My, how time flies... Progress is in the works - substantial progress, no less! Just a couple of months ago I was in the planning, scavanging, junker-phase of this project, building specs and scouring the universe for materials. Now, the monster battery bank has taken shape, is installed and coming together nicely. In addition to providing 24V (at 1350A!) I've tapped off the bank and pulled a big, fat, 13.5V to the bench for testing those big, honkin' Motorola and GE sets that suck down 40A in transmit (In fact, the first rig to get fired up off the new setup is a Motorola Micom XF - betcha haven't seen one of those floating around lately!!!) Dudes! We've got JUICE! And the wind generator should be here Monday... Honey, I needed a new battery for my handheld... Yes, its KINDA small, but it should last a long time... (A really, really, REALLY long time!)
11/1/2007 Well, hell... It was a long summer! Numerous projects were on the list and a number of them were completed, but the list continues! As for the wind generator at this end, I found myself disappointed by the output of the generators I was experimenting with. As such, they were pulled down in anticipation with a new system that will be installed at a later date. What we HAVE determined, however, is that the planned system will definitely "work". What does "work" mean, in this case? The system will be required to provide all heating-related needs in the house. In short, the system will be a water-based closed system that will keep the house warm and provide hot water needs throughout the year. In addition, the system will provide DC backup for a variety of needs, including emergency lighting for the home, as well as radio operations and computer emergency power. Although the wind generator system didn't make it as far as I would have liked, a number of other projects were completed over the summer, including the installation of a 50+ foot radio tower; writing the interface for EchoLink to a digital I/O system for capturing analog and digital data to control audio statements to the repeater; web-based paging system for our commercial paging transmitters, as well as an eMail interface; opening a new office; and a number of repeater-site-related-projects. 6/14/2007 After some frustration with poor spin-up in 5-10 MPH winds, I elected to add 3 blades to the system and see how it performs. I'll be putting an anemometer up so we can watch windspeed vs. current, voltage and RPM on the generator. More information on this one later... Beefed up the guys today - went to vinyl-wrapped steel cable and we'll be adding some structural supports to tie them to for the final install. So far, so good. Also installed so 90A PowerPole style rapid disconnects at the mount, allowing for quick separation of the power leads and insertion of a shorting plug, in the event I need/want to take the setup down again. 6/09/2007 Added a rather cool piece of equipment to the setup for a variety of reasons. As noted elsewhere, we're running a lot of 12V (now THERE'S a misnomer, eh?!) equipment in the lab. Until today, I was pulling a 12+ Volt package by attaching to the center of the first pack in the parallel bank seen above. That's NOT the ideal way to do the job, but it DID give me a whopper 12V pack -- at 12.54V. Needless to say, for all you ham-types, 12.5V isn't quite the ticket... We'd like a nice, regulated, 13.8 Volts at the equipment, right?! (For those of you who don't believe me, drop a Wattmeter on your FM output and vary the voltage supplied to the unit. Kinda sux, don't it!) Now the guys at V-Infinity, a division of CUI, Inc., produce an awesome product called the VSD-350B ... Go ahead, give it a try. What this little bad-boy does is take 19-36 VDC in, and provide you a regulated 12-15.5 VDC out - I dialed mine in at 13.8 VDC and tested things out. 30 Amps without breaking too much of a sweat. Sooooo... I ordered another unit: VTZ2000-D24-S12 which can be adjusted to 13.8 VDC... At 125 Amps. Heh, heh,heh... I also have a FluidMotion SteppIR Vertical whch has the need for 24V, at moderately low current... Wouldn't you know, they make a nice brick that takes that 12VDC in and gives us 24VDC out, completely regulated and isolated. (And if you're curious, there are 12VDC in <-> 13.8VDC out DC-DC interverters that will give you an optimized DC power supply for those wishing to run from emergency power (a car battery). If you're worried, as I was, about EMI and the Funk (yes, I said FUNK) that you typically encounter around inverters, this puppy is clean and clear. I swept the situation with the spectrum analyzer, and did a few on-air checks where I would anticipate problems, but all was well. I'd highly recommend these units to anyone needing such a solution. 5/25/2007 We poked the mast up a little higher and did some additional support work on the setup, so the generator is sitting at 27' above ground now. The generator still requires a significant amount of wind (probably around 10-15 MPH) before she spins up, but when she does, wow! I was showing 50+ Amperes at 27* Volts (*= loaded across the battery packs). I'm sure open voltage would be significantly higher (maybe around 50-60?) 5/3/2007 An interesting day... The wind generator is up and appears to be operational. Our attention to detail ensured that the installation went smoothly, generally error-free, and without any "accidents." Bill (N7TCD) was the point-man for this operation, given that he was the first to get his own up and running. Learning from one's own mistakes is always a good thing! Currently, Mr. Gen is sitting at around 20' and is just above the peak of the garage, so we're hoping that we're in "the zone" for the wind flow at my house. Worse comes to worse and we'll stick another 10' of pipe in the mix to jack 'er up a little more.
Sadly, winds have been low to moderate (okay, low...) so far, so we haven't been able to see this puppy spin up good (yet). I anticipate that the next few days will give us some wind that will work the bearings and break this unit in. If you install one, don't be surprised if it doesn't just "spin right up" for you. The bearings are tight and you'll need a few days of good wind to break them in. Once that happens, the generator will respond to much lower wind speeds. Once we've got some wind, I'll get a better idea of the float on the batteries and where that will leave us. Think I'll try to get some pix today and post them for the world to see... ---------- 5/1/2007 We've had the battery packs up and running for 12 days now and made a few changes. After a re-orientation of the packs, each battery is optimized and each cell in each batter is within 1/10th of a volt of all the other cells in the battery. This proved to be a smart move, since the batteries in the bank are in parallel and this stabilizes the entire setup. (The other option was to tweak the batteries for overall voltage so they are similar across the entire bank, but we'll try this approach first and see how they equalize over a month or so). The Battery Bank, after re-wire, re-pack and charged! At this point, the pack floats at right around 400 mA and maintains a constant load across the pack of around an amp - a couple of radios running linking and APRS services. Removing all charging to the bank, the 24 hour voltage stabilized at a nice 12.44 V (half a battery) and the overall was the anticipated 24.88 V. Later this week I'll drop a 1 Ohm load across the bank for 30 minutes and see what the recovery rate is like - I expect this will go well, but I'll document what I find when I take the plunge. In the mean time, I'll let 'er float and see where this takes us in the end. A special Thank You to Bill, N7TCD, for his efforts with swapping cells for me, as well as being the Back Breaker on this project. Also, the wind generator arrived. It has been prepped, assembled and painted. We're hoping to have at least a temporary install in place this week - we'll document that process for all our fellow air-heads out there. ---------- 4/18/2007 Yesterday we moved the batteries into the club-house. After pulling an all-nighter, we've got 5 packs of 24V at 270 AH (rated over an 8 hour period) up and running on an in-house charging system. This is the WA7ARC Battery Bank, in-progress...
Paralleled together, the packs should provide around 1300 AH for a sustained draw of 8 hours. I suspect we'll be pulling much less than the full rate, so we should be able to operate very well from this monster pack... Bill and I were wondering how long the VX-7R would run from this bank, but we gave up this fruitless exercise in short order. I was notified (today) that the first wind generator was damaged in transit and its replacement is on the way. Hopefully, over the weekend, I'll see the first puff of smoke from this bad-boy. A little schedule 40 and I suspect we'll be in business in short order. At least that's the theory. In the mean time, I'm testing the battery packs, then I'll equalize the packs to ensure "best operation" for charging and loading. The extra pack will be used for "spare parts" to swap out a couple of questionable cells in other packs. My approach to this process is simple: Prior to starting a charge on the batteries, the voltage of each cell was measured. Aftward, for my own amusement, I loaded each battery with a 1-Ohm 240W resistor in a 5 gallon bucket of water... This allowed me to measure the current capacity in a heavy-load environment and determine exactly where we stood. I re-measured the voltage of each cell - and all that data was dumped into a spreadsheet for future analysis. Around midnight three of the packs were wired and I started charging... It was nice to see the charger bump straight to 17 amps and, over the next 12 hours, decline politely to less than an amp. Later today I'll bring the other packs on-line and start a 12 hour charge. The power-supply metering panel after a 12 hour charge
Once the packs have a good initial and float on them, I'll be re-measuring the individual cells to see where they stand. Initial indications are that the cells are in very good shape, but that won't be known as a fact until the load test following a good charge. Cells will be mated in cabinets to ensure that we've got a nice, even, set of packs - keeping cells within 1/10th of a volt within a given battery. This will allow me to focus special attention on lower voltage packs, as needed. After this process has been completed, I'll take each battery off-line for 72 hours and desulphate each one - applying a high-voltage, varying frequency signal, to each pack. The purpose of this exercise is to break loose any chemicals which have solidified between plates and re-incorporate them into the electrolyte. This should address one of the problems that can creep up when dealing with batteries... The serviced battery will then be re-introduced to the bank and another battery will be taken off-line and serviced. In a couple of weeks or so, all the batteries will have been fully serviced and I'll take a fresh set of readings to see where we stand. Note that all cells are marked for identification... So, when the wife asks, "What are you doing...?" What do you say?
---------- 1/25/2007 As always, I've been a little busy - especially collecting batteries for the systems! Currently, I've got 24v at around 3,000 Amp-hour in battery power, gathered together a number of cables, but I've got to generate some more $$ to get a wind generator in the air. That 24v inverter will come in handy, too! |
