Wind Power and Solar things ..

Holy Moly! Small :-) What size truck have you got? When the wind gets into that turbine I bet you it puts out more noise than my 1kva Yamaha that is light & small.

May be good for a home based setup. but as far as camping no practical I would say. Cheers Tony

mandrake
It looks like you will be camping on your own because if you want guys with you to hold it down they will soon get sick of that.(LOL)

Without them I think it would be very unstable.
ian

If you go wind, stay away from the AIRBREEZE wind generators. We use them at the mines and the blades last around 2-3 months before they crumble as they are not UV stabilized.

Stick with the AIRXLAND as they are a much better item.

Also think about putting in a stop switch to lock the wind generator at night (stops the blades from spinning) as they can get noisy with moderate winds.

Other than that they are great bits of gear.

Cheers
David

Hi Mandrake,
I had a mad idea of putting a AIR-X Marine 12v, 400W Wind Turbine on my caravan, did it for one camping trip with friends at the beach. There was plenty of wind gusts but for the hassle of setting up, expense and noise of it it failed miserably. I got 12 amps momentarily once but on average I got may be 1 or 2 amps when the wind was strong enough other than that nothing at all. Every one complained about the noise when trying to sleep even though there was surf noise in the back ground. Have since sold and bought solar panels, as a matter of fact I bought these the other night off ebay they are the same as the other 6 I have had for the past couple of years on the van

Wazzaaaa

link

G'day Mandrake
I have been down that path and I think you will be very disappointed with the wind turbine. Mine is now packed up in its box and ready for sale. I will stay with solar as it is quiet and works for me.

Mate of mine - Dan Cook from the USA took a year and a half off - to fly fish all around the world - including Oz.

He towed this hand made stainless steel and alluminium off road trailer with him, for the trip.



It included among many other things:-

Solar panels: Two Brunton Solaris 26
Solar controller: Morningstar Prostar 30
Wind Generator: 400 watt Air-X Marine Wind Turbine

He commented too me - with regard to the wind turbine generator, that on the West Coast of Oz it produced more power at night than the twin solar panels did during the day and was QUIET, with the special patented wind turbine blades that alter their pitch to suit the strength of the wind and thus also remain quiet for sleeping at night - even in strong winds.

He claims the whole trailer cost him more than $50K US to have it custom built.

I imagine that the electrical components werent cheap, but i KNOW that Dan spent a LONG period of time researching every item he had built into the camper trailer to ensure that it would make the triip without problems which it did do.

He has a fascinating blog site if anyones interested and I am sure would give anyone his opinions on any of the equipment used if anyone takes the time to email him or post on his facebook etc

http://www.flyfishingtheglobe.net/index.htm

Having the best of both worlds with solar and wind power seems to make the most sense, depending WHERE you intend to spend all your time camping, for example - IF you intended to spend ALL your time in the inland deserts prospecting for gold and never intended to vsit the coast to fish then maybe a wind generator isn't as suited to your application.

It's horses for courses - but after Dans lengthy experience with his wind turbine - I think its worng for one persons opinion to damn wind vane generators for all time for all travellers.

Dan obviously was & remains happy with his, as I am sure he would attest.

18 months continuous use all over the world experience is NOT to be sneezed at, how many of us are THAT dedicated to our camping travels?

Cheers