I purchased the 1200 watt 5 blade wind turbine Windmax and it arrived today so I have not yet installed but will report on that when I do.
The package did not come with a packing slip. The plastic envelope on the outside of the box where the slip is often located was empty and it was not inside the box. It was packed well, but the screws were out of the plastic package and were lose within a compartment. The equipment appeared to come from China because of the English and Chinese symbols on the turbine housing. Visually, the equipment looked good with a nice white painted finish. The wind tail rudder was larger than the picture showed and it appeared very effective. I noticed the unit was heavier than I expected, and it had a rugged quality about it.
There were no installation instructions per say, but they did include a "Wind Turbine Guidebook," which covered five of the HYenerty models. Their Turbine Guidebook was photo copied or they ran it off on a printer that was losing ink because the last four pages were poor quality....some of the words were badly faded and it is difficult to read.
What they didn't tell you in the online sales pitch was that they do not warranty the turbine if you install it yourself. In fact, they specify that you should not even purchase it unless you have someone professionally install it for you. And they must approve the installer, which is never stated in their on-line written sales pitch. They include a four page document with all the reasons why they won't give you a warranty, and all the hoops you have to jump through to have them consider replacing a defective unit. The vendor especially insists that you even have to find an installer who must first contact them for approval before purchase and installation.
I read their Wind Turbine Guidebook, and the assembly/installation process is not difficult and its pretty straight forward.
We got the turbine up and running in just a few hours! It fit easily onto a standard 2" steel pipe. It only weighed
about 50 pounds so it wasn't too difficult to mount. It came with a charge controller included which was nice. The controller has it's own dump load and has 3 led lights indicating what it's doing. Later we will add solar panels to the unit. Once the wind picked up the turbine started spinning wonderfully. The output was better than expected and quickly charged 8 12-volt deep cycle batteries. We had the batteries running into an outback off-grid inverter which handled the output of the turbine quite easily. So far I am very pleased with this purchase!
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The wind mill functions but has some serious design flaws. Rated to 60mph the wind gen burned out the load shedding resistor grid once the battery bank was fully charged, and wind speed exceeded 26mhp. I fixed it and it burned out the new resistors as well. I replaced the resistors with 1kw of heat lamps and it seems be working ok. secondly the charge controller has a dynamic break attached to a manual shutoff switch for shutting the wind gen down in high wind situations. Unfortunately it overpowered the break at40mph wind speed and burned up the associated wiring. I repaired this and installed a light switch shorting two phase of the gen which serves to shut the gen down manually when needed. In all, it is working nicely after my modifications, but if you dont have solid electrical skills stay away from this gen.
Read Best Reviews of Windmax HY1000-5 1,000 Watt Max 24-Volt 5-Blade Residential Wind Generator Kit Here
I bought this turbine a year ago and it has been working perfectly.
I checked several sites and found this to be the best priced.
I am planing to get another one in about 3 months.
Highly recommended.
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I mounted this unit last spring and assumed it was working but didn't need it in the summer because solar panels were working well. this fall with the drop in solar production i tested it; no power being produced. when the wind is blowing its hardest it may exceed 12 volts and start pushing a small amount of current through the line, but the problem with its power production is not an electrical fluke or malfunction. it simply doesn't spin fast enough because of poor design.
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I set up a basic solar system for my sailboat on a very limited budget using this charge controller. It is rated for up to 300 Watts of solar panels and I have two DMSolar 145 Watt panels that I also bought from Amazon, and 12 guage cables and parallel connectors from HQRP, the connectors now come free with the panels. For $47 I don't think you can find a better value in a charge controller. The controller is extremely easy to use and understand, and is doing a good job of keeping two 125 AH batteries charged up (usually by lunchtime despite drawing the battery bank down to 12.4 V during the night with usage.) My only complaints are about the panel input receptacles, yes it would be nice to use 10 gauge wire and the screws seem barely adequate but the next step up is to a $160 controller. If you have the money, you can buy a programmable WPM controller from Morningstar (the TS45) which allows you to set the charging voltage at a higher voltage (say 14.8) which does make a difference in the amount of energy stored in the battery and perhaps also in their lifespan. Summary: incredible value in a budget priced charge controller for someone with less than 300 watts of panels.
