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The Wind Generator Story
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The Air X Wind Generator fully installed on the boat. |
By Eric Conn
In preparing for this project we replaced the old Ampair wind generator with a new Southwest Windpower AirX. The old one had served the boat well, but over the years had developed a wobble. This was causing excessive vibration, and the power output had dropped substantially. The technology in the past 15 years has improved quite a bit. The new wind generator produces 4 times the power and weighs half as much. It has more advanced electronics, automatically regulating itself when the battery is full and in high winds. It is also much smaller and quieter than the old one, reducing drag and harmful vibration on the boat. Installing the new wind generator was a great exercise and lesson in sustainability, as we fabricated the new tower and base out of recycled materials, using what we had to make do. Most of the materials, the workshop space, and the use of the tools were donated by Broadened Horizons farms. As the dimensions and power output of the new generator were different, we had to completely redo the mounting and wiring from the ground up, so to speak. We started with making the swivel base to the tower, which mounts on to the boomkin of the boat, extending off of the transom. We used a piece of aluminum channel and a piece of aluminum angle. We cut out our pieces, shaped them with the grinder, drilled out our mounting holes and swivel bolt holes, and cut little rubber bushings to dampen the vibration. We searched for round rubber to make the shock absorbing friction fitting to the mounting pole, and ended up using automotive freeze plugs.
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Eric working on the Wind Generator tower |
Next, we had to make the tower to support the generator, and we used a stainless steel handrail from a swimming pool diving board. This material is very hard, and drilling through it required much sharpening of the drill bits, and a lot of patience. We added hardware onto the pole for flying the flag, attaching the lifelines, and attaching the bimini. We then fed the wire from the wind generator down through the pole and out a hole in the bottom, and raised the whole unit up on the boat. We attached the support struts (some modification necessary), and made rubber pads to go between all the metal contacts.
The last thing was the wiring. The wind generator is so powerful that we had to add much heavier wiring, drilling a bigger hole in the transom and installing a new switch and breaker. We kept the wiring as simple as we could, and can easily access all connections. This is a great asset for the long-term maintenance of the system.
All in all the installation of this system cost us very little, and we were able to create something that is quite capable out of reused materials. It would have cost us quite a bit to buy everything right off the shelf, and we wouldn’t have expanded our mental capacity to be resourceful and creative. We now have the experience of installing a 12-volt wind generator, and if anyone has any questions or would like more information please contact us.