We have the charging station in place now and connected to our old deep cycle batteries, with a data logger in place. We'll monitor the power usage for a few weeks to help decide on the next steps we should take with charging and storage batteries.
Attached files

 

We are thinking a solar panel might be the next step with a charge control:

Kyocera Solar KD-135 135 Watt 12 Volt Solar Electric Panel: $400.00
Morningstar ProStar Solar Charge Controller. 30 Amp, 12/24 Volt, No Meter: $143.00
or
Morningstar ProStar 30 Amp Solar Charge Controller, 12/24 Volt With Digital Meter: $203.00

Sub Total: $543 to $603

Four Energizer E29HM 125Ah batteries 68x4= $272.00
Cable and connections $100.00

Total= $915 to $975

 

http://www.harborfreightusa.com/usa/ite ... egoryName=

 

Thanks Jeff I will tell the guys about this!

That Air X Wind Generator at Harbor Freight looks pretty nice, and it's only $600.00 complete with all the required parts to charge a 12vdc battery bank This unit is also 4x the output of one solar panel we were thinking of using.


More Details are at: http://www.windenergy.com/products/air.htm
Specs are at: http://www.windenergy.com/documents/spec_sheets/3-CMLT-1339-01_Air_X_Spec.pdf Attached files

 

last i seen it was on sale for $399
Plus it will charge at night !!

 

Jeff,

I have been looking at reviews of the air-x and many people are having problems with them, and get terrible customer support. Also our wind density is not really that high in Illinois, so I think it would be better to stick with solar or gasoline charging since those seem pretty reliable.

http://www.greenerbuilding.org/product_ ... =39&pid=96
http://www.wind-works.org/articles/sm_AirXtest.html

Here is a wind energy density map of the U.S.: http://www.nrel.gov/gis/wind.html this page also has solar energy maps.

 

Bummer, I just remembered seeing it, I never looked into it any farther

 

Even with a low wind density, it's still worth it to build if it is a low cost solution, like in DIY. Look at the two links below:
http://www.instructables.com/id/DIY-100 ... coil-disk/
http://www.yourgreendream.com/diy_pvc_blades.php

 

just put a car alternator on a pole with a fan hooked to it

 

Yoram,

Do you use wind power to charge your battery bank? If you do what has been your experience with it compared to solar, gasoline generator charging ,or some other method of charging? What is your preferred way to charge your battery bank?

Dan

 

Mark,

Your idea is not crazy there was an article I saw about this kind of charging a while back. I think they used the vibration of cars on the road to charge battery powered lights in the road...yep here is the article, sounds like a japanese guy was awake one night too thinking about this!

http://www.japanfs.org/en/pages/027044.html

 

a Piezoelectric mat to provide power doesn't sound that far off to me. We don't have any use for them at my job, but I've seen lots of small remote sensors that are powered off of the vibrations of the machine they are attached too. I don't know anything about a cost anaylsis but your idea sounds very interesting.

 

Sorry for not getting faster back to you, Dan. I didn't see your post yesterday.

I don't have a wind generator to charge my batteries but my neighbor does. He used to have four small commercially bought generators, the 400W type, in conjunction with photo voltaic cells. When the generators worked, he had reduced external electricity consumption. The problem he had was that the propellers broke to easily. He now has no wind generators since it is difficult to get here replacement. I was going to make the generator I posted but had problem finding the magnets here and now it is a mute point since I sold my house and am heading home to Terra firma (SP), That is North America, for those who don't know.

 

That's fine Mark, that's what I like around here is that we share ideas!

 

[quote="TigerPilot
Sorry for not getting faster back to you, Dan. I didn't see your post yesterday.

I don't have a wind generator to charge my batteries but my neighbor does. He used to have four small commercially bought generators, the 400W type, in conjunction with photo voltaic cells. When the generators worked, he had reduced external electricity consumption. The problem he had was that the propellers broke to easily. He now has no wind generators since it is difficult to get here replacement. I was going to make the generator I posted but had problem finding the magnets here and now it is a mute point since I sold my house and am heading home to Terra firma (SP), That is North America, for those who don't know.
Thanks for the feeback on wind power Yoram. I am pretty sure we won't go with wind power after your story and some others I have heard about. It seems like generators and solar are the best way to go with smaller battery banks like we are going to use.

Where are you moving to in North America?

 

We have been data logging our new charging station for a three weeks now and it looks like we are using about 140Ah in one week

Saturday 40Ah
Tuesday 20Ah
Thursday 20Ah
Saturday 60Ah

I will continue taking data for the next few weeks to see if this trend continues.

 

We have been bulk charging our batteries at the flying field with a 2 cycle 1200 watt generator and an old 30 amp battery charger. From the data logger it looks like this charger never really fully charges the batteries, plus this unit kicks off after 20 to 30 minutes of charging. I dont think this poor Mity Mite charger was designed for charging 335Ah worth of batteries!

....So I finally broke down and got a charger designed to do what we need, and IOTA DLS-55:
Here are the details on this Power Converter / Charger:
About these units in general: http://www.iotaengineering.com/dls.htm
The unit I bought DLS-55: http://www.iotaengineering.com/dls55.htm
I also got a IQ Smart Charger to add to the above unit, to add 3 stage charging.
This setup cost $180
We'll see how it works as early as this weekend. Attached files

 

Finally got two good weeks of Amp Hour usage data:

Week 1 (July 14th -21st) 43Ah Total Used

Week 2 (July 21st - 28th) 43Ah Total Used

 

It is weird how the data was almost exactly the same! Here is what we charged on those two weeks:

quite a few 850mAh 3 cell packs
a few 2200mAh 3 cell packs
a few 2200mAh 4 cell packs
one 4000mAh 4 cell pack

We'll see what the data looks like from this week though, we hammered the charging station on Saturday for about 10 hours straight and I had to switch out two 125Ah batteries because they were dead. I'm guessing that we used more than 125Ah in that one day.

Here are the data charts from the last two weeks: Attached files

 

I have been working on a quick disconnect system for our deep cycle batteries, this system will make it much easier to grab the batteries and bring them home for charging or maintenance. This will allow up to four deep cycle batteries to be connected in parallel.
Attached files