I HIGHLY recommend the i1500 and i2000 models (and I am partial to the "black" blades but that's a style thing lol). Noise can certainly be an issue for any wind turbine but generally you cannot hear the iSta Breeze's 107cm blades over the wind anyway. The only time my i1500 has made a lot of noise has been when it blew up its battery bank and was free wheeling in 25mph wind...at which point it sounded more like machine gun fire or maybe a small helicopter having engine trouble.

@@ToysforWatts - thank you SO much for your reply, I really appreciate it. I have a couple of follow-up questions if that's OK? Q1: I've always dealt in 12v system as that's standard car batteries. If I purchase an Ista-Breeze 48v turbine what battery voltage should I have? 24v? 36v? Q2: can you recommend a charge controller (if your budget was say up to $500?) PS: I've liked and subscribed, keep up the good work!!!

1. A 48v turbine needs a 48v system. The lower the voltage under target the less resistance there is on the load (with zero resistance being "braking"), the higher the voltage the more resistance there is on the load (closer to free-wheeling). If you're system is set up for 12v it's going to be difficult to get an i2000 to work with the equipment. Even bucking the voltage down will see very high amperage spikes during peak production. 2. That one's a hard one for me because I haven't had much chance to play with many different varieties. I honestly feel that if you're buying an off the shelf piece the best thing you can get is a Midnite Classic, which requires you to also run their clipper if you're using it with a turbine, and that blows the $500 budget out of the water. I haven't played with any of iSta Breeze's charge controllers but I would be pretty confident with them. Personally I prefer to make my own arrangement with voltage controllers and relays but the way I operate I'm more likely to break something and it's lot easier for me to replace a $10 brain or a $15 relay than a $800 Midnite Classic 150.

The Heli 2.0 is mounted on an old windmill tower. I modified the stub to hold a piece of heavy 3" pipe to mount the Heli to. The i1500 is on a tower I made from three sticks of 2 3/8" oilfield pipe stuck together in a tripod...you can see it in a little more detail here: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/rbKaddB-mcrej30.html

Ive seen quite a few disappointing Chinese junky turbines that only make a fraction of their claimed output, i never thought I’d be whining about one making too much power .. ! Wonder how the i-1000 compares?

I wouldn't worry about furling it, you literally can't overspeed the i1500. I'm had it in 50mph wind unloaded and it was NOT happy, but it didn't cause any kind of problem. I have seen some very high peaks with the i1500 but keep in mind that my goal has always been "let's see if we can break it". So long as you have a dump load that'll automatically engage your controller should be fine. The biggest thing I would recommend is that you integrate some means of shorting out all the phases in the event that it becomes unloaded. If something happens to your system and it does start free-wheeling it can be pretty hard to get it to stop.

Run the turbine to a three phase rectifier and tie it to your battery bank. You will need to get some kind of controller to switch current to a brake or dump load for when your battery bank is full, though. I use the "brain" controllers and solid state relays below to do this. You will need to get some resistors or a brake of some variety to tie the turbine to to make it work properly. Since I would want it to be completely isolated I would run a brain and a relay for a charge controller, and one for a brake controller. Have one controller turn the turbine on when voltage gets too low, and off when voltage gets too high...then another one to turn brake circuit on when voltage gets too high and off when it gets too low. www.ebay.com/itm/254790335380 www.ebay.com/itm/391713162983

Thank you very much going to do some research on your advice, and may have questions. Maybe it would be smart to just isolate it away from my solar lithium batteries and get a lead acid battery bank for the turbines themselves?

What controller would you recommend that is compatible?

I really appreciate the help this subject is very hard to find information on.

I had it running on a 48v bank at first. I've run it on 24, 36, and 48 volt banks previously and always felt it was doing alright. I have changed my mind on this point and explained why in subsequent videos :)

They are both at 30~32 feet

Almost everything is #8 or #10 solid wire. I don't have a large stock of better stuff, I try to reserve it for the drops from the generators.

@@ToysforWatts electrons move across the surface of wires, so stranded wire with its greater surface area will allow greater current flow.

Sure but the turbine that makes the most power and has had the highest peaks is on #10 solid wire...the biggest turbine I got is on #10 stranded wire and can't keep up. As I tell everyone who tries to educate me on wire: I'm not using what I use because I think it's the best. Stranded wire I have for the Heli I only have because it was donated. Anyone who wants to see me use better wire can make a donation to the Channel. As it is all my projects are funded by donations, channel revenue (which is about $1.80/day), and loose change found under the couch cushions :D

There is no maximum open circuit voltage for a pma, the faster you spin the shaft the higher the voltage goes. At 1000rpm, though, voltage is sitting approx 500vac if I recall correctly, I don't think I specifically did an open voltage test on this generator.

@@ToysforWatts OK. let's say that with the three-phase circuit you enter a rectifier bridge and from the rectifier bridge you reach a wind controller that has a maximum DC voltage accepted. What do you do if the turbine sends a higher voltage to the wind controller than it allows?

In my rig I have the turbines connected to batteries and the batteries are connected to inverters. The inverters trigger on at high voltage and off at low voltage. In my setup it's pretty hard for the turbines to reach dangerously high voltage peaks...but it happens on occasion and when it does it blows up my controllers and batteries. I strongly recommend everyone running wind turbines to use a controller that can trigger a dump load well beneath the dangerous voltage threshold, I try to remind people regularly that one of my goals is seeing where things break, and I like to see where things break so that you guys don't have to yourselves.

I'll keep it in mind, the one is completely shot...I'll crack it open and see what's inside. I was operating outside the specifications so I pretty low expectations of them lasting anyway.

@@ToysforWatts yea they could also be ac ssr's but if they were they may not switch off or something, chinese honesty :D, im using C&G ssr's ones from aliexpress they are fine so far , they get hot though i'm running 30a dc dc continuous during the daylight hours with big pc heatsink and fan.

I can't remember if I selected 24v or 48v....I can't find the invoice. It definitely made more amps running at 24v, but I never saw the kind of output that I'm seeing now.

I watched a old video from you test 2 and its writed 24v on it

I just bought a 24v i hope it will produce

It's a mix. They send me some turbines, I buy others. I was supporting them before they knew who I was. Sometimes they send me other customers' "returns"...I usually can't find anything wrong with them. They have a lot of products I wish were aesthetically better assembled but every product I've gotten from them has been functional. I'm sure some bad products get out, and I've seen (and had) a few legitimate failures.

I don't know...I'll try and go measure one of my hubs in the morning. It's a tapered/keyed shaft so it might be a struggle to adapt something else to it. The hubs are pretty cheap if you're just looking for a hub.

I bought the IstaBreeze Heli 4.0, wish I didn't. Quality wise not good and lasted a year without never producing power as promised, and now it isn't working any more.

Are you in the US @Biker Tom? Shoot me an email toysforwatts@gmail.com

Biker Tom still really hoping to hear from you! :)

It's because I was going way over on the voltage for the input side...heat sink wouldn't have helped there. It's an example of "not the right tool for the job". I'm going to switch that controller out for two 24v models running SSR's the way I am with the 24v bank and they should be golden. Splitting the current up like this should help keep the heat under control but it is something I'm monitoring...I do have them all mounted to wood lol

When I'm outside in the wind I'm not sure how well my voice is carrying over to the phone and I'd rather be yelling like an idiot and be heard than mumbling like...an idiot...and not be heard :D. I'm also a naturally "loud" person, too much time spent working around livestock and needing to be loud and coherent because when I tell that guy 100 yards and 400 head of cattle away to open a gate he needs to understand.

Not for the Heli, but as someone else reminded me, I do have 150~200 feet of cable coiled up at the base of the tower that I forgot all about. I'm already undersized a bit at 10-gauge cable, I've sure all the extra isn't helping things. I'm going to get a junction box set up tomorrow and cut the slack out, I bet that will help things a lot.