The Dump Load Fridge

Posts : 29 Join date : 2014-11-05 Location : Texas

After building a couple turbines the most common question I here from those who are curious is how do they act under a load. My answer is always I don't know! But I am trying to find the answer to that question by building a small portable power distribution board that I can take with me should I find a windy spot to do some testing. Wind has been scarce for the past several months but fortunately the sun is still shinning on my solar panels. The power distribution board started out as a simple little thing but has become fairly complicated and a bit over crowded with many different components that I've come to enjoy using while I wait for wind. A boost pack, or a bank of super caps in a plastic case is what I use as a battery, it's got a 300 watt pure sign wave inverter I use to run my radio, and a mini fridge I use as a dump when the sun is hidden or down. When I have full sun I can also run the fridge as a twelve volt load strait off of the battery. The board is constantly changing, but it is what it is for the moment. It is my Research and Development watts sucking power board I affectionately call "R.D. Wattsucker"

Subject: Re: The Dump Load Fridge Sun Nov 29, 2015 5:28 am

Hello my friend...

outstanding kit you have there.. I am impressed.

Those TEC modules... what do you think is the best efficiency you can get from them, would it be safe to say 5%.

There is never an easy answer... keep up the good work my friend.

Alan

Posts : 29 Join date : 2014-11-05 Location : Texas

Efficiency of the modules are tough to figure. Since my ability to store power is limited, I've given-up on using them as a direct load on the battery unless it is an exceptionally sunny and breezy day. If power coming-in drops off even a little, it doesn't take long to drain the stored energy from the batteries. Instead I'm using the entire fridge unit as a dump load. That is both TEC modules, internal and external fans and the water pump are all used as a single diversion load. This seams to be the most productive setup so far even though the amount of chill it makes varies with the amount of over flow energy it receives. Something I didn't mention in either of these videos, before I added the water cooling system, it had burned-up seven of these 6 amp TEC modules. These were some cheap modules I bought in quantity just to experiment with. I'm using a pair of 9 amp modules in the mini-fridge right now, and they seam to be holding up nicely. The next step to improve the efficiency of the fridge will be a rebuild of the cabinet to something with better insulation.

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