Entry Date: 28.10.2021, at 17:00:00 hrs (local)

Whangarei - Whangarei

Cheap Chinese Junk

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PRID: 12286
LegID: 331
LegNo: 79
Latitude: S035°43.46'
Longitude: E174°19.59'
Day#: 1109
Log (Day): 16 nm
Log (Leg): 440 nm
Log (Total): 55550 nm
We should have known, but sometimes you do it anyway. We´re talking about a new wind generator that we shouldn´t have bought. Our old / current one is getting on in the days. So that it could still produce electricity, Lutz had removed the internal electronics,  some time ago and replaced it with a simple bridge rectifier, So far so good - until we came across a product that was irresistible for us at Banggood.com, a very well-known online retailer: A wind generator with twice the performance of ours and an extremely attractive price:

https: // www.banggood.com/DC-12V-or-24V-1000W-Peak-5-Blades-Black-Wind-Turbine-Generator-With-Charge-Controller-p-1458520.html?rmmds=myorder&cur_warehouse=CN&ID=49552

After we had installed the new wind generator on the rear of SuAn, we quickly discovered that it hardly produced any charging current - strange! So we dismantle it again, remove the propeller and put the old and new wind generator next to each other on the table. Then we take a power drill and turn the hub of each wind generator one after the other at the same speed and measure the generated voltage. Result: The new wind generator only supplies about half the voltage of the old one. Then we repeat the test in a slightly modified form: We connect the generators one after the other to the ship´s battery and measure the charging current. You can probably imagine the result: The charging current generated by the old wind generator is roughly twice as high as that of the new one. We confronted Banggood.com with these findings. There were lots of excuses, but no solution. Finally, we did the only thing what we could do with this product: We disposed of the brand new Chinese wind generator in the dumpster and re-installed the old one.