(Quit working on it Nov 2013)
To prove to myself that the wind generator was not a total waste of money, I decided I needed a way to track the electricity it made.
It is a ATMEGA328 with ardunio UNO bootloader copied from the Sparkfun.com "serial LCD backpack" tutorial which I can no longer find on their site. It is connected to the ACS-714 30 amp current sensor I made and posted about a while back.
On the left side, the time rolls over each 24 hours, and resets the total amp hours (Ah=). The right side shows the instantaneous amps (A- discharging-no wind) and the cycles available for more calculation each period (debugging, I said almost finished).
Within 2 weeks of "almost finishing" the bearings went out in the wind generator. I had been seeing less that 20 amp hours per day most days, so I haven't been that excited about climbing the mast a couple times to get it down, repair it and put it back up. And in the mean time I have upped the solar panels to 600 watts, which has taken care of the 120 amp hour/day load we have (before noon most days).
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| Mounted below companion way. |
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| The board, 5v on right, sensor on left, FTDI Friend programming header upper right |
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| The ACS714-30amp that I post about before |
