You may want to check the car's manual. It may be able to be told to take a lot less power on the "granny lead". If so, you can add range extremely slowly but none the less add range. If you go camping with an EV it is common to use it as the source for electric power to do stuff like make dinner. This takes a fair amount of power but only for perhaps 15 minutes. Thus the turbine can charge the EV for hours to add back the energy you just took out.
@@kensmith5694 you would have to set it to 2 A max. The charging protocol supports currents starting from 6 A. This means this experiment was doomed to fail because the poor little powerbank could not provide the minimum nescessary current and probably tripped it's overload protection each time the car tried to start up the charging process. Amazing that such a knowledgable team (I suppose, it should not be new to them) did not see this coming...
@@oroozen I hadn't bothered to look up the specs of theirs. I just saw that their power bank was about twice the size of mine and I know that mine can output 4A for a while until it is depleted.
@@kensmith5694 Your 4A is still too little to charge an EV. Even if you set the granny to it's lowest setting, it will try to pull 6A and trigger the overload protection of your power bank.
The rated power of the KiteX Wind Catcher is 200W @ 5.5 m/s wind speed, that is the max power output. Average wind speed at UK measuring stations is 4.5 m/s, measured over the last 20 years. At 4.5 m/s it looks like it would output 125W. Wind should be turbulence free to reach these numbers. A lot to carry for a tiny bit of power. The car charging is mostly a test of the power station, not the wind turbine.
@@Leo99929I mean, be real, why would you buy one of those overpriced small solar panels if you want to power a car? There are plenty of 400/500w panels at 100 euros...
It is a tiny bit of power but my modest house uses around 200 watts background base demand so 2 of these could be very useful (save around £500 per year if continuous - I know in reality will be a small fraction of the time but not as bad as I was expecting). Of course this would need beefing up a bit to withstand all year round use. Following with interest
@ndudman8 I think they're compensated for everything they do, aren't they? Personally, I don't have a use for a portable wind turbine, but It was fun to watch, and now I know they exist. 😅
When Robert pulled out that little Jackery I knew the answer! 😂 In all seriousness, the question is really two questions: 1. Can a portable wind turbine add power to a portable battery? Yes 2. Do portable batteries exist which can run a domestic car charger? Yes Did Robert have one of those available? No
which is comedic in itself because the car is a giant battery, so really the question is can you get a charge controller that can direct interface to the car.....
@@showme360 Yeah, I thought it was odd that no-one on the team had an android but I suppose creative types are all locked into the walled garden. (Don't get me wrong, I am not saying iPhones are bad, just surprised no-one had an alternative, even as an emergency backup in the car.)
The turbine was unfortunately still in dev/test site mode when they received it. We had only created a guide ( and only knew how to) change the configuration to normal mode using android.
I'm glad it wasn't windy. Those packing materials would have flown half way across the farm. 😂 Admittedly, it would be funny to watch Robert chase them down.
Looks very well engineered but overly complicated for a true portable ‘leisure’ product. Emergencies maybe but nobody on the normal scale is going to enjoy building and dismantling that more than once, or at all :) As for EV charging, you’ve a good sense of humour :p
I hate putting up tents with all the lines and weak tubing falling apart. This is putting up a tent squared! Can you try a foldout solar panel next? "A" for effort and entertainment though 🙂
Such a great adventure with friends -- putting together a wind turbine! KiteX- a portable wind turbine... Amazing! Thank you for showing what wonderful things are being developed AND already being used. Love your enthusiasm, Mr. Llewellyn.
If the makers of the windmill are taking advice, suggest: You can for quite a low cost make your product a WiFi hot spot and make all the software a web page so that it doesn't matter what phone is used. Making it not need any sort of app would be even better. You have to run a cable to bring the power down so a few extra wires is not a problem. Some sprinkler controllers make it all work with 3 push buttons and a two line LCD display.
@@markmuir7338 I am not even sure it needs an On/Off. If the wind is blowing, it is on. You may want to be able to monitor the output but that should be simple to do.
Dev here. Actually it is a web app. The turbine they received had a wrong firmware setting. We only had a guide for android on how change this at the time. Regarding the on/off we omitted the button to simplify the design (electronically and mechanically) - the main reason why it not just on by default is safety reason. We want to be sure people is ready for the turbine to spin up - before it does so. Could be we can make the user experience better at a later stage with firmware update
@@AndreasOkholm Thanks for explaining the situation. My 2¢ as an IoT developer: the fact the user has to plug it in to power to get it started, seems like a safe point for the user to expect it to start turning (and put that in the quick start guide). An app/web app should not be required for operation - it should just expose tech stats for us nerds. Otherwise it’s just being an annoyance to everyone. Interesting product - and kudos for it being shown on Fully Charged.
@@AndreasOkholm BTW: If you do make a hot spot, I suggest you put the serial number as part of the SSID. Two hotspots with the same name can be trouble
I did this last week while camping in Scotland. V2L ran an induction hob with an old kettle on it for tea and coffee. It used about 0.5kwh per litre of water.
@@jasonchapman6318 I can't believe that the good people of KiteX haven't tested it quite extensively in all sorts of wind conditions, and that it has passed those tests. The tensioning, materials used, and design lend it great strength I suspect However, it does look fragile.
In my humble opinion there is a MASSIVE gap in the UK market for a reliable self-limiting wind turbine that can generate a solid 150-500Watts in decent wind. People with an acre or more are generally screaming out for a wind turbine to compliment their solar PV. Alas, I dont think this does the job. Harmony Turbines in the USA have got me quite excited but they're still in development plus I'm not entirely sure they're wanting to export to the UK. Every new housing development should include a 10kW turbine where a small maintenance fee is included in the contract.
100% agree... We got quotes in excess of £27k for a small 3kw turbine! So just stuck up another 6kW of solar PV on the tractor shed for a fifth of the price👍
Very true. I've yet to find one that will provide enough energy to cover the purchase and installation costs during the time I expect it to survive. Actual outputs average only about 15% of "rated" output and I'm in one of the windiest parts of mainland UK. Between a couple of neighbours and myself we must have tried about 10 different small turbines in the past 4 years, none of which have come close to paying for themselves before failing.
@@garysmith5025 Britwind, SD Energy, both will easily produce their rated power continuously, 1000s all over the country, ultra reliable (unlike the nonsense shown in this video)
@@SeanMoore2008 Which of those companies produces something in the range of 150W to 500W as stated in the opening post that I replied to? They're 5kW upwards which is too big for domestic use, my garden is 0.7 hectares, very large by most peoples' reckoning but a turbine that size would just be completely out of place. Most people just want something that will cover a few hundreds watts of background usage overnight.
I agree.. I have looked at Istabreeze 1500W and a Bimble 1000W iirc... However, while better than the majority, they are probably still going to fall to bits before you get an ROI😂. I have looked at larger wind turbines... But as above... Too expensive/too big or require a 3 phase connection alas😢
Actually great to get back to basics. I've been thinking about alternative forms of generation for the winter period, when the old solar isn't generating much
An EVSE can, according to the standard, request a current draw of 6A and upwards in 1A steps.. In other words, with the correct EVSE you need an inverter that can sustain 1400W continually.. As far as I know the inverter they used in the video is 600W. Bjørn Nyland (AKA Tesla Bjørn) uses portable AC power banks (AKA "Solar Generator") to recharge the cars after he tests how they have implemented their low battery shutdown.
1440W at 230V, but many (most?) cars will charge at 110V or lower, so lower powers are possible, though a lot wll be lost by the static draw of the car's systems.
That Jackery battery (I have the same model) tops out at 500W so it's not surprising it didn't work. They do a 1kW version I think or other brands go to the full 13A (possibly more across several sockets) so they just used the wrong battery product here. Irrelevant anyway as what is important here is how much power the turbine generated - they should have left it set up for a week and measured how much it generated in that time and worked out how far that could get you in an EV (various models).
You could of pointed out the farmer working in the background was using one of the most up to date technology to sow crops with one of the lowest co2 footprint. Not say I hope he’s not spaying toxic chemicals You could spend some time investigating it and you may find farmers are doing a lot to lower their co2 emissions. And as you said in a previous episode the farm spewing fumes with his tractor and doesn’t care. His tractor will have add blu. Admittedly this is not perfect but at this point it’s the best and only option the farmer has. Because there’s no production of electric or hydrogen tractors. Maybe Samsungs new 500w per kg battery could change that in the future I hope so
Two things you could do to get _some_ charging from a lower powered (cheaper) battery bank or power source : 1) Set the current limit on the granny cable - different GCs have different settings available, the minimum possible (due to the J1772 protocol) is 6 amps. 2) Set the battery bank/source to output 110v - most cars' onboard chargers will accept this, and it haves the minimum power at which some charging is possible,. as the J1772 6A limit is regardless of voltage. On many cars, charging at low powers can be pretty inefficient due to the power drawn by the systems that are on while charging.
I have realised that using the granny charger at 10 amps takes far longer than it should at 2.4 KWh, so there are a lot of losses using the granny charger even at 2.4KW. At 6 Amp I doubt anything would get into the battery.
I've done a series of tests on a Hyundai Kona over a range of charging power from 1.3kW to 11kW and the power loss is pretty much constant at around 400W, so that's an efficiency of 69% to 96%. Having realised this I only charge at low power if I'm getting at least 500W of excess solar.
The only thing to bare in mind with this test is that the uk used a 240v for everything mains powered and we use the Mennekes type 2 connector so as far as I'm aware our minimal charging speed is 1.4kW
@@dubzfry yet this battery is only able to supply a sustained 0,5 kW, so trying to use it like in the video will just trigger it's overload protection. Funny how happy Robert appears to be with this "achievement".
Great video, considering I have problems screwing back one of our kitchen cupboard doors I'm not as confident in putting one of these up! at 8:42 I thought Imogen might fly off like Mary Poppins.
Love the idea. Impressed with the fact that it requires moderate and not difficult setup. It does look a bit flimsy. Glad they fixed that app limitation. Love that they used a Jackery. :D Fun little experiment. Cheers from the US! :)
O.M.G. You could have saved yourself a lot of trouble by looking up the specs first. That battery can barely deliver 2 Amps, while that charger will probably need at least 6A. Depending on the setting of the car and/or charger it will draw somewhere between 6 and 13 Amps. It can't "sense" the source can only deliver 2A, so that battery will probably trigger it's overload protection. Which is probably exactly what you saw: Handshake -> start charging -> overload! -> grace period -> ad infinitum. Amazing how "Fully Charged" could not predict this...
You'd need at least a Jackery Explorer 1500 Pro or better even a 3000 Pro to satisfy an EV's charging needs. Coupled to this windmill, you'd be able to charge a few miles every day. Too bad nobody in your production team could see this coming...
@@dzonikg my Ecoflow River 2 portable can't, because of the same problem. It can only deliver 600 watt at most. You need to be able to deliver at least 1.4 kW. So you need at least the River 2 Pro or better yet, the Delta 2 or above. Brand doesn't matter. Power does.
From earlier, it can produce 4.5kWh at an average, so a higher powered battery with connection to the wind turbine would mean you could easily charge a car, it is just 15-20 miles per day! Loved the video as well!
@@Jaw0lf thats over 24 hours at basically its best capacity constantly 187W constant, which is pretty unlickly... if you applied the load factor that even big uk wind turbins use 20-30 % then thats more like 1.1KWh/Day... Perhaps useable... but a few much cheaper panels even on a cloudy day in winter would get you that I think... and be less prone to breaking... But go for it and order one and let us know how it goes with return on your investment ? I started to build a DIY 500W many years ago but gave up before finishing because 1 our country is way worst for wind than UK, but 2 you need to get up much higher and these things need maintainence and need to be robost. That think still looks like a time cons;umming toy... but prove us all wrong :)
Love this episode. Keep up the good work. Glad to see Imogen helped you put together this complicated contraption. (Did your experience with Junkyard Wars help?)
oh KiteX! I've been subbed to these guys for years, mainly coz of their super-lightweight engineering, inspirational. Reminds me a bit of Tensegrity yeah? All these poles coupled with lines under tight tension, the kindof thing you see on yachts, or even old biplanes back in the day. edit: oh btw KiteX have good thorough video tutorials on their UA-cam channel, on howto properly & quickly setup their turbines 👍
It’s not really a tensegrity structure except in a very minimal way - one braced compression element (strut) with some stays. The bracing is there to increase the buckling load of the strut.
@chriss8437 That works indeed. I own a 2kW Jackery with 2x200 W peak portable panels. An average sunny day with no regular directional adjustment can generate around 1kW at my place. The Jackery then charges the car with no complaints at 7A. So a day's worth of sun adds around 10 km of summer range to my trusty old iMiev 😊 Not that that's of any practical use but an entertaining experiment.
Okay, the trick is that you have to make it more plug in place, give it the ability to use without a phone and give it the function of an umbrella where everything just pops up and you will have a banger of a product if you can plug and play it
Breaking the rules provides far more entertainment than being a follower. The Everything Electric UA-cam show has proven, once again, that fun is always the best result. A thought - this might make a good challenge for one of tthose scrap pile making real stuff shows - perhaps. Thanks to all those involved (Teddy as well) for sharing your KiteX experience.
Sounds like with a higher output capacity jackery it might be able to keep that topped up while it charges a car, if you're in a good spot. Even better would be to directly charge a camper that has a built in solar / "variable dc" input for on board charging. But only if you're staying somewhere for a few days. The setup time isn't a dealbreaker, though. Not super keen on having to have an app on my phone to control it, though. Still, that's pretty cool!
This clip was both illuminating from the set up point of view and thought provoking. I have two solar arrays 12 kWp and 5 kWp respectively. Two of the Kitex wind turbines could augment energy to cover the nights and cloudy days. On the flat garage roof.. Hmmm. Negotiations with the good lady mistress of the purse her indoors might and, more importantly, the grid company…
Have known the KiteX crew for over a decade. So glad to see this at last. Maybe a trip to the wild and windy Highlands would push more juice through the mech. Reckon these will be displayed proudly at eco farming shows and watersports festivals
Quicker than finding a charging station!! great idea all EV owners should have one conveniently stored in the car as the unit is so portable, its a game changer 😂
Or how they could of actually studied from say "Paul Burgess" and learnt that they are flogging a dead horse with this climite change nonsense... we need to protect nature... not get distracted with Co2 which we all need to live.
My wifes' car has a roof rack. I'd like a PV panel assembly that can be unfolded to cover almost the whole car area using supports that can be pulled out from the rack in the front to support it over the bonnet. Ideally that would be the length of a residential panel in width and 4 panel widths in length. Usual residential panel can generate 400 watts and weigh at least40 lbs. So charging over 1200 watts and the whole assembly weighing 200 lbs (within the weight limit of your typical car rack) you'd get about 10.4 to 28 Km added to range in a day.
The extraordinary hassle of setting up the turbine outweighs the benefit of charging your car that slowly. I would love to see this done with a VAWT or two and a larger battery pack that can charge a car.
The weakspot in the system is most certainly the battery. I would love to see a long term test. With a flat portable battery and a flat car battery with the turbine and sew how long it takes to get everything powered up.
Yes, that was the wrong battery system. Really it was the "inverter" that made AC that was short of what is needed. Lithium batteries can give a lot of power per volume.
TLDW; 4500whrs over 24hrs = power output of kit at 13mph wind. 4500/24 = 187W. For us here in America that's like plugging into 120V at 1.5 amps. 1 mile of range an hour, rounding up. 😊 Could be a good complement to the PV array of a tiny off-grid outpost for sure. The engineering & construction is bloody impressive!
Are there vertical turbine models? They will have more stable output. A tip, location a site that has wind-tunnel-effect. You will have continuous and higher wind speed at such location.
howcome you didn't show the input rate to the jackery from the turbine? and isn't why the jackery keeps glitching out, because it can't output enough, does that thing max out at 500 watts, was the surge tripping?> how much does the car's charger port need to wake up?
As an Android user, I'm so happy that they hit this snag with the software. Usually, I feel like I'm the one who suffers by not having an Apple. But, I'm not going back.
Yeh, sort of like saying you can charge your car from a generator attached to a bicycle, technically correct but not exactly the whole story. You made it quite entertaining though so thank you!
As others here have pointed out, J1772 protocol begins at 6A/120V, or 720W. I have a Zencar EVSE that will dial down to that and I use it as the main way to charge my 2012 Mitsubishi i-MiEV. Here in the sunny Arizona, in the American southwest desert, I've configured a solar array of 6 Renogy 115W bifacial panels feeding a portable battery/inverter (slightly larger than the little Jackery that Robert was using) at approximately the same rate the EVSE is drawing for up to 5 or 6 hour sessions. The other thing you need is an AC splitter cable and a neutral ground bonding plug, in order for the EVSE to recognize some sort of ground to start the charging sequence. But, yeah, you can use a battery/inverter (we call them solar generators, or"solgens," down here) with reasonable MPPT input specs to move electrons into your EVs battery. I think the Kite-X is rated at 400W maximum. So, you wouldn't be able to achieve input/output parity and charge all day with just one of those little turbines. But augment it with couple of solar panel and you could have some good trickle charging fun that way.
Having been off grid for over 7 years using primarily solar, I have a wind turbine on a 10 meter tower. The output is never up to the rated 2000 watts. A reliable 300 to 400 watts is a realistic average output to the whole house battery bank. About the same as one old solar panel. This portable toy may be enough to charge your phone and run some LED lights but don't expect it to do much more than that.
Seems more like a demo of how that Jackery battery works ... and that it would probably be a lot better to just have a few of those portable solar chargers that are sold as a kit with those batteries
Yes I watched the kite-x videos on their website and thought - hmm that is not straight forward - I am not sure i would want to put up one of those as well as the tent when camping but icould possibly put one in the garden and maybe when I can afford a decent battery pack it could be the best way to get wind power to charge it. very impressed with the string engineering
All good fun Robert, but I cannot see a campsite owner allowing this kind of device being setup on their campsite for Health and Safety and insurance reasons. I think solar panels would of been a better approach. But I can see what you are trying to do, so what if the team is interested how to use a water wheel that can charge up a car using its regen braking system, that would be the ultimate challenge!
What we really need is a low loss input way of putting portable solar into the onboard batteries. And get manufacturers putting solar on cars. It would go a long way to making them more efficient and cheaper to run. No one bothers how much is lost during charging because it doesn't show in the miles per kilowatt figure on the dash!
According to the information in this video this turbine can max out at 4.5kw. You only require 2.8kw to replicate the average charge rate you'd expect from a UK domestic socket. In which case you could add as much as 15 miles per hour at the peak. That would be perfectly adequate for adding a little top up when the car is doing nothing else. But, clearly, it's more suitable for running external equipment. It would be like a stand alone Turbine To Load system.
With around 150 usable Watts as an average, it would take two and a half weeks to charge an EV with a 60kWh battery. I can see this helping the battle to convert people to EVs 😂 Having to have a big field to put it in could also be an issue 😂
I know horizontal axis wind turbines are more efficent than vertical axis. However vertical axis wind turbines are better in turbulance than horizontal axis wind turbines. Because this is a small wind turbine it'll have much more turbulance than the big ones. So why not use a vertical axis wind turbine?
If the wind is turbulent it contains very little useful energy, simple fact. Why if you have little energy available, use something so inefficient, like a vertical axis turbine.
Speaking of VAWTs and given the DIY approach of this episode .. perhaps a rotary clothes dryer with triangular cloth sails (made from any garment of choice), raised up on a scalfolding pole with tent tie strings stays, coupled to an old car 24v alternator and mains inverter might work similarly.
Been talking to kiteX for a while, and its a super interesting prospect. I wondered if you could combine their system with solar to charge the same battery bank. My problem is the same as yours = my battery bank can't output 10A continuously. My concern after seeing the video is the oscillations to the turbine frame caused by transfer of weight of the blades. The moment arm to the hub from the blades seems too long to ever get rid of that.
A challenge if it is possible to use vertical turbines. Alpha 311 it has been tried in the O2 centre. Is now being used south wales by a council on a major road, the cars passing to produce wind rather than relying on wind.
Enjoyed your video, silly fun with a dog and bantes galore. But obviously hopeless product for any kind of camping. Fully expecting to see this used by calor gas to evidence their compact and convenient camping kit. Obviously, solar and a sensible pack like a bluetti which can put out well over 1500watts would be miles better. Meanwhile, wind turbine for permanent mounting in a windy back garden - that would be interesting.
Really should come with an interface device. An android device would be under US$40 and you're already paying US$1900 for it. (Which, BTW, actually not a terrible price for what it is. Pair it with a solar generator kit and that's a potentially great setup.)
Yep, just FANTASTIC....... .....if it's windy.......!! What you REALLY need is a wind turbine with built in solar panels ..... and a diesel generator......!!!?
We really hope you enjoy this episode - consider it some cockel-warming content to get you through your Wednesday afternoon!
You may want to check the car's manual. It may be able to be told to take a lot less power on the "granny lead". If so, you can add range extremely slowly but none the less add range. If you go camping with an EV it is common to use it as the source for electric power to do stuff like make dinner. This takes a fair amount of power but only for perhaps 15 minutes. Thus the turbine can charge the EV for hours to add back the energy you just took out.
It does take a village...
@@kensmith5694 you would have to set it to 2 A max. The charging protocol supports currents starting from 6 A. This means this experiment was doomed to fail because the poor little powerbank could not provide the minimum nescessary current and probably tripped it's overload protection each time the car tried to start up the charging process.
Amazing that such a knowledgable team (I suppose, it should not be new to them) did not see this coming...
@@oroozen I hadn't bothered to look up the specs of theirs. I just saw that their power bank was about twice the size of mine and I know that mine can output 4A for a while until it is depleted.
@@kensmith5694 Your 4A is still too little to charge an EV. Even if you set the granny to it's lowest setting, it will try to pull 6A and trigger the overload protection of your power bank.
The rated power of the KiteX Wind Catcher is 200W @ 5.5 m/s wind speed, that is the max power output. Average wind speed at UK measuring stations is 4.5 m/s, measured over the last 20 years. At 4.5 m/s it looks like it would output 125W. Wind should be turbulence free to reach these numbers. A lot to carry for a tiny bit of power.
The car charging is mostly a test of the power station, not the wind turbine.
200W Solar panel: £220? 200W KiteX £750? KiteX could work at night...
@@Leo99929 KiteX is £2000 and not for continous use.
@@Leo99929I mean, be real, why would you buy one of those overpriced small solar panels if you want to power a car? There are plenty of 400/500w panels at 100 euros...
@Leo99929 KiteX is around £2000 and just for temporary use.
It is a tiny bit of power but my modest house uses around 200 watts background base demand so 2 of these could be very useful (save around £500 per year if continuous - I know in reality will be a small fraction of the time but not as bad as I was expecting). Of course this would need beefing up a bit to withstand all year round use. Following with interest
Use a wind turbine to power a hair dryer? just cut out the middleman and dry your hair with wind..
Funny 🤣
Or use the hairdryer to blow the turbine faster.
What about the heat that helps dry faster?
@@Defianthuman With Robert's abundant, flowing locks, he's cool enough not to need any heat. 😁
The heat is more about user comfort, moving air is the main thing, things dry in the wind up freezing mountains quite efficiently.
16:20 "It's not completely fake, just complicated" Awesome review and very self aware. always welcomed.
wish he had actual wind turbine for the job, would have been great video
lol
L
I'm just amazed the crew let Robert near both a multitool knife and a jigsaw. 🙂
😅🤣
@@markm6488 Does he also come up with this stupid idea as well, or was it a paid spot ?
@ndudman8 I think they're compensated for everything they do, aren't they? Personally, I don't have a use for a portable wind turbine, but It was fun to watch, and now I know they exist. 😅
@@markm6488 Well they didn't say, they were sent it, did they buy it themselfs ? where they paid to test and show it ? They didn't say...
@ndudman8 well, they get paid in some way, I'm sure they're not working for nothing. 😅
When Robert pulled out that little Jackery I knew the answer! 😂
In all seriousness, the question is really two questions:
1. Can a portable wind turbine add power to a portable battery? Yes
2. Do portable batteries exist which can run a domestic car charger? Yes
Did Robert have one of those available? No
Amazing how his entire team could not predict this. "Lookie here! It's charging!" Noooo, it's triggering the poor battery's overload protection.
which is comedic in itself because the car is a giant battery, so really the question is can you get a charge controller that can direct interface to the car.....
Ho and no Android phone! lol
@@showme360 Yeah, I thought it was odd that no-one on the team had an android but I suppose creative types are all locked into the walled garden. (Don't get me wrong, I am not saying iPhones are bad, just surprised no-one had an alternative, even as an emergency backup in the car.)
Why does this channel even pretend to do reviews... or are all their subscribers more stupid than them ? Perhaps.
I love that it's Android only! 🤣
Shows that the designers aren't a bunch of virtue signalling hippies /jk 😅
I find it ironic that a man most famous for playing an android doesn't have one.
Apple is crap that's why
@@drunkenhobo8020 It's just wrong, I say!
The turbine was unfortunately still in dev/test site mode when they received it. We had only created a guide ( and only knew how to) change the configuration to normal mode using android.
I'm glad it wasn't windy. Those packing materials would have flown half way across the farm. 😂 Admittedly, it would be funny to watch Robert chase them down.
Looks very well engineered but overly complicated for a true portable ‘leisure’ product. Emergencies maybe but nobody on the normal scale is going to enjoy building and dismantling that more than once, or at all :) As for EV charging, you’ve a good sense of humour :p
Rob's not on the normal scale.
I hate putting up tents with all the lines and weak tubing falling apart. This is putting up a tent squared!
Can you try a foldout solar panel next?
"A" for effort and entertainment though 🙂
Such a great adventure with friends -- putting together a wind turbine! KiteX- a portable wind turbine... Amazing! Thank you for showing what wonderful things are being developed AND already being used. Love your enthusiasm, Mr. Llewellyn.
If the makers of the windmill are taking advice, suggest:
You can for quite a low cost make your product a WiFi hot spot and make all the software a web page so that it doesn't matter what phone is used.
Making it not need any sort of app would be even better. You have to run a cable to bring the power down so a few extra wires is not a problem. Some sprinkler controllers make it all work with 3 push buttons and a two line LCD display.
Or not require an app at all. Why isn’t it just on/off? Everything else should be easily automated
@@markmuir7338 I am not even sure it needs an On/Off. If the wind is blowing, it is on.
You may want to be able to monitor the output but that should be simple to do.
Dev here. Actually it is a web app. The turbine they received had a wrong firmware setting. We only had a guide for android on how change this at the time.
Regarding the on/off we omitted the button to simplify the design (electronically and mechanically) - the main reason why it not just on by default is safety reason. We want to be sure people is ready for the turbine to spin up - before it does so. Could be we can make the user experience better at a later stage with firmware update
@@AndreasOkholm Thanks for explaining the situation.
My 2¢ as an IoT developer: the fact the user has to plug it in to power to get it started, seems like a safe point for the user to expect it to start turning (and put that in the quick start guide).
An app/web app should not be required for operation - it should just expose tech stats for us nerds. Otherwise it’s just being an annoyance to everyone.
Interesting product - and kudos for it being shown on Fully Charged.
@@AndreasOkholm BTW: If you do make a hot spot, I suggest you put the serial number as part of the SSID. Two hotspots with the same name can be trouble
I think if I went camping I would be using the car as the power source using V2L. And use a level 2 or DC charger to top up.
we've been going this for over a year now with our ionic. works 100% even runs a electric heater for over 4 days :)
I did this last week while camping in Scotland. V2L ran an induction hob with an old kettle on it for tea and coffee. It used about 0.5kwh per litre of water.
Yes, if you run it in reverse, you've got yourself a big fan on sunny days that barely uses any power.
The assembly portion made me think I was watching Scrap Heap Challenge/Junkyard Wars again :-)
looks hopelessly fragile.
yes, but maybe not. I think the next video should be see how vulnerable it is :-).
@@jasonchapman6318 I can't believe that the good people of KiteX haven't tested it quite extensively in all sorts of wind conditions, and that it has passed those tests. The tensioning, materials used, and design lend it great strength I suspect
However, it does look fragile.
Any reasonable wind will destroy it.
Version 2 will be much better
@@addsfour3499 and 10 times the price :)
In my humble opinion there is a MASSIVE gap in the UK market for a reliable self-limiting wind turbine that can generate a solid 150-500Watts in decent wind.
People with an acre or more are generally screaming out for a wind turbine to compliment their solar PV.
Alas, I dont think this does the job.
Harmony Turbines in the USA have got me quite excited but they're still in development plus I'm not entirely sure they're wanting to export to the UK.
Every new housing development should include a 10kW turbine where a small maintenance fee is included in the contract.
100% agree... We got quotes in excess of £27k for a small 3kw turbine!
So just stuck up another 6kW of solar PV on the tractor shed for a fifth of the price👍
Very true. I've yet to find one that will provide enough energy to cover the purchase and installation costs during the time I expect it to survive. Actual outputs average only about 15% of "rated" output and I'm in one of the windiest parts of mainland UK. Between a couple of neighbours and myself we must have tried about 10 different small turbines in the past 4 years, none of which have come close to paying for themselves before failing.
@@garysmith5025 Britwind, SD Energy, both will easily produce their rated power continuously, 1000s all over the country, ultra reliable (unlike the nonsense shown in this video)
@@SeanMoore2008 Which of those companies produces something in the range of 150W to 500W as stated in the opening post that I replied to? They're 5kW upwards which is too big for domestic use, my garden is 0.7 hectares, very large by most peoples' reckoning but a turbine that size would just be completely out of place. Most people just want something that will cover a few hundreds watts of background usage overnight.
I agree..
I have looked at Istabreeze 1500W and a Bimble 1000W iirc...
However, while better than the majority, they are probably still going to fall to bits before you get an ROI😂.
I have looked at larger wind turbines... But as above... Too expensive/too big or require a 3 phase connection alas😢
Robert, that was the most comical episode I have seen you do. Keep the fun coming.
Keep bringing on those experiments!
Actually great to get back to basics. I've been thinking about alternative forms of generation for the winter period, when the old solar isn't generating much
That was great. I enjoyed that we had two shots of a seat, for a nice sit down.
Oh brilliant, hilarious review and such a great bit of kit! 👍😄
As another of your TV programmes would say - Proper Job 😁
An EVSE can, according to the standard, request a current draw of 6A and upwards in 1A steps..
In other words, with the correct EVSE you need an inverter that can sustain 1400W continually..
As far as I know the inverter they used in the video is 600W.
Bjørn Nyland (AKA Tesla Bjørn) uses portable AC power banks (AKA "Solar Generator") to recharge the cars after he tests how they have implemented their low battery shutdown.
1440W at 230V, but many (most?) cars will charge at 110V or lower, so lower powers are possible, though a lot wll be lost by the static draw of the car's systems.
@@mikeselectricstuff This video is made in England, where 0% of the "Solar generators" are 110V.
But yes, if you use a 110V inverter, 6A is about 700W
That Jackery battery (I have the same model) tops out at 500W so it's not surprising it didn't work. They do a 1kW version I think or other brands go to the full 13A (possibly more across several sockets) so they just used the wrong battery product here. Irrelevant anyway as what is important here is how much power the turbine generated - they should have left it set up for a week and measured how much it generated in that time and worked out how far that could get you in an EV (various models).
You could of pointed out the farmer working in the background was using one of the most up to date technology to sow crops with one of the lowest co2 footprint. Not say I hope he’s not spaying toxic chemicals
You could spend some time investigating it and you may find farmers are doing a lot to lower their co2 emissions.
And as you said in a previous episode the farm spewing fumes with his tractor and doesn’t care.
His tractor will have add blu. Admittedly this is not perfect but at this point it’s the best and only option the farmer has.
Because there’s no production of electric or hydrogen tractors.
Maybe Samsungs new 500w per kg battery could change that in the future I hope so
‘Could have’. You’re welcome.
@@IAmSoMuchBetterThanYou
Is that the only mistake I made. That’s unusual
Two things you could do to get _some_ charging from a lower powered (cheaper) battery bank or power source :
1) Set the current limit on the granny cable - different GCs have different settings available, the minimum possible (due to the J1772 protocol) is 6 amps.
2) Set the battery bank/source to output 110v - most cars' onboard chargers will accept this, and it haves the minimum power at which some charging is possible,. as the J1772 6A limit is regardless of voltage.
On many cars, charging at low powers can be pretty inefficient due to the power drawn by the systems that are on while charging.
I have realised that using the granny charger at 10 amps takes far longer than it should at 2.4 KWh, so there are a lot of losses using the granny charger even at 2.4KW. At 6 Amp I doubt anything would get into the battery.
I've done a series of tests on a Hyundai Kona over a range of charging power from 1.3kW to 11kW and the power loss is pretty much constant at around 400W, so that's an efficiency of 69% to 96%. Having realised this I only charge at low power if I'm getting at least 500W of excess solar.
@@williamarmstrong7199 I charge my 2018 Nissan Leaf 40kwh model with 6A, and it gets about 25% overnight.
The only thing to bare in mind with this test is that the uk used a 240v for everything mains powered and we use the Mennekes type 2 connector so as far as I'm aware our minimal charging speed is 1.4kW
@@dubzfry yet this battery is only able to supply a sustained 0,5 kW, so trying to use it like in the video will just trigger it's overload protection. Funny how happy Robert appears to be with this "achievement".
This is more of an advert for a jackery battery pack than an advert for the kite X! 😂
The kite X looks less portable than a non portable setup 😅
Great video, considering I have problems screwing back one of our kitchen cupboard doors I'm not as confident in putting one of these up! at 8:42 I thought Imogen might fly off like Mary Poppins.
Well that was quite enjoyable🤣
Almost a glimpse into your household at Christmas. “Have you read the instructions?” 😂❤
Very cool stuff. Love that you even gave this a try. Thanks for sharing.
HILARIOUS! Thank you for this highly entertaining review.
I have been enjoyed, so thank you for delivering.
Love the idea.
Impressed with the fact that it requires moderate and not difficult setup.
It does look a bit flimsy.
Glad they fixed that app limitation.
Love that they used a Jackery. :D
Fun little experiment. Cheers from the US! :)
O.M.G.
You could have saved yourself a lot of trouble by looking up the specs first. That battery can barely deliver 2 Amps, while that charger will probably need at least 6A. Depending on the setting of the car and/or charger it will draw somewhere between 6 and 13 Amps. It can't "sense" the source can only deliver 2A, so that battery will probably trigger it's overload protection. Which is probably exactly what you saw: Handshake -> start charging -> overload! -> grace period -> ad infinitum.
Amazing how "Fully Charged" could not predict this...
You'd need at least a Jackery Explorer 1500 Pro or better even a 3000 Pro to satisfy an EV's charging needs. Coupled to this windmill, you'd be able to charge a few miles every day. Too bad nobody in your production team could see this coming...
@@oroozen EcoFlow can charge car no problem
@@dzonikg my Ecoflow River 2 portable can't, because of the same problem. It can only deliver 600 watt at most. You need to be able to deliver at least 1.4 kW. So you need at least the River 2 Pro or better yet, the Delta 2 or above.
Brand doesn't matter. Power does.
From earlier, it can produce 4.5kWh at an average, so a higher powered battery with connection to the wind turbine would mean you could easily charge a car, it is just 15-20 miles per day!
Loved the video as well!
it was 500Whp... where did you get 4.5kWh ? How is that even possible ?
@@ndudman8 At 3:53 it produces 4500wh per day, so 4.5kWh. Store power in a battery or two, you could then refill your EV and gain your 15-20 miles.
@@Jaw0lf thats over 24 hours at basically its best capacity constantly 187W constant, which is pretty unlickly... if you applied the load factor that even big uk wind turbins use 20-30 % then thats more like 1.1KWh/Day... Perhaps useable... but a few much cheaper panels even on a cloudy day in winter would get you that I think... and be less prone to breaking... But go for it and order one and let us know how it goes with return on your investment ? I started to build a DIY 500W many years ago but gave up before finishing because 1 our country is way worst for wind than UK, but 2 you need to get up much higher and these things need maintainence and need to be robost. That think still looks like a time cons;umming toy... but prove us all wrong :)
3:17 Screwing in a field - “Good morning vicar”!! You’ve had that happen too??!!!
What an excellent video and I always like when Robert gets me to laugh. Thank you!
Love this episode. Keep up the good work.
Glad to see Imogen helped you put together this complicated contraption.
(Did your experience with Junkyard Wars help?)
oh KiteX! I've been subbed to these guys for years, mainly coz of their super-lightweight engineering, inspirational.
Reminds me a bit of Tensegrity yeah? All these poles coupled with lines under tight tension, the kindof thing you see on yachts, or even old biplanes back in the day.
edit: oh btw KiteX have good thorough video tutorials on their UA-cam channel, on howto properly & quickly setup their turbines 👍
I was really hoping Robert would say "tensegrity" in his marketing-droid voice.
It’s not really a tensegrity structure except in a very minimal way - one braced compression element (strut) with some stays. The bracing is there to increase the buckling load of the strut.
Would fold up portable PV panels be a lot easier ? Jackery in fact do some to go with your battery.
or just plug the car in like normal ?
@chriss8437 That works indeed. I own a 2kW Jackery with 2x200 W peak portable panels. An average sunny day with no regular directional adjustment can generate around 1kW at my place. The Jackery then charges the car with no complaints at 7A. So a day's worth of sun adds around 10 km of summer range to my trusty old iMiev 😊
Not that that's of any practical use but an entertaining experiment.
Okay, the trick is that you have to make it more plug in place, give it the ability to use without a phone and give it the function of an umbrella where everything just pops up and you will have a banger of a product if you can plug and play it
Breaking the rules provides far more entertainment than being a follower.
The Everything Electric UA-cam show has proven, once again, that fun is always the best result.
A thought - this might make a good challenge for one of tthose scrap pile making real stuff shows - perhaps.
Thanks to all those involved (Teddy as well) for sharing your KiteX experience.
Sounds like with a higher output capacity jackery it might be able to keep that topped up while it charges a car, if you're in a good spot. Even better would be to directly charge a camper that has a built in solar / "variable dc" input for on board charging. But only if you're staying somewhere for a few days. The setup time isn't a dealbreaker, though. Not super keen on having to have an app on my phone to control it, though.
Still, that's pretty cool!
This clip was both illuminating from the set up point of view and thought provoking. I have two solar arrays 12 kWp and 5 kWp respectively. Two of the Kitex wind turbines could augment energy to cover the nights and cloudy days. On the flat garage roof.. Hmmm. Negotiations with the good lady mistress of the purse her indoors might and, more importantly, the grid company…
not really an augmentation - at 13mph windspeed you're getting 0.187kw (187 watts) output.
So that's what fully charged do as a team building exercise😂
That's a new type of wind turbine, very interesting video, thank you for sharing
Great to see this idea turned into a test.
Nice teamwork, really enjoyed the video!
Bringing the Engineer is CHEATING! 😜
How are we supposed to know if it’s doable by us ordinary blokes?
So you have confirmed these are pointless for charging a car but decent for camping if you have a team of 5 people with you to set it up. 😂
I love that get away from it all, lightened hearted feeling as one sets off to commune with nature. And such a gentle breeze😎
Not long to 100k followers and well deserved.
If the wind was intermittent but with that it would run a portable fridge, that's genuinely impressive 🙂 nice one!
Have known the KiteX crew for over a decade. So glad to see this at last.
Maybe a trip to the wild and windy Highlands would push more juice through the mech.
Reckon these will be displayed proudly at eco farming shows and watersports festivals
Quicker than finding a charging station!! great idea all EV owners should have one conveniently stored in the car as the unit is so portable, its a game changer 😂
I wonder how much solar gain could be had in the time it takes to setup and tear down this contraption.
Or how they could of actually studied from say "Paul Burgess" and learnt that they are flogging a dead horse with this climite change nonsense... we need to protect nature... not get distracted with Co2 which we all need to live.
Cheers Robert and the team
How long will that spiders web of a washing line hold together. Just absolute landfill
Love this "spinners" - They will change the world in a better one... Greetings Tom
My wifes' car has a roof rack. I'd like a PV panel assembly that can be unfolded to cover almost the whole car area using supports that can be pulled out from the rack in the front to support it over the bonnet. Ideally that would be the length of a residential panel in width and 4 panel widths in length. Usual residential panel can generate 400 watts and weigh at least40 lbs. So charging over 1200 watts and the whole assembly weighing 200 lbs (within the weight limit of your typical car rack) you'd get about 10.4 to 28 Km added to range in a day.
For improvements, Robert should consult Rosie, a wind turbine consultant. Engineering with Rosie is her channel.
The extraordinary hassle of setting up the turbine outweighs the benefit of charging your car that slowly. I would love to see this done with a VAWT or two and a larger battery pack that can charge a car.
The weakspot in the system is most certainly the battery. I would love to see a long term test. With a flat portable battery and a flat car battery with the turbine and sew how long it takes to get everything powered up.
Yes, that was the wrong battery system. Really it was the "inverter" that made AC that was short of what is needed. Lithium batteries can give a lot of power per volume.
TLDW; 4500whrs over 24hrs = power output of kit at 13mph wind. 4500/24 = 187W. For us here in America that's like plugging into 120V at 1.5 amps. 1 mile of range an hour, rounding up. 😊 Could be a good complement to the PV array of a tiny off-grid outpost for sure. The engineering & construction is bloody impressive!
Are there vertical turbine models? They will have more stable output. A tip, location a site that has wind-tunnel-effect. You will have continuous and higher wind speed at such location.
VAWTs have a very low efficiency, just what you don't want if your wind resource is poor.
howcome you didn't show the input rate to the jackery from the turbine?
and isn't why the jackery keeps glitching out, because it can't output enough, does that thing max out at 500 watts, was the surge tripping?>
how much does the car's charger port need to wake up?
Yes, it trips at 500 hence the model name 'Explorer 500'
As an Android user, I'm so happy that they hit this snag with the software. Usually, I feel like I'm the one who suffers by not having an Apple. But, I'm not going back.
This is the type of episode I love. Putting green energy to work in a very real situation.
they just made it look stupid.
This is the sort of thing Fully Charged should always be about
Fooly Charged Channel!❤
so, you get a wind turbine to test, and you surround it with trees and bushes.. brilliant.
Yeh, sort of like saying you can charge your car from a generator attached to a bicycle, technically correct but not exactly the whole story.
You made it quite entertaining though so thank you!
technically not correct, and just stupid...
As others here have pointed out, J1772 protocol begins at 6A/120V, or 720W. I have a Zencar EVSE that will dial down to that and I use it as the main way to charge my 2012 Mitsubishi i-MiEV. Here in the sunny Arizona, in the American southwest desert, I've configured a solar array of 6 Renogy 115W bifacial panels feeding a portable battery/inverter (slightly larger than the little Jackery that Robert was using) at approximately the same rate the EVSE is drawing for up to 5 or 6 hour sessions.
The other thing you need is an AC splitter cable and a neutral ground bonding plug, in order for the EVSE to recognize some sort of ground to start the charging sequence. But, yeah, you can use a battery/inverter (we call them solar generators, or"solgens," down here) with reasonable MPPT input specs to move electrons into your EVs battery.
I think the Kite-X is rated at 400W maximum. So, you wouldn't be able to achieve input/output parity and charge all day with just one of those little turbines. But augment it with couple of solar panel and you could have some good trickle charging fun that way.
The Kite-X is rated at 200W maximum.
Having been off grid for over 7 years using primarily solar, I have a wind turbine on a 10 meter tower. The output is never up to the rated 2000 watts. A reliable 300 to 400 watts is a realistic average output to the whole house battery bank. About the same as one old solar panel.
This portable toy may be enough to charge your phone and run some LED lights but don't expect it to do much more than that.
Moral support charges friendship while charging your car which means good times ❤
Seems more like a demo of how that Jackery battery works ... and that it would probably be a lot better to just have a few of those portable solar chargers that are sold as a kit with those batteries
Robert great video you always make me laugh ;)
Yes I watched the kite-x videos on their website and thought - hmm that is not straight forward - I am not sure i would want to put up one of those as well as the tent when camping but icould possibly put one in the garden and maybe when I can afford a decent battery pack it could be the best way to get wind power to charge it. very impressed with the string engineering
All good fun Robert, but I cannot see a campsite owner allowing this kind of device being setup on their campsite for Health and Safety and insurance reasons. I think solar panels would of been a better approach. But I can see what you are trying to do, so what if the team is interested how to use a water wheel that can charge up a car using its regen braking system, that would be the ultimate challenge!
Ha!.....a textbook PERFECT demonstration of GREEN TECH ......!
D'oh.....!!!
The music background was superb!
What we really need is a low loss input way of putting portable solar into the onboard batteries. And get manufacturers putting solar on cars. It would go a long way to making them more efficient and cheaper to run. No one bothers how much is lost during charging because it doesn't show in the miles per kilowatt figure on the dash!
Would be a fantastic emergency charging solution during a "public safety power shutoff" outage. Just use the Santa Ana winds to charge!
Very nice product for windy places without a lot of sun. Bringing along a bunch of solar panels is just easier.
According to the information in this video this turbine can max out at 4.5kw. You only require 2.8kw to replicate the average charge rate you'd expect from a UK domestic socket. In which case you could add as much as 15 miles per hour at the peak. That would be perfectly adequate for adding a little top up when the car is doing nothing else. But, clearly, it's more suitable for running external equipment. It would be like a stand alone Turbine To Load system.
500Whp nothing close to 4.5kw ?
The KiteX is 200W max. Expect 100-150W at average wind speed and no turbulence (on a hill without interference).
Thanks for the fun . . . and info :)
With around 150 usable Watts as an average, it would take two and a half weeks to charge an EV with a 60kWh battery. I can see this helping the battle to convert people to EVs 😂
Having to have a big field to put it in could also be an issue 😂
I know horizontal axis wind turbines are more efficent than vertical axis. However vertical axis wind turbines are better in turbulance than horizontal axis wind turbines.
Because this is a small wind turbine it'll have much more turbulance than the big ones.
So why not use a vertical axis wind turbine?
The total wattage proves this to be academic, as it's not enough to be useful anyway.
If the wind is turbulent it contains very little useful energy, simple fact. Why if you have little energy available, use something so inefficient, like a vertical axis turbine.
Because... there are zero commercial products available and all the companies out there claiming to be building one are snake oil salesmen?
Speaking of VAWTs and given the DIY approach of this episode .. perhaps a rotary clothes dryer with triangular cloth sails (made from any garment of choice), raised up on a scalfolding pole with tent tie strings stays, coupled to an old car 24v alternator and mains inverter might work similarly.
Great video Robert out in the in field trying things
not really, just looking stupid and wasting time...
Been talking to kiteX for a while, and its a super interesting prospect. I wondered if you could combine their system with solar to charge the same battery bank. My problem is the same as yours = my battery bank can't output 10A continuously. My concern after seeing the video is the oscillations to the turbine frame caused by transfer of weight of the blades. The moment arm to the hub from the blades seems too long to ever get rid of that.
A challenge if it is possible to use vertical turbines. Alpha 311 it has been tried in the O2 centre. Is now being used south wales by a council on a major road, the cars passing to produce wind rather than relying on wind.
It is but why use something that has a very low efficiency.
Thank you for bringing us the Big Trak of electricity generation.
Probably should have some basic controls available on the device or somewhere along the cables
LOL! Rackin my brain thinking i know this guy. F'n Cryton got off the ship! Well done.
i have been Rob and really enjoyed it. have you all seen the wind turbine that looks like a box and uses aerofoils to spin a central internal turbine
Enjoyed your video, silly fun with a dog and bantes galore.
But obviously hopeless product for any kind of camping. Fully expecting to see this used by calor gas to evidence their compact and convenient camping kit.
Obviously, solar and a sensible pack like a bluetti which can put out well over 1500watts would be miles better.
Meanwhile, wind turbine for permanent mounting in a windy back garden - that would be interesting.
Ty.
It looked wonky, like it was jigging about, not stiff.
How tall is it?
How noisy is it?
Really should come with an interface device. An android device would be under US$40 and you're already paying US$1900 for it. (Which, BTW, actually not a terrible price for what it is. Pair it with a solar generator kit and that's a potentially great setup.)
'Is it in the hole?'....'Not quite'. Fnarr.
🤣
@@zapfanzapfan You went there!!! 😆
I notice the turbine also magically changed location from a hill top to what looks like Robert's back garden. 🙂
He said that himself!
They did explain that - they had to regroup another day because of the Android issue and yes, they did say it was Robert's garden.
Yep, just FANTASTIC.......
.....if it's windy.......!!
What you REALLY need is a wind turbine with built in solar panels ..... and a diesel generator......!!!?