Turbine clippered..

[dgd]

My 1.5Kw AC Clipper arrived this week and I had it connected in a couple of hours.  First impressions are its a well designed robustly engineered system, smells odd for the first few hours but that soon goes away.

I have no complaints whatsoever, it sure does voltage clip my turbine. It arrived just in time as the 4 month heatwave/drought came to an end this week with rain and stormy wind. It does get a bit warm once the batteries are in float and its taking the power from the turbine. After a couple of hours of this I shut the turbine as all it was doing was making power for the resistor bank.

A couple of teensy suggestions. Aluminum box option?  and I have gotten used to my home made clipper that uses a CRYDOM  3 phase AC relay which has a led that shows when the relay is active, a led on the Clipper would be nice to show clipping/dumping occuring.
Is there enough current available in the AC relay enable inputs to drive a small LED via resistor? or even one of those annoying peizo buzzers?

When the Classic firmware includes aux1 'gone to float' with off delay then I will implement the contactor to turn the turbine off just as Chris O does..  that will sort out those stormy nights or whem I'm away for a few days 

dgd

[TomW]

dgd;

Not like an LED on the outside but mine has an LED on the SSR I noticed it while testing with the door open. A sneaky person maybe could use a hunk of fibre optical cable to direct that to the exterior?

Wild I know but just a thought.

Tom

[Halfcrazy]

There is a fair amount of power available on that feed to the SSR or Triac. It can run about 150-175ma of current and is around 14 volts DC. So you certainly could clip on a LED with proper Resistors of course and have visual indication on the exterior.

Ryan

[TomW]

There is a fair amount of power available on that feed to the SSR or Triac. It can run about 150-175ma of current and is around 14 volts DC. So you certainly could clip on a LED with proper Resistors of course and have visual indication on the exterior.

Ryan

Ryan;

It doesn't get much easier than that!

I think I will just do that. I like some blinky lights.

Thanks.

Tom

[dgd]

There is a fair amount of power available on that feed to the SSR or Triac. It can run about 150-175ma of current and is around 14 volts DC. So you certainly could clip on a LED with proper Resistors of course and have visual indication on the exterior.

Ryan

Thanks,  I wired in an external led.
With that current capability it could drive a few other things too 

Do you know the voltage/current of the fan outputs and is it a direct relationship between the temperature input switch and enabling the fan?
Any info available on the tachometer output? Was it planned to be an aux input to the classic?

Dgd

[dgd]

The connections inside my Clipper differ slightly from those in the manual, the photos are different. There are 3 way input connectors for the AUX2  input and the battery connection.  I have assumed it is the outside positions on both that are used. The label saying INSTALL JUMPER IF NO BATTERY is below the battery connector but on the board are four jumpers JP1 to JP4.  Again I have assumed that the jumper referred to is JP4. It came with an installed jumper that I removed when the battery was connected. (the black cable with red and white conductors in pic).  Was this the correct jumper?
There is no reference in the manual to this  or connecting the battery to the Clipper.
The jumpers JP1 to JP3 are next to the AUX input. Again nothing in manual about what these are for.

The tachometer circuit is not mentioned in the manual, again a 3way connector to the left of the main DC power out connector and it has three green leds that appear to blink faster and  brighten the faster turbine rotates. Some info on the tachometer circuit and what the connector outputs would be useful.
It would have been nice to have these tacho leds, maybe a power on led, the 3 phase relay active led and perhaps a led to indicate that high input voltage clipping is active, all on the door  or visible through a side ventilation slot  - blinky lights nice, otherwise the Clipper just look like a big brick thing..

dgd

[boB]

Congratulations DGD !  You have received one of the newer AC Clippers with
a brand new circuit board with extra "features" that was released before
the manual was updated.   Here is a bit of text  that will be included in
the manual which you (obviously) do not have yet.  Sorry about that !


JP4 enables powering the Clipper from the turbine input (rectified) voltage itself.
Unless the clipper is powered by battery voltage higher than about 55 volts,
it is recommended that jumper JP4 is left enabled.  The resistor cooling fans
will not be powered unless the minimum of 55 volts is present on either the
rectified turbine DC or the battery power terminal.

Normally, the Clipper will only be powered by the turbine itself since the clipper
is only needed when there is excess power and voltage.

The battery and  turbine (if enabled) input voltage are OR'd together so the higher voltage
of the two will power the Clipper circuitry.   The voltage at which the Clipper power supply
comes on at is determined by  JP1, JP2 and JP3.

With JP1, JP2 and JP3 OFF, (default), the clipper auxiliary power supply will come alive
at around 34 volts DC.

If only JP3 is installed, the power supply will come alive at around 12 V DC input.
If only JP1 or JP2 is installed, the power supply will come alive at around 27V DC input.

Either way, the fans will not operate until the DC input goes above around 55 V DC input
from either the battery terminal, or, the turbine input (JP4 enables turbine source) is installed.

In low wind, if JP3 is installed, letting the power supply come alive at 12V DC input, the
starting current of the power supply may load the turbine down enough that it won't
come out of braking because it cannot get over the 12V hurdle of turning on the
power supply.  Some turbines won't care at all.   But, for this reason it is recommended
to leave JP1, JP2 and JP3 off and let the power supply turn on above 30+ volts, or,
add the battery power connection as well as the turbine (JP4) powering option.

The TACH output is only operational with the AC clipper.  This is because it operates
off of the unrectified AC input between phases L2 and L3.
The output terminal of the tachometer is optically isolated from the AC turbine input
terminals but shares the DC negative line.  The positive TACH terminal is an open
collector (NPN) pulled up to +5 volts by a 1 K Ohm resistor and uses a buildout
resistor of 100 Ohms.  So, pulldown to ground is 100 Ohms and pulllup to +5V
is 1100 Ohms source impedance.

The TACH output may not be accurate when the Clipper is actually clipping the
turbine AC waveform.  You will also have to divide the pulse rate by the number
of poles of the turbine to get proper RPM readings.


The blinky LEDs (AC Clipper only) also show that the MOVs for the lightning protection
are working.  One of those LEDs, D11, is in series with the TACH optocoupler LED.

boB

[dgd]

Excellent explanation boB,  Thanks

dgd