I have designed this software to be totally inclusive and acquire/display data from: weather system, battery bank, inverter, diversion controller, solar panels, charge controller and weather station.

Currently it is connected via a CANBUS --> RS232 dongle that connects with my Xantrex XW series inverter. There is a ton of information being spit out from this system with about 5000 messages per minute. Much information about the battery bank, charger, charge controller, power input and output, grid connection and inverter are available through it.

The interfaces to the other devices will use analog-->digital (A/D) ports.

Here is a list of the current features:

• runs under MS Windows 2000, XP, Vista
• efficient multi-threaded code, only uses 6-8% CPU
• asynchronous serial I/O
• design incorporates a 'total systems approach'
• turbine and or solar installations
• totally configurable for each piece of equipment
• total graphic user interface (like your car dashboard - but better)
• configurable warnings and ranges for gauges
• logging output configurable for frequency and file formats (csv, html, xls)
• logging of instantaneous, average, daily and monthly readings
• screen click-though's to see detailed output for each system
• colors are configurable
• battery 'LED' display
• status and warning lights
• provides maintenance reminders
• recording of meter readings
• pop-up warnings
• equipment inventory

Here is the main dashboard screen shot:

Initial phase will perform monitoring/logging of information, next phase will include:

• system control
• automatic shutdown
• effectively give MPPT-like control over wind turbine
• graphing capabilities for log data
• ability to remotely connect using web browser

I spent the better part of the 3 day weekend analyzing and hacking the data, and have finally gotten to the point that I have worked out most of the initial problems. From what I see the Xantrex document is lagging the development and is incorrect in a number of areas.

This weekend I was also able to disassemble a cheap Taylor wireless anemometer, and found out that the wind speed portion uses a magnet and reed relay, while the other portion of it uses I/R LED's for indicating wind direction. I have some PicAxe prototyping boards coming from PHAnderson as well as a wireless solution from Digi.com. The wireless unit is a bit of overkill as it has a range of about 1 mile, but with the cost of the complete development kit ($99) you can't beat it!

Once completed I will have a wireless anemometer (both speed and direction) directly connected to my computer, and less cost than most commercially available units.

I may use another PicAxe to handle 'sniffing' the turbine AC output to determine rotor speed, as well as computer control of relays for switching in/out my load resistor as well as automated shutdown.

This weekend I hope to have all the supplies and start on the next phase of my monitor/logging project!

Been progressing with my Xantrex XW monitoring/logging software, it is coming along quite nicely!

Software has been working pretty well so I recently added the ability to interface to a Dataq DI148 D/A device. I incorporated the device into my software so that I can accurately monitor/log the turbine rpm's, I am using a door bell step-down transformer to bring the voltage down to about 5 volts.

This Dataq device is relatively cheap and comes with software drivers as well as support. Once I got some bugs worked out in my software I got the device working and tracking the rpm's very well, which caused some confusion.

It appears that my Mastech hand-held meter does not measure the frequency coming from the turbine properly, in the past I took the meter reading as gospel - but now highly doubt the readings.

I would watch the meter in higher winds and see that it displayed the fact that my turbine rpm's increased from 125 (average) to up to 250rpm, measuring the same thing on the D/A device showed me that the rpm's only went from 125 to 150!!! So in the past when I reported rpm's it was based on the incorrect hand-held meter readings!

Just shows that you can't always trust what a meter displays!

Today we had a good wind blow through and in a 36mph wind I recorded a peak 250rpm with the turbine outputting 3.4kw output with 60 amps!

Over the last month or so I had been waiting for a calm warm day to take down the tail and replace the wood with some lighter FRP material. That day never seem to come.

I had been closely monitoring the forecasted wind and when I saw 18+mph winds that I typically would shut off the turbine. Over the past couple of months I have visually confirmed that the turbine is fully furled in a 28 mph winds. However when wind hits approximately 35mph have noticed that the turbine gets a big increase in power output of 4-5kw.

Last Monday evening I awoke at about 1:20am heavy winds were slamming against our house, only 14mph winds were forecasted, so I decided to check on the turbine.

First looking at the output from my software I was miffed, 0 amps output and 0 rpms... So went into the back room where inverter was, and acknowledged no output from the turbine, went outside and it sounded like a helicopter was landing in our field.

Went back inside and threw the contactor to short out the stator, the turbine came to a halt and I decided to keep it off. Looked back at my logs and had determined that for the last 10 minutes the turbine was free-wheeling!! For the previous 5 minutes the logs showed that the output went from 800watts and peaked at about 4.8kw. At first my thoughts were that the rectifier blew, and went back to bed.

Next morning replaced the rectifier with a backup unit and started up the turbine. While I watched my monitoring software I saw the rpm's steadily climb and then quickly the rpm's dropped off to nothing again, while the ampmeter and software showed that 0 amps were being output. Went outside to again hear the helicopter, shorted out the stator and again it stopped, and went to work.

That evening decided to make sure that all electrical connections were good, opened up the DC distribution box and all appeared to be normal. With short daytime and working long work hours decided to mull it over. I believe that sampled turbine voltage that gets fed into the DataQ A/D controller exceeded it's operating limits and that is why the software had shown 0 rpm.

I also checked the anemometer that measures wind speed at the top of the tower and at 1:15pm it recorded 48mph. This anemometer does some 'averaging' so I suspect 50-55mph winds were present.

At this time I have not put a meter to the system to confirm my suspicions, but at this time believe that I burnt out one phase of the stator, luckily there appears to be two phases left and that is why I am able to stop the turbine by shorting the stator (I still have the mechanical brake as my backup).

I probably will wait till the weekend to give through examination as I leave for work in the dark and arrive back home in the dark so can not visually examine the stator that is still at the top of the tower.

In doing a lot of thinking about things I believe that the offset of the turbine from the yaw bearing is insufficient, and that in high winds the turbine seeks back into the windward direction, effectively un-furling itself.

My plan is to (once I confirm my suspicions) is take down the turbine (hopefully some warm/calm day) in the next month or so and increase the offset of the generator by an inch or so, rebuild the stator and reduce the weight of the tail, and possibly increase the air gap between the rotors to help reduce the stall condition a bit.

At the current time I believe that the offset of the turbine is about 8-1/2" center-to-center from the yaw bearing.

One thing that I am very happy about is that mechanically the turbine and blades have survived such an event!

After getting home last night using a meter and checking things out, I found the culprit - a blown #4 wire that connects between my rectifier and my load resistor. It was a little hard to see as the resistor is mounted just above eye-level, but checking around with the meter found it!

With this turbine somewhat regularly producing > 3kw in hind-sight the #4 is undersized. As luck would have it I had already ordered up some 2/0 cable and will be shortly be replacing cables in a couple of days.

While turbine is shut down in a couple of days I will also take the meter around and double check EVERYTHING before turning it back on.

Whew - this might have been a close one.

Luck counts!

In diagnosing the wiring problem that I had, I noticed that no remnants of the wire existed inside the soldered connector - it would appear that the (guessing 100+ amp gust) was so intense that it *melted* the solder.

Once the solder melted the wire exploded out of it's connector! I'm not sure that I blew up the wire per-se, what I suspect is that

• the solder melted
• steam developed in the connector
• the steam assisted in reducing contact area
• reduced contact area between wire/connector could not stand the power and blew up
• pushing the wire out from connector

Now I understand why the recommendation is to CRIMP connectors and NOT to solder.

This weekend I will be replacing as much as I can with 2/0 stranded cable with crimped connectors.

Mike apparently has 20 - Evergreen 190 solar panels (with that capacity probably off-grid) connected to a Xantrex 6048 and XW Solar controller. I look forard to hearing first impressions from Mike about my software, as currently I do not have solar panels.

I do not want a repeat of the incident that occurred this week, and with the beefed up cable - it should not happen again.

All of the cable connections were crimped using a small A-frame hydraulic press. I made up a jig that the connectors/wire fitted into so that when I crimped the connector it did not deform too much. I also change the wiring slightly having the battery bank connect directly to the main 250amp breaker, at the other end of the breaker was the inverter and + bus bar connection.

In addition, the wiring from the DC distribution box to the inverter and *all* the battery connections throughout are #2/0!

No more 'melt-downs' for me!

Initially the site focused on my hand-made spinning wheels, but since I have not had time to make any for a while decided to put them on the back burner - hopefully get back into it when (if ever) I retire.

So now the site will focus on my newest 'hobby' - to provide my monitoring/logging software to others.

I have been waiting since May for this to happen, and at the same time my electician will install a manual disconnect switch out by the meter (as required by utility).

This turned out to be an interesting day, 2 'administrative type' people showed up from the utility company and we got to talking. First thing out of their mouths was "So when we throw the disconnect switch, you wind turbine will stop - right? The previous installation we did, did.".

After some more talking I figured out that the previous (only) installation they did was with a Skystream 3.7 'direct connect' wind turbine. This turbine is designed to output straight line voltage, and does not use a separate inverter system - but directly connects to the incomming grid.

So I had to educate them, in that with my situation the intellegence is in the inverter, and not the wind turbine. After showing them the back-end electronics they finally understood that my inverter would stop outputting power not the turbine.