Neon Light

[John Szegda]

Can anyone tell me if a 432vac neon panel indicator light work with DC current.

John

[Rob Beckers]

John, not having tried this, I would expect it to work on DC as well as AC. All it should take is sufficient electrical field strength (voltage) to ionize the gas in there, once that happens current flows and it lights up.

-RoB-

[John Szegda]

Rob,
I am in the later stage of building an Overvoltage Dump Control you designed, scheme 2. I would like to wire a panel indicator light, so I would know when the dumpload is activated. Initially I thought of wiring a high voltage neon bulb (500vdc) to the DC side of the bridge rectifier. But then I was thinking maybe an easier way would be to go direct onto the Omron K8AB using a lesser wattage bulb (120vac). But, I do not know what contacts to use.

John

[Andy Rhody]

John, as you know I had built the same overvoltage dump control. You'll know when it dumps because the Omron relay will click loudly and a very small light on the Omron will light up but a good indicator light is would be the "icing on the cake".

I experimented with that this weekend. Years ago I had made a testing dump load device consisting of three 100 watt light bulbs in series wired with 18 gauge lamp cord mounted directly to wood. How's that for being scary? Anyway I used alligator clips and as you said, hooked it to the DC side of the dump load rectifier. With my set-up, it dumps at 180 volts DC and was doing some dumping. The light turned bright orange. Looks like Dr. Frankinstin's laboratory. My dump was usually staying on around 11 seconds.

Here's a vid I just made.

http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e295/andy47bottles/th_001-1.jpg

[Rob Beckers]

Andy, that's great with those light bulbs! What better way to visualize what the turbine is doing. By the way, did you ever make those wiring changes to the controller (remember our E-mail exchange before the holidays regarding a small wiring mistake that kept the dump load cycling in/out on overvoltage)?

John, you can hook up a neon bulb between pins A1 and 12 of the Omron relay. That way it'll light up when the turbine switches to dump load. The only issue is that if grid power is down the neon bulb won't light up (it'll still switch to dump load though, the Omron and contactor are wired to default to dump load when there's no power).

-RoB-

[Andy Rhody]

Yes Rob, I did make those wiring changes to the controller and that solved the problem. Just one small wiring mistake but you found it, we fixed it, and all is well.

John, as Rob said, you could use the Omron relay to fire the neon bulb but as Rob said, when the power is out, it won't work although the dump rectifier DC side should always work. (at least I think it should).

[John Szegda]

Hello Andy,
How goes the battle. I think your idea using bulbs for indicator lights is clever. Did you use AC or DC bulbs. I finally mounted the OV Controller and it is dumping within the omron settings. The only issue is that it cycles rapidly when it dumps to the resister. I hope I wired lead from Omron V3 pin corectly. I also wired the Indicator light directly to the Omron Relay according to Rob pin location and that is operating perfectly.

John

[John Szegda]

Hello Rob,
After testing and switching off all the power to the newly built OV Controller, I noticed the DC volt meter was indicating 82 volts. It held that voltage for approximately ten minute, until it started to dissipate down to zero in about twenty minutes total time. What could cause that scenario.

John

[Rob Beckers]

John, assuming you wired everything up correctly, you can change how rapidly it cycles through the 'hysteresis' setting of the Omron. This is marked 'hys' on the relay; just increase it until you're happy. What could be happening is that your dump load is large enough (a small enough resistance) to cause a very sudden drop in voltage when it engages, causing the relay to switch back. The hysteresis setting determines how low the voltage needs to drop before the relay switches back.

Take a good look your wiring as well: Andy had one wire attached to the wrong place, causing the Omron relay to stop measuring the AC voltage when it switched to dump load (and instantly dropping off, since it saw 0 Volt).

The residual DC on the inverter input is a known issue with the Power-One inverters. Some seem to have it more than others. The solution is a 100kOhm/5W resistor over the pos/neg of the DC input. Note though that you should wire up the Omron relay to sense on the AC side, so it should switch based on AC voltage (and the residual DC won't bother it, but it may cause the inverter to stay powered up much longer than needed when there's no wind).

-RoB-

[John Szegda]

Rob,
I changed the setting on the Omron Hysteresis, but waiting for wind to test it. About the 100k resister, are you saying it should jump between the pos----===----neg of the DC connection. Also, I ran a wire from the V3 pin from Omron Relay to one of the 3 phase lugs on the Turbine Rectifier. I hope that is correct.

Rob, I thank you for the help your giving all the members on this Forum. There are not many people today that give their time like you do.

John

[Andy Rhody]

John, you said this:

"I ran a wire from the V3 pin from Omron Relay to one of the 3 phase lugs on the Turbine Rectifier."

That is exactly what I did when my OV controller was wired incorrectly. I know that I sent you a drawing of mine but I think I confused you and I apoligize. That part of my drawing was wrong and I had wanted to convey that to you. Sorry for the communication "glitch".

Take that wire from the Omron V3 pin and relocate it to any one of the 3 phases coming directly from the turbine which is before the rectifier.

When I had my OV controller wired incorrectly, in overvolt it would click loudly about twice per second. It was switching back and forth. It was during "Hurricane Sandy" and was my 1st big test of my system. My 2000 watt windmill was hitting 3300 watts and hitting over 20 amps. I thought it was gonna blow up so I called Rob on the phone. Then as we were talking, the system would go into the dump mode and make that twice per second clicking sound which was great because Rob was witnessing it. He instructed me to change the SV and HYS setting over and over but we still had the same results. Then he said, "Somethings wired wrong. I'll email you tomorrow. Then we fixed it.

[Andy Rhody]

Hello Rob,
After testing and switching off all the power to the newly built OV Controller, I noticed the DC volt meter was indicating 82 volts. It held that voltage for approximately ten minutes, until it started to dissipate down to zero in about twenty minutes total time. What could cause that scenario.

John

John, I had the same problem but mine would hover around 40 volts which kept the Auroua powered up and my inverter would stay on indefinately. In other words, if you don't have wind for 3 or 4 days, the inverter stays on waisting watts so I ordered that resistor and it solved the problem. I ordered an extra one but I won't need it. If you want it I'll just send it up there with no cost. I'll never use it for anything else. Just give me an address. Here's my email.

sharbaughhill@msn.com

[Andy Rhody]

Hello Andy,
How goes the battle. I think your idea using bulbs for indicator lights is clever. Did you use AC or DC bulbs.

John

Thanks John, The bulbs are regular 100 watt AC light bulbs. When I was doing some windmill testing "down in my garage", I needed to have some kind of a load so the parts I had laying around were 3 porciline sockets, three 100 watt light bulbs, and some 18 guage wire. The bulbs are in series so what does that mean? Does it mean that it's a 300 watt dumpload? Can someone explain?

When I had bought my 2000 watt windmill a year and a half ago, I talked to an Aurora guy here in the US about dumploads and such and he said that a cheaper way out would be to wire five 100 watt light bulbs in series and then hook 6 of those in parallel making 3000 watts which would total 30 light bulbs. Sounds like just over 100 bucks. Now wouldn't that light up my basement ceiling! Remember, if you have 5 bulbs in series and one burns out all 5 go down. I guess you'd have to keep checking them.

So Rob, if you can recall my dump load consists of two 1500 watt Walmart oil filled heaters wired in series making a 3000 watt system (and I also came in well under 100 bucks).

When I hooked those 3 light bulbs to the OV controller's dump load rectifier, did it significntly change the load? For example, if those light bulbs would make less resistance than the 3000 watt heaters, would that make less resistance on the turbine and make it speed up dangerously?

I guess you can tell that I'm doing some thinking here. I'm thinking of adding 3 to 5 light bulbs to my dump load system to be able to monitor when the dump is on or even being able to have some lighting when the grid goes down during a storm.

Any Thoughts?

[Rob Beckers]

Light bulbs as dump loads are a bit tricky: Their resistance when cold is completely different from their resistance when shining brightly, it's about a factor of 10 difference. For example, a 100 Watt bulb running at 120V will be around 144 Ohm when turned 'on', but just 14 Ohm when cold. So it would take some trial-and-error to make it work well as a dump load. As you note, bulbs burn out, so they are not reliable as a dump load either (when you need it most, during a storm, is also the time the voltage will be highest, and the change of blowing the bulbs).

That said, if all you want is some visual verification, just wire a 60 Watt (or 100 Watt) incandescent bulb over each of the two heaters. For your turbine the voltage is just about right if I remember right; 240V for the two heaters in series, or 120V per heater when the dump load is operating. Two bulbs is such a low load it won't matter to the turbine, and it'll let you see what's happening.

-RoB-

[John Szegda]

Hello Andy,

I corrected the V3 wire issue and the OV Controller is working perfectly. Only thing I have to tweak is the power curve. It seems at high RPM the Turbine is not producing as much energy. Also, thanks for the resister offer, but I bought one locally. It seems strange to bridge something across a Pos to Neg DC with out it blowing up.

John

[Andy Rhody]

It seems strange to bridge something across a Pos to Neg DC with out it blowing up.


I agree but "When in Rome, Do AS The Romans". It worked for me. I just don't know how. :amazed:

My MPPT curve seems to be okay but I think my turbine might furl too easily, but that's another issue. Always more fun.

[John Szegda]

Andy,

I think it's in the winding, That's why them call it a resister I guess. I have a Exmork
2kw @ 300v. I was thinking of replacing it with a 5kw, but at this time I rather put my money installing a Solar System on my roof.

John

[Andy Rhody]

I'm thinking about solar too! Prices are still down.