The reason is simple: NASA Jerry is a sailor with a 9 foot prop on his 42 ft. sailboat and 4 decades in wind tunnels. While most homes furl/depower their wind gens early, Jerry will crank up that 5kw machine in 35 mph of wind to 5000 watts and quickly charge, weld, whatever...and then shut it down.

'Real' sailors don't have a copper electric feed tied to their boat and battery capacity, while substantial, can't match what a home can carry.

Sailors need every ounce, every 1/2 amp of wind power to charge as FAST as possible while there is that brief bit of glorious wind.

Since there is next to zero power in light winds, no matter what size blade you fly, sailors aim their airfoil profiles for medium and strong winds, where you get real amps and a real charge.

This makes an airfoil with a profile that starts 2-3 knots later than others, 6-9 knots instead of 3-5, but once a WindGenZen airfoil or any full profile airfoil is flying, it's faster and quieter than hollow metal airfoils at higher speeds. The difference in sound and power is quite dramatic.

The trick, as Jerry says, 'Is to match the blade to the wind to the generator.' You want a generator large enough to handle max output in the maximum 'head on' (no furled) wind speed you intend to run the gear, yet keep the generator small enough so it starts easily in the lower end of the powerband.

Do that, and you have fine tuned your rig for your personal performance preferences...it's as fast and powerful as you can make it.

And you make it cheap with parts that are better than anything you can buy from a 'factory'. The Stainless hubs you have made onsite (or Barry, Vice Chairman of the American Welding Society and TechSpec Guru can make for you) can be thicker, stronger and longer lasting than any hub you buy from any other source. Sailors need gear that NEVER breaks and if it does, can be easily replaced on the fly. You do that by building 'fuses' into components; we learned that technique from Bill Bromley, the engineer who built the first DNA Synthesizer on Earth.

That is the WindGenZen way of doing things. Our wood carving instructors, from NASA Jerry to 84 year old Rod to fine yatch craftsman and boatwrights means absolutely nobody on planet Earth makes a more beautiful, powerful prop to match your personal preferences.

And that fine tuning is the idea and he philosophy at WindGenZen's 'Lowest-Cost-Per-Amp' motto.

No matter what brand you choose, if you want max annual output, you can learn from them. Here are the basic s the basic class:

1. STEP 1: it starts with The Wind vs Watts vs Diameter calculator. Pop that calculator up now and leave it in the background. If you have pop-ups blocked, this class won't work for you.

2. STEP 2: check your LOCAL WIND MAPS AND NOAA CITY DATA and remember that micro-climates, such as buildings and treelines can accelerate (raise wind pressure gradients and local velocity) increasing power by huge amounts or detract (lower velocity).

   Solar panel enthusiasts and some politicians don't think wind power belongs in cities due to so many obstructions. The reality is cities are a wonderful place to capture wind channeled between structures that can easily be 10-20mph faster with double or triple the output compared to City Hall or NOAA wind data average. Smog doesn't belong in cities. Wind power does.

3. STEP 3: Pick a windy spot and measure the wind speed with an anemometer for a few days and compare it with city hall or NOAA data for the same time, same days. If your reading is less, you will have a fairly consistent percentage to shave from expected wind speeds. Use your new figures in the calculator above.

   If your micro-climate wind speeds are 20% higher than City Hall, things begin to look cheery indeed.

   If you have light winds in your area but you find a micro-climate with higher winds you could be producing a lot of power for very little money invested.

4. STEP 4: Design your rig. If you use some other wind generator, watch out! Besides all that expense for a boxed-all-in-one-kit and warranty, no gen, expensive or cheap, is without flaws and folks have had to deal with downtime dead out of the box too. Many of them actually shut down to prevent damage, and like the Air-X, put out 1/2 of their rated amperage; you're paying for power you will never get.

   If you want a unit that protects itself early, great. If you want max power, NASA Jerry says "Get a bigger gen that can handle the higher winds or bump up the size of the blade, increase/decrease RPM, tip size, chord, thickness - tune your rig."

   It's not that hard to do and as this comparison shows fine tuning your inexpensive rig can product 150% or more power than a rig made by someone else.

   WindGenZen provides all the classes to make the inexpensive switches with twice the amperage ratings of 'all-in-one' kits and the mounts, towers, even desulfators you can build - all free with your gear.

   Fifth article on gridtie nightmares
   (5 of 5)
   

   Think expensive grid-ties are better? Here is a wind gen professional struggling with the problems of a straight grid-tie system (no battery) tied to a wind gen/controller and he admits, the power curve needs fine tuning and as a result, it really is NOT as effective or efficient as a reliable battery/inverter system and batteries and inverters mean you always have power, even if the grid is down. If you use expensive grid-ties you are almost guaranteed to have blackouts. WHY WOULD YOU SPEND THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS TO UNPLUG AND THEN BUILD A SYSTEM SUBJECT TO BLACKOUTS? HA! This forum post was made at the a-w-h forum where wind gen scientists, installers and home owners chat. "Hi to all, I have been thinking quite a lot about grid tied inverters for wind turbines and my opinion is that if you want to have a true MPPT on a wind turbine, you need to take into account several specific parameters : RPM/frequency Voltage Current/Torque alternator temperature availability of grid wind speed You can deduct wind speed from torque and RPM but you do not have any indications for low wind speeds as the rotor might be stopped. As you know, you have to extract the more power possible out of the turbine and as the power comes from the wind, you have to extract power according to a power vs wind speed load curve (this is obvious but always good to remember) Now. Everybody here knows that setting properly a Windy Boy for example for a specific turbine is troublesome. It takes time and as the Windy boy only allows a 2 points curve, the results are always a bit disapointing. You cannot take care of the RPM or overheating for example. ARE did a great job with their voltage clamp as they actually take care of the above parameters but their clamp only works for their turbines. And it is an added cost to the system. So my guess is that you will never manage to have an efficient MPPT for any wind turbine if does not meet the proper load curve. The problem then is that all the different turbines on the market have different power curves (and most of the timer, you cannot rely on the manufacturers ones). What is the next step? The next step is to make an smart inverter that will actually "learn" the turbine through data collecting and processing. We have ideas on how to do this. I am looking for an inverter manufacturer that would be interested in making a prototype we could test on our test site. We have the design and we know the data processing needed. We need someone who can make it. The target is to have a 0 to 5 kW inverter that would be able to work with any wind turbine in any wind condition. And the more it will work, the better it will work. Olivier