. I know what LOUD is. There are a number of gens out there which are pretty darn quiet. There’s no reason to suffer with a loud one these days.

[hpeer]

Originally Posted by boatman61

Aerogens rock.. Shame they're no longer being made.

One of the hurricanes got our Aerogen 6 blades last year. After a few days of frantic googling I found a place in England with a complete set of 6 blades. Now I’m back in business.

In the process I found some French site that claims to sell Aerogen and I was told that outfit bought the manufacture rights, for the blades if no the whole unit.

The web site was French, very complicated, very busy appearance.

Ah, ha! Here it is if someone with French can delve into it and see if they actually sell Aerogen yet

Anyway I hope they come back. They and D400 can use the same controller. The Aerogen looks to be dead simple, bearings are off the shelf. It looks like the rotor could be rewound with fair ease.

We also find it very quiet and very useful here in the Carib.

[FlyingScot]

Originally Posted by daletournier

I had a wind generator for 7 years, I truly believe it cost me power over a 12 mth period due to shading.

For me good solar and a Honda gen for when the sun dosent shine for a couple of days. Solar is just great value these days.

A good wind generator and mounting set up isn't cheap, personally from experience I think they are over rated.

I'm in complete agreement. The only shade I get on my panels is from the boom when the sun is low(ish) in the sky. I think many negate the shading 'cost' when discussing a wind generator's output. Meaning, sure the wind generator makes this many amp hours, but did you subtract the amp hours lost due to shade on your big mono panel?

Honda genny for backup and emergencies. So far my new solar installation makes excessive power, just the way I intended.

[senormechanico]

Originally Posted by daletournier

I had a wind generator for 7 years, I truly believe it cost me power over a 12 mth period due to shading..

EXACTLY !!

I am constantly amazed at how many installations on boats make the same mistake of mounting solar on an arch, then having all kinds of crap mounted ABOVE the panels. Antennas, GPS and otherwise, radar and even TWO wind generators. The solar panels haven't got a chance!
The owners will say the wind generators are to "help the solar output".


We made the same mistake back in the early '90's with a Four Winds mounted on a pole behind two panels. I finally took off the generator and we had MORE juice. Then after a month or so of proving the improvement, I took off the pole. Even more juice, and it gave us more room for more solar panels.

[RaymondR]

Originally Posted by FlyingScot

I'm in complete agreement. The only shade I get on my panels is from the boom when the sun is low(ish) in the sky. I think many negate the shading 'cost' when discussing a wind generator's output. Meaning, sure the wind generator makes this many amp hours, but did you subtract the amp hours lost due to shade on your big mono panel?

Honda genny for backup and emergencies. So far my new solar installation makes excessive power, just the way I intended.

I'm in complete agreement with those who state that wind generators are pretty useless. I've had two of them the, second of which came with the boat, and have now removed it. They are not worth the problems they cause unless you cruise somewhere like the southern ocean where the wind blows half a gale all the time and the sun seldom shines.

[daletournier]

Originally Posted by senormechanico

EXACTLY !!

I am constantly amazed at how many installations on boats make the same mistake of mounting solar on an arch, then having all kinds of crap mounted ABOVE the panels. Antennas, GPS and otherwise, radar and even TWO wind generators. The solar panels haven't got a chance!
The owners will say the wind generators are to "help the solar output".


We made the same mistake back in the early '90's with a Four Winds mounted on a pole behind two panels. I finally took off the generator and we had MORE juice. Then after a month or so of proving the improvement, I took off the pole. Even more juice, and it gave us more room for more solar panels.

There's a nice couple next to me that are new to cruising. They have approx 600w of panels. He just mounted an air breeze and explained to me how it will benefit them.

On a 36 ft mono there's limited places to mount a wind generator. I can almost guarantee he will have a net power loss over a 12mth period due to this wind gen, particularly as he's heading north towards the tropics where there's alot less wind than 34 south . It's almost impossible to not get shading from a wind generator set up on a smaller (or any mono).

I've added a Atlantic arch to Sukha. The 500watts of panels are free most of the time from any shading. Many that have always had some shading don't realise just how much they are losing.

[martinworswick]

Originally Posted by Steadman Uhlich

I did a quick search of Youtube in order to find a video that would feature the sound of a boat wind gen working. I could not find one.

My Suggestion: Those members of CF who have a boat with a Wind Gen working in breeze please upload a video to Youtube showing the sound, and your wind speed meter showing the wind speed, and the make/model/year of the unit, I think it would help threads like this.

Watch free range sailing, in their latest episode he services his winch and there's a hell of a racket in the background, he never comments on it but I guess it is the wind gen.

[GILow]

Well, this thread went the way of just about every other wind generator thread. It’s kinda boiler plate stuff.

Some people love them, some people hate them.

I think we all agree that the noisy ones suck. Both for the boat owner, but more importantly, the innocent bystanders.

I think I mentioned early on that someone threw a handful of rope into a wind generator at my marina, and despite being a wind generator lover myself, I totally understood why they did it and could not guarantee that I would not eventually have done the same.

For anyone reading this thread for ideas on whether or not to get a wind generator, I reckon all you need to know is that there are quiet ones if you look around (though not the Aerogen 6 any more) and that care must be taken if combining them with solar to minimise their negative impact.

For the record, I have 760 watts of solar and a wind generator and I find the combination is just brilliant. If I had to go without one, yes it would be the wind generator that went, but I am perfectly happy with the performance hit on my rear bank of panels for the flexibility I get from the combination of the two systems. In particular, running a very power hungry autopilot is not a drama at night, regardless of how the the batteries were treated during the day, and that benefit alone makes the compromise worthwhile for me.

YMMV.

[skipgundlach]

What he ^^^^^^^^^ said!

[skipgundlach]

Originally Posted by billknny

If YOU can't stand your wind generator, imagine how your neighbors in the anchorage feel about it...

Noisy WGs are the number one reason that we have felt the need to relocate after setting our anchor! I am sure there are people we think we are just antisocial when they arrive and then we pull up and move 300 yards away...

I have had WGs, and I found them to be a poor investment. Take the same money, and add solar panels and battery capacity and you will generate far more watts per dollar over a year--or even over the average week.

To the OP that billknny quoted: KISS changed blade designs, to massively good effect, including noise.

But if you're going to ditch that, the D400 will be silent and put out more juice AND have a smaller radius for the blades. When you DO switch, advertise your KISS. They're unobtanium, other than some parts from the US distributor, now retired (those would include the new blades, which he made), and someone will snatch it up...

As to adding solar, it's impossible, sometimes, though an upgrade - if yours are many years old - certainly is possible. We did that on ours (story here on CF) and doubled our wattage. But there is a point at which one cannot add more solar, whereas a wind generator takes very little real estate; if you're in an area with a breeze, it's a no-brainer; even some shading, if you've got the wind, will easily (KISS can put out 30 A, or the new ones, if you possibly had one, 50A, and a D400 can put out 50A all day in a strong breeze) be outweighed by a good wind generator.

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by skipgundlach

...But there is a point at which one cannot add more solar, whereas a wind generator takes very little real estate; if you're in an area with a breeze, it's a no-brainer; ...

What he said .

As with all things sailing and cruising, there is no One Right Answer for everyone. Maximizing solar is the first step for power generation on board, but for those of us on smallish boats with limited space, a good windgen can be a real and measurable benefit. For us, it is definitely the difference between running the gas generator (which DOES make a lot more noise than my windgen) or having to run the main diesel every few days.

Obviously, don’t mount it so that you’re going to shade your panels. And definitely no reason to get a noisy windgen these days. There are many on the market that are relatively quiet. Mine (a Silentwind) is mounted off my boomkin, aft of my cockpit. I can easily carry on normal conversation in the cockpit with the windmill going full-tilt. Most fellow cruisers (anchorage sharers) don’t even notice I have one. I actually posted a video of this a few years ago somewhere here on CF. You can probably find it if you search my posts.

[RaymondR]

One of my worst experiences afloat involved a wind generator.

I was sailing up the New South Wales coast and encountered a thunder storm. It's sudden onset caught me with a fair bit of rag up and the auto pilot could not handle the gusting so, being fairly close to the shore I was obliged to hand steer.

I was standing at the helm when the hail came. Luckily my bicycle crash hat was handy so I strapped it on and commenced to worry about my solar panels. By this time my wind generator had unloaded and had commenced a freewheeling scream and every now and then a hail stone would encounter a blade. My worry then shifted to being decapitated by a flying wind generator blade.

The wind generator pretty well stayed tied off from then until I sold the boat.

[GILow]

I’m getting this picture of you in a bike helmet dodging hail stones and I gotta say... it’s making my day better.

[Trekka]

So what do people think of the Rutland's, like the 913? Sound wise.