perusing books from over a century ago, i find it amusing that they understood one of the major issues with wind turbines, and yet, here in 2023, ive never heard anyone mention it. or, should i say, ways of circumventing it. even the old southern cross type windmill pumping water on an outback station seemed to get far better performance figures than our modern counterparts... as lifting water to a certain height in a certain time period is work done, is HP, is watts... they werent terribly aerodynamic, but they DID concentrate on the part where it converts that rotation to actually doing something. variable delivery, proportional to windspeed. thats the grail. a(n electric) wind turbine needs to have a proper alternator, with field windings, that can be excited so the load on the turbine is proportional to the work available in the windspeed*swept area. which goes up on the square of windspeed. you brake the turbines by loading them down and generating power, not by having external brakes or blade feathering systems. with a good enough generator, you can stall the blades entirely regardless of how hard the wind blows... but where does the power GO? these little chinese TOYS are so... inadequate. they really are abysmal. they, along with most of these "generating methods" flooding the market, are a joke. theres a reason they get so much harsh criticism. they deserve it. but it isnt the devices fault. its both the designer, and the end user... more to making power than just "waving magnets past wires". so, with a good generator setup, you can raise your efficiency and get far more power, across a far wider range of windspeeds. you will get better results with a car alternator running teh same blades as these.... if you set it up correctly. (i give the chinese kits that... the blades are pretty good. better than i can make, anyway.) that raises the biggest hurdle of all. you need a dump that can actually take that sort of power, and batteries cant always do that, and get worse as they reach full charge. theyre even worse as they get finnicky over voltages too, and need control gear, more stuff to burn out and fail, stuff that always seems to require large outlays o proprietary equipment full of black magic and components that just love to release magic smoke... the best system for batteries is super capacitors. you can dump silly large power into them in a short amount of time, and let that trickle into batteries as they require. capture as much energy in the gusts and bursts as possible, and keep charging even when the wind drops off and decides to blow the other way and the turbine hasnt reacted yet... except doing so raises all these complications with that horrible electronic control gear again. personally? i make heat. dump the power into water with resistive heating. 100% efficient. can store a lot of energy in water. oil isnt so energy dense but allows for higher temps.. cooking sort of temps... challenge? doing something with it. look around you though. what is the electricity we all adore used for? heating. lighting. everything basically boils down to that. cover those two, and your electrical requirements drop drastically. unfortunately our screens and beeping things demand electrical power in a certain form rather than being dunked in hot oil. dammit.

I live off grid, in middle of america, flatest land on earth, we have a wind farm north of us that has around a 150 huge wind turbines. We have a huricane windpower turbine, vector 1500 watt, and its a beast, on average we see around 600 watts constantly, on not so windy days we see around 200 watts, ive seen our turbine put out as high as 2300 watts durning a storm, i love to sit and watch it, its kinda memorizing.

I have been dabbling with micro wind turbine's for a few years. What I've learn is the rating on the box will never be reached. If you want to make any kind of reasonable power you need to be looking at 1500/2000 watt turbine's. I have a 500w Istabreeze turbine at the minute and it was spinning out of the wind as well so i got a piece of 5mm pvc plastic and added it to the tail and tripled the size of the tail. It now finds the wind quicker and stays in the wind a lot longer.

I've had a series of wind turbines for over 40 years, starting with a 6 volt (!) Wincharger, this was before solar keep in mind. Then a 12 volt Wincharger, and then a 3 KW 32 volt Jacobs. Then a 2.5 KW A.R.E., 24 v., which is no longer produced, but was very reliable and also good in light winds. All off grid. Grid tied now on different property, I have a grid tied A.R.E., and I just had my first issue with it after 17 years, of zero maintenance BTW. BUT, turns out, it was the inverter, NOT the turbine, so I am getting a new inverter as I really like kaving a wind turbine. They make crappy windy days and nights better! It has never put out 2500 watts, but it does put out 2490 watts a lot, and for long periods of time, close enough!

I too live off grid. Originally I had two 1kw wind turbines, mounted 10m above the ground and I found that they were next to useless for charging a 12kwh battery bank. I later found out that it is suggested that a normal house needs around 5kw of wind turbines to make any real difference to a decent system. The money spent on decent wind turbines would be better spent on more solar panels and batteries.

When it storms, there is little sun and lots of wind. Helps stay off the generator. Its all about location.

Have a read of "Kris Harbour" here on YT. He has a 2KW wind turbine that usually makes 500 to 1200watts, he also has solar and hydro. He manages to run a CNC welder and plasma cutter off his off grid power so he must be doing something right.

In reading these posts, it seems many may not know that a good turbine, in VERY strong winds, will NOT produce it's full power. That's because it's in survival mode, the tail should turn it partially out of the wind. My A.R.E. puts out it's max in the mid to maybe high 20's, windier then that it furls and puts out less, like it's supposed to.

Wind turbines are highly addictive. They also work well but you really need to understand how they work. I agree that the output races up and down and is seldom if ever steady, except when you are drawing a load like the microwave, washing machine or vacuum cleaner. I have been flying wind turbines since 2004 ,I think. We bought small 400 watt yenzhou shenzhou and an Aelous 500. Same as your Nemo. You need to go up to 1500watt to make it worth your while. All flying experiences is valuable

I lived on top of a 550 foot hill, and had a 400 watt wind turbine on a 40 foot tower next to the garage. Even with those ideal conditions, my experience was the same as yours. Bursts of power, sometimes reaching the maximum rating of the generator, but NEVER enough to put a real charge into my batteries, and NEVER enough to offset the purchase price. I bought a larger prop for the thing, but then the tail was too small and it wouldn't turn into the wind. The most I ever saw it turn was when a component on the board failed on a very windy day. There was no load and no brake, and I thought it was going to fly apart. (I wish I knew what happened to that video) I was able to climb up there at two in the morning when the wind had stopped and tie a blade to the tower. It has now been sitting in the original box for about 25 years. You can mess around with it till the cows come home, but in the end it's just a complete waste of time and money. I have seen them work okay on a boat, but if they were really that good wouldn't everyone have them?

I find wind to be a good supplement to solar, it will help top off your batteries when there is less sunlight, wind also charges faster and at night , when there is no wind ,probably sunny out , when there is no sun , probably windy out,Least it seemed that way on a sailboat

I've had 2 one kw wind turbines over 20 years . One self destructed. Either would contribute between 600 and 700 kwhrs per year to my energy harvest. 2 kw of pv contributes 2000 to 2500kwhrs per year. With pv so cheap now, no replacements of turbines again.

In an episode of “Engineering with Rosie”, she mentions by the by that for a typical domestic situation, you would need a turbine with a diameter of 5m or so. Of course, if you have solar or use less electricity, you may not need as much, but remember that the output is related to the square of the radius, so, being realistic, a turbine of less than 2-3m is probably of no use at all.

Haven’t any of you guys heard of Hugh Piggot? I have wanted to build one of his real “back to basics” diy turbines for decades. Finally last year I built his 3.6metre design. A lot of work and had to teach myself to weld. However, it is up and running now. When the wind is in excess of 18mph or thereabouts, this thing puts out 1000+watts constantly. Best day yet was 30kwh over a 24hour period. Since 1/1/23 (4 months) it has generated 1500 killowatt/hours. In that same time we have also gathered 1400 killowatt hours of solar power I am lucky to live in Orkney (famous for being windy). And am surrounded by grazing land and the sea. We are fully off grid.

Thanks for the insight, it appears that for my location simply adding more solar and battery capacity is the better option.

Great honest straight forward information from your experience. Solid video mate Good show

From my time living in South Dakota it seemed like the wind never stopped blowing but living in a location that would make wind power feasible would be aggravating at best.

I have a PIKA T701 now for ~8 years. Rated at 1,500 watts @ ~25 MPH and yes it does it. 10’ diameter blades really works well. Wish I could post some pics for you.

Finally a true experience with real power ! Thank you. My advice : buy a new one of quality with bigger diameter : power is directly proportional to the area, which mean SQUARE of diameter! Example : cheap istabreeze 2000W, which true power is above 200 to 300 W. Diameter is 2.25m. Price : around 600EUR. Other : Automaxx 1500W. You will probably need to adapt the connection with the pole.

It's a supplement to PV & hydro. If off grid it means that on windy night you may have the option of running appliances that you normally wouldn't, or that you get to still use essential stuff when weather is bad for a few days, not to be relied on for everyday living but a luxury item than may improve some miserable days.

Higher wind can also cause more turbulent airflow (mountain waves) I’m looking into getting a small turbine in a suburban location to backup solar and battery system. Thanks for your feedback 👍🏻👍🏻

I have three wind turbines 300w 700w on a 12v battery and a 2000w on a 48v 14.4kwh spells kit, the dump load for the 12v battery is a 300w 48v scooter charger ad the dump load for the 48v battery is going to be a sand battery with hot water pipe through feeding a instant gas boiler up to 70degree and another sand battery (to stop water steaming off) in the shed. Thanks for reading

Many live-a-board yatchies use them as their primary power source and get good results, but you need the right generator, as most don't provide enough power to run a fridge. Personally I preferred solar panels - less power, but no noise and no danger of chopping up seagulls.

What will you prefer in these? 1. Off grid inverter 2. Battery brand & size 3. Do you use any website/app to check the wind resource to predict the energy production?

depends on your wind location and the wind turbines characteristics, some can make good power in fairly light winds typically large heavy turbines that rotate much slower then you have smaller turbines that need higher winds and high rpms. many genuine 2 and 3 kw turbines can make 1000watts in under 15 mph winds. small micro windturbines are just a help otherwise just go nuts with solar panels and batteries so even in crap weather your atleast making some power.

If you live on the side of a mountain that is going to cause turbulence and decrease power generation. We live on the top of a ~60' hill and our 2KW turbine is on an 85' Rohn tower. It does quite well. On days where we get 35~45 MPH winds it will produce 3.6KW. The tower gets it out of the majority of the turbulence so production is reasonably steady. I had a small 200 watt Winco about 45 years ago on a 25' tower and it would be searching for the wind almost constantly. That is a sure indication that the machine is in turbulence. It would race to maybe 10~15A then search back and forth while power generation dropped to just about zero. I put it on a 55' tower and it quit searching and stayed in one direction, hardly ever panning at all. Now it would pin the meter at 200+W and stay there. Probably 10X the power production as on the shorter tower. Back then our trees were about 10~15' tall.

The best wind turbine for me are missouri wind and solar , they are very strong , good video I love windmills specially aermotor

The turbine probably works as intended. It's the storage system that isn't making use of the variable voltage output. Batteries certainly aren't going to do anything with voltage below their critical threshold besides make heat. The same challenge existed with older mechanical wind pumps, which either put out too little or too much torque for the mechanical loads assigned to them, whether grinding wheat or lifting water. The answer of course, was accumulators.

Thank you for information ! Ilive in Latvija not far from the sea , and we have wind almost always something wind , but often very strong and impetuous. We have not so expensive electricity like you , but and income in proportion 😝 I study question about solar panels and wind turbines After your film , I know little more about this Thank you one more

Thanhs, very interesting. Michael

This would be a dream for me.... I envision it as a man-cave cabin 15' x 15' with efficiency kitchenette/living room/sleeping area and screened in porch with a view upstairs, workshop area downstairs. A turbine rated for 500w probably (definitely) isn't going to be enough, so.... twice the rotor diameter please. What about having a companion tower 25' high with solar panels stacked vertically and this tower could be used to help raise or lower the main tower for maintenance. At the top of the shorter tower could be a domestic water reservoir (a big plastic barrel) to have water pressure for the cabin.... ok I'm daydreaming

Having gone through two different 3.6m diameter wind turbines I can tell you small scale wind is not worth it. Each of mine only lasted couple years before failure. I'm actually as we speak taking down my 100ft turbine tower and installing 14kW bifacial PV panels on a ground mount instead. The PV panels will be far more reliable source of power even in cloudy windy days if you over panel for your needs.

So, a $400 wind turbine (and the tower adds another $400-$1,000), but it puts out less electricity than an $80 solar panel? I'd be better off to buy $400 worth of solar panels and a battery.

I wonder if one has a wooded hill without a creek, and cuts trees anyway, cutting a corridor and placing there few small blades in this tunnel, what it would do. I am talking about my experiences with long, parallel buildings etc. During mild windy periods, outside you hardly notice winds, while in the corridor there is very nice air flow, almost always.

It is the solar panels best friend or a great marrage with your storage battery and must have MPPT converter for both and dump load should be a water heater. Must be engineered to be near perfect.

I used to own a 700w wind generator one of the interesting facts they failed to mention until opened the unit. Was that it was 700w at 24v if you had a 12v system it was 350w. I live on a sail boat and have found that when sailing efficiency goes down and most of the time when at anchor you try to anchor out of the wind. I did not find the RIO to be worth it.

There are very few wind turbines that come close to their ratings. But there are *some*. Even then, they are rarely worth it as a primary power source. I plan on putting up a couple to offset night power draw and extend batteries but that may change as batteries get more cost effecient.

HOWdy D-W, ... Thanks COOP the WiSeNhEiMeR from Richmond, INDIANA - USA ...

Commercial big 1000+ kW level wind generators have yearly "efficency" about 20..25 % of their nominal max power. Thus even 15. % could be a good value for a short mast. The blades here are narrower at their tips to get the nominal max power high at speedest winds. If you want to use more the light winds, chose a type with broader blades at the tip.

my panels don’t see sun for 3 months a year. the rest of the year i have more than enough sun i can’t use power fast enough. my house uses 6kwh a day. 100w over a day is 2.4 kwh. over a week 16.8 kwh that would allow me to run a generator 1 time a week instead of 2 times. the add more panels isn’t always the best answer

I wonder what it would be like if you used it along with Solar Panels.

Off grid 2oyrs stick to 12 volts and the sail boat style Rutland wind generator s ,are the only ones worth the money ,quite too

Maybe check out some of Robert Murray Smith’s ideas

Look at adding planetary gearboxes to the wind turbine. It will extend the props out further but the turns the props get with be exponentially increased per gearbox you add.

I think they are best for grinding grain.

One key for me was to realize that if your going to live off grid it's just going to be a little less convenient than on the grid . Another thing is that some of my stuff can run on low power. I've started out trying to determine what things I can run on DC current . For instance I have a 12 volt fan that can run directly off of a solar panel if necessary . Im looking at other DC equipment including a dc air conditioner that runs on a little lower power. Obviously cooking and possibly the water heater need to be done with propane or a wood fueled system. But don't rule out DC equipment as part of your setup. My wife's 1800 watt hair dryer ---- I'll just have to break down and by a generator just for that. Lol

How much power over time and what kind of batteries do you have and how much power do you need? If it's 50 watts over 24 hours, that's 1200 watt hours of energy, which may or may not. be enough. Do you have a freezer? What kind and how much battery do you have and how much average daily power from water? From Solar?

I think a larger swept area is needed to generate more consistently even with a small generator.

As long as you live in an area with a consistant prevailing wind of of 7 mph (3.2 m/s) or more, wind works well. If you are so blessed, don't buy a small 500W turbine; go with a 1Kw or larger.

Yeah, they can be useful but the prices are exaggerated. I preferred the DIY route at the same performance and a fraction of retail price.

One big problem with wind turbines is they will continue to send a charge to your battery after it's fully charged, unlike solar. Overcharging batteries can damage them and even cause fires, depending on the battery chemistry.

Would you get another?

I wanted to do this back in the mid nineties when we lived on four acres of very windy prairie but could never get my husband on board.

woudlnt be vertcial axis wind turbine better?

Got 2, and they blow. Just get more solar and keep adding batteries, more consistent.

I live on a western shore of one of the great lakes, Unfortunately the wind blows from west to east, None the less I think im gonna try one maybe the new screw shaped one

I have a 5kw wind turbine on a 22m Monopole and it's surpassed all my expectations on dull cloudy days we can get up to 100kw per day

A wind turbine is really only a supplemental power source to good solar power installation. They are pretty expensive for what you get because an equivalently sized solar panel is going to cost about 10% what the wind generator costs and installation costs will be similarly cheaper. What they do well is fill in the power gaps of solar when you need it most. When the nights get longer and longer in the winter and the days can sometimes be cloudy and grey with the sun low on the horizon a wind turbine might make the difference of needing larger battery banks and/or reduce.the number and severity of deep-discharge cycles of the batteries. Discharge cycles are much less of an issue with lithium cells but then the cost of them greatly increases the utility of not needing to upsize them to endure longer nights between poor-producing days. Cost-wise it might simply be cheaper and easier to get a small portable generator and run that for an hour a day than installing a wind generator. The cost of most wind turbines on the market such as the Primus Air you could buy a nice Honda generator and enough gasoline to run it for a couple of months straight or years of an hour a day routine But gas availability and storage are another factor beyond mere monetary factors that may be important to you. We have a Primus Air Breeze and it has cost us approximately the same amount as our entire solar power plant yet it produces about 1/10 of the power we use. Part of that is because the turbine shuts itself down much quicker when it is producing too much power while the solar can throttle down its charging when the batteries are closer to full. So the wind turbine is being underutilized during the day but at night it does a fine job of keeping up with our usage so that the batteries aren't discharging much whenever there is some wind. This gives the solar panels and controllers a head start in the morning so they can get to full charge earlier maybe even equalize charge more often. This helps battery life enormously.

🧲 You have to make sure the magnets are lined up correctly too. That can make all the difference.

nice pin wheel

What kind of connecting wire did you use to connect the three red leads from the generator down to the three blue controller leads? How did you connect them?

Living in a dark, windy place. Thinking of transitioning from solar to wind 😂

I would definitely add a wind generator if i was going off grid to complement my solar panels. My reason for this is a wind generator has the capacity to generate power over 24 hours continuously where solar panels only generate power during the day around 6 hours. A 500 watt wind generator can generate as much power as say a 500 watts array of solar panels or more so I view this as a complementary addition to any off grid solar system. A good wind generator should have only 3 vanes and should have as low rpm as possible to reach its maximum output. Don't be fooled with ads stating low wind start up of 2 km or 3 km, so what if it starts with low wind, that doesn't mean you will get full power out of it if it's spinning slow. Most wind generators require around 700 to 800 rpm to reach the stated output of say 500 watts or whatever the rated power output of the wind generator is. Before you put the wind generator up test the output at the recommended rpm to reach its maximum output then you will know for sure that it will output what it says it will. I hope this helps people to make better informed purchase of wind generator.

how did you install the pole its on? I am asking specifically about how you got the turbine on the pole and put up?

Look in to Savonius and other vertical axis wind turbines

I fully understand being off grid but your video confirms Imperial College's analysis of small wind turbines. If you are getting only 100w them the payback is ridiculously long. Not as important being off grid but shows it's poor use of capital

The noise thing and low performance (due to small size) have always been my cons for these things, i live in a neighborhood so its just gonna cause problems. Ive always been open to test one tho, but from many videos ive seen its just not good enough (for me), Maybe if you live in the countryside and you and your neighboors install a big one a bit far from your homes that would be the play, ive seen people doing it but idk if its economically viable. If a town did it im sure it would, but when its just some people, the maintenance and repair...unless an electric company bought energy or helped with the running costs i think wind is not viable in domestic real life conditions. But im a regular Joe, i've no idea.

Wind turbines need to be big to have any efficiency/economy of scale. Like 30+ storeys big. You just have to look at the market since 2020, all the major projects are massive. Wind is a centralizing technology whereas solar is decentralizing.

Hello, can you please help me. I have bought an Instabreeze 2kw 48v and I have a chinese Hybrid Controller 2kw 48v but it seems that it doesn't charge at all. When i connect only two wires it starts spinning and It shows that is charging but when i connect all 3 it slows down (no brake) and only charge up to 50w when outside are strong winds, no matter how strong they are the turbine is not spinning fast enough. The brake works fine and I had winds where it came active. I've tried to disconnect two wires, it starts spinning very fast when i connect the other two it still charging good for another minute then it slows down again for no reason, no break active. Thank you in advance. I have struggling for 1 month and still can't fix the issue.

Translation: If you can fit any more solar, and have the potential, that is way more cost-effective.

if you look on line you should be able to find the average wind speed for the geographical region you live in, the wind turbine you have needs 14 meters per secound of wind speed to achieve 500 watts. you need a wind turbine that makes more power at a lower wind speed, you would be better off making your own that spins slower but producing more power at the wind speeds you have.

Istabreeze i700 getting 450watts on a 40-60mph 200watts on a 30-40mph, yes 30-35mph will make more power than 25-40mph, unless three or more wind turbines are positioned 30m+ apart flattening the charge current, when 25mph 75w is being generated on one 40mph 250w is being generated on another and so on telling the bms it has a steady charge,

They are obviously not worth the money. However, if you are really livibg off grid full time i could imagine like 3 pr more of these mini turbines would be a good thing to have some backup to solar in winter. But if you want really go with wind turbines, you should go with a big one. I dont know who makes them but i have seen a few across my country. The bigger, the more efficient they are. They need less wind to start turning and generally turn easier.

A mini Thorium reactor if only...but they won't allow it.

More fins does not mean more power 3 fins that are wider or longer will. When your turbine goes fast enough it actually can start to block incoming wind like a wall. 3 fins don't have that effect as much. Also many people don't trust the controllers that come with the turbine. You need a rectifier diode instead to eliminate inefficiencies in the setup.

These cheap wind turbines rarely reach their advertised power. They also usually don't have a system to regulate the power output in strong winds. I guess this one will only last a couple of years. You can get better turbines by spending a lot more money or by building a Hugh Piggot turbine yourself.

Why not add a second one to get more like 200watts seems like a nice boost at night when the sun is down

50 - 100 watt / hour?

I was lost in those beautiful eyes. Lol was this video about wind?

need a larger tail plane to stablize wind direction

These kind of wind generator, they have a bad ballbering that rotate the whole thing and the direction often becomes useless. It would be better to put some resistance to the ballbering so it doesn't rotate so much.

The only wind turbines I have seen that make financial sense are the diy ones made with a hover board motor for about $100 because by the time you add the cost of mounting the bought ones somewhere high your looking at a decade before it pays for itself with the amount of power they make. Every year there is a new wind turbine idea someone is trying to flog for $1000+ and I just laugh because I know I can buy 3 or 4 solar panels with no maintenance that make more energy. If I ever live somewhere permanent with regular wind I will build one for sure.

A wind turbine seems to be a very poor investment compared to solar. I don't know what your total costs were after building the tower, and wiring? Wouldn't an additional 300 watt or so solar panel cost less and return more power? I am currently in my homebuilt solar powered RV in the Mojave desert in California. I recently looked once again at wind turbines to supplement my solar system to see if they had gotten better lately. It still seems that the retun on the dollar is just terrible compared to solar panels. Solar panels also last for 25 - 30 years. How long do these turbines last?

... a new winter coat for the wife and a bicycle on the kid's birthday... soon we'll be shipbuilding

500 W, its a hair dryer

I live on top of a rounded hill with a lake below us about 500' down 15 miles away. We get a good breeze north to south mostly. My home is 3 stories high, and when I built my 20' tall shop, I built it so that it created a venturi between the shop and the house. I've run several wind tests in that area, and I get quite a breeze through that area. I have an old Texas windmill tower to mount my wind generator on top of it. But I've been looking at the Vertum Dynamics wind generator that I could mount on the top of my shop..... ito much cleaner of an installation without all the guy wires supporting a pole. And me being me, I could probably build a pretty nice copy of one with my tools I have in my shop.

I don't think I would be too happy if I bought something advertised as a 500 watt wind genny, but only get 50-100 watts

Great video... maybe sit futher away next time lol

do people off gridd. still support there comunity ?

change it to a hot air 4-point axle tethered hot air vawt balloon (much much much larger and simpler to make and replace)

I had 1 identical to yours and it was terrible it only lasted about 3weeks... you get what you pay for i guess.... i now have a rutland 1200 on a caravan (rv) here in australia but im in a low wind area atm but on the coast its great mine is a marine yacht turbine tho mine is only to supplement my 12v solar in the bad and dark winter month's

invest money for a good quality brand wind turbine, something like 1000 watts. Stay away from that Chinese junk.

I have tried 2 different types unfortunately where I am off grid the average wind speed is 30mph & gusts over 100mph this killed both wind generators but I am still looking into this but the manufacturers are not helpful with information & I am not going to waste my money again.

Your tower needs to be 3 to 4 times higher with a 2000w 5 blade generator from Missouri Wind And Solar!

"I mounted it on a 6m pole...." You need to mount it atleast twice as high to give it undisturbed air to begin with. "it is kind of twitching in the wind if it is blowing much" Yeah, guess what, IT IS NOT IN UNDISTURBED AIR! If people just understood what they are doing, their results would be much more consistent with what the manufacturer claims.

Only the skystream was a good windmil

You need at least a 5kw turbine plus solar

Is 500w false advertising?

Seems like it produces less power than even an outdated, 200w solar panel. Barely seems worth the trouble (it would take a week to charge a small battery).

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