Wind Generators

[freezdried]

If a guy wanted to use a wind generatoron on his ice house how many watts would he need to keep the bateries chared and to run forced air furnace, TV, DVD Lights that kind of stuff.

Freezedried

[love to hunt]

Add up the total peak watt draw of all your devices and double it at least.

Be advised that a 400 watt wind generator puts out 400 watts at max speed, some where between 25-30 mph winds. if the wind is only 10 mph you output will be considerably less.

I personnally would have a back up in addition to the wind generator.

[nytelyter]

ok wind and solar seem to be one of my things. i have posted many things on this subject and will go at again. with no problems i may add. being a person that almost lives in his fishhouse all winter. and yes i am in it every night. for the night. i run tv dvd lights radio ect ect. i use two deep cycle batteries. i currently have 3 15watt solar panels on my house mounted on the door side of my house and my door always faces south. NOT ENOUGH! they do not keep my batteries fully charged because of not enough daylight hours in the winter.

i was totally convinced that wind was the ticket and HAD planned on my next extra 700 bucks was going to be invested in a wind powered generator from areo x a great little model that would always be spinning unless it got to windy and then it would slow itself automatically to avoid damage. comes with all the stuff to make it work. nice package!

but as you saw i said HAD after a very long talk with a guy at the state fair this year up outside of the eco building, i am now convinced that more and better solar will be my next ticket buy. here is why. as it was explained to me by this very knowledgable person. these nice little packages of wind power have one flaw. vibration. he said that he has sold a few of these to people. and they are now looking for someone to selll them to. solar is the ticket. and he sells both systems. if i were to go wind he said to freeze a pole into the ice about 50 feet from the house and mount it there and it will still be heard where as solar is quiet and effiecient. now i can tell ya solar is an investment as well. he said that for each deep cell i run i should have atleast 45-50 watts and to also mount them on the side and not the top of the shack. because the sun angle in the winter is much lower and also the suns reflected energy off of the ice. he has equipped many houses and four of his own with solar one has a total of 600 watts. and they run a small mocrowave and ALL the toys off of solar and batteries in that house.

now on another line as far as batteries go. and this is from many that i have inquired from. the best batteries. to use for the dollar. are two six volt golf cart batteries. in series for twelve volts. but also said that optima batteries are a very good choice as well. but that also they do make a deep deep cycle for solar that has a very big price tag as i recall about 400 bucks. optima runs about 170 and a good deep cycle will run ya about 70-100.

i strongly recomend that you do as much research as you can, on this subject. if it were not for the vibration factor. i would be totally sold on wind. holy dump when it is not windy on the ice? yes we have calm days but they are few. the areo-x only takes a 7mph breeze to spin and start putting back electricity. and it will recharge all night long as well. but if it is so noisey that i cant get sleep. it will not be on my house. the only sound i want to hear atr night is my rattle reels jingleing.

i hope this helps answer your question. thing is this guy i chated with sell both systems and has many of each in use at this very moment. he has no reason to steer me wrong. for quiet nights in the shack solar is the way to go if you have a cabin in a remote area up north. and can mount a wind unit on a pole abit off of and away from it wind is the ticket.

a good 45watt plug and play solar unit will run you about 450-500 bucks. and the cost of solar is slowly dropping. but dont under power like i did.

another thing to consider is a good quiet running generator, for recharge and operations of stuff in your shack. but remember in these units you have to refill the smelly gas, in some units change oil often, and get it started on very cold days. there are very many nice and quiet units out there as well.

what i can recomend to all of you considering alternitive generating systems is get online, do your homework and hopefully you willl find something to your likeing. remember fishing is suppose to be fun and catching is a bonus. i wait all year for winter. ... paul

[LaZyDayZ]

Good read Paul. Thank you..

I like the generator idea. You cant beat those Honda EU series. I was next to a big one here a few weeks ago and it purred as quiet as could be. You could actually talk at normal level right next to it and it was under a good load powering a deep freeze and refrig when power was out. I can only imagine the 1000 or 2000 would be quieter.

[Sonicrunch]

Good read.

However it was hard to read. You should break that up into some paragraphs.

[freezdried]

nytelyter

Thanks for the information I never really gave the vibration thing a thought. I wonder if a guy was to make a mount for a wind generator that would fit in the 2" receiver on your truck if you would notice the vibration you could get it away from you shack a little bit and it wouldn't be mounted right to the ice house. It just seems that you get more bang for the buck with a wind generator over solar. I do have a very nice Kipor generator that runs off gas that I will use but thought a alternative sore of power that didn't use gas might be worth the investment this year. This is my first year with a wheeled fish house and I have two deep cycle batteries not real sure how long they will last I do not have gas lights yet. I also don't know how long it will take to recharge them ether. Oh well just a thought, Lets hear from someone that has one !

[hawkeye43]

I have a wind generator on my house. I mounted the pole on rubber mounts to cut the vibration. The thing I didnt think about is someone wanted the generator more than me. If I hadnt striped 1 bolt putting it on, it might be gone. I need to rework the mounts again for this winter. I always let it spin when I was gone and locked it down when I was there. Very seldom ran out of power, with only 2 batterys

[chris63]

Hi,Im not trying to be a smart --s,but here goes..it seems to me it dosent make sense to have dvd tv noise,noise,noise....ect and then complain about a small amount of vibration from a wind gen.just mt two cents.... ???????c63

[freezdried]

Hawkeye43

Do you know how many watts your generator is? I have been looking at units in the range of 200 watts to 400 watts what do you think would that be a good size to recharge my batteries?

[hawkeye43]

It kicks in at 3 mph, up to 28 mph, then auto-shut down. peak is 400 watts. There seems to be enought wind in the winter to chrage the 2 batteries.

One time I drained the truck batteries by leaving some lights on over night, hooked the house to the truck and charged for about 2 hours, that was good enought to start it.

[PikeTipper]

Quote:

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Hi,Im not trying to be a smart --s,but here goes..it seems to me it dosent make sense to have dvd tv noise,noise,noise....ect and then complain about a small amount of vibration from a wind gen.just mt two cents.... ???????c63

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I'm guessing he turns off the TV and DVD player when he wants to go to bed.

[chris63]

Piketipper,He could also stop the generator too!!!!!!!!

[nytelyter]

yes i switch the tv off but i do keep a radio on due to my tenitius.(ringing in ear) the vibrations will transfer from ther ouse to the ice and i would not want to have that in the shallower area of the lake that i fish. about 17-19 fow. now i dont want to start the great spooked fish debate. but as i do own a camera i do see the fish react to sounds. ... paul