Hello everyone,
I recently got hold of two sensors (taken down from an old windturbine).
I want to use them myself but I have no idea on the pinout/cables.
Maybe someone here is able to help me with this? All I got is those photos
I made ... nobody could tell me anything about those sensors.
Thank you very much!
Best, Thomas
I recon you're going to have to open it up to see what's inside.
Does a multimeter give you any hint as to what is going on in each?
The wind vane certainly has the same number of wires as the one sold by Sparkfun
(link to datasheet) so rotating it slowly and making a map of the resistances returned may reverse engineer the outputs if it uses the same mechanism. The anemometer could also use a similar mechanism with a switch giving a pulse on the yellow line each rotation.
All the best!
Geoff
Thanks for the replys! 
I tried to connect a multimeter to the cables but there was nothing to read so I opened the sensors and here is what I found ...
It isn't visible on the photos but there is a stamp on the circuits that states it has to be connected
to 24V DC ... will that be even possible with a arduino? I will have to use an external power supply
right? How do I connect the sensors then?
Cabels on the Anemometer:
Red +24V DC
Black GND
White "D" ... this will be the output right?
Cables on the vane:
White "D"
Yellow "C" ... will the resistance be measured between those two?
Green GND
Brown +24V DC
This is going to be my first "real" sensor project! I used only some Dallas temperature sensors
before ... nice (if it will be possible)!
Best,
Thomas
You will need a 24V power supply for the sensors. The output of the anemometer may be pulses on the white wire, but it could also be a voltage. It is anyone's guess what the output(s) of the direction sensor is (are). An oscilloscope would be extremely useful for this.
A close up of the chips would help. Failing that, if you could perhaps read the part numbers off them, it may become obvious what you have.
Hmm ... I don't have a oscilloscope. Will a multimeter work too?
The anemometer won't be a big problem to get to work I think. Once the power supply arrives I will
give it a test run!
The vane instead seems to be more complicated. As the sensors seem to use the same circuit a
method Geoff mentioned in his post (and link to the datasheet) above must be implemented. Anyone
here who can point me in the right direction?
I will try to make better photos of the circuits this afternoon but I can not find any part numbers except
the ones on the labels but they can't be found on the internet (tried that already).
Thanks a lot!
Thomas
Just spotted this image on another thread. I'm thinking it could be very similar to what you have here.
Here's the thread where I spotted it.
Does this look like your setup?
If you have no data on the anemometer, you will have to calibrate it somehow, in order to actually measure wind speed.
Theres no simple formula that relates wind speed to rpm.
mauried:
If you have no data on the anemometer, you will have to calibrate it somehow, in order to actually measure wind speed.
Strap it to your roof racks and go for a drive? Seems the easiest way to me if you don't have another callibrated sensor handy to compare with.
strykeroz:
Strap it to your roof racks and go for a drive? Seems the easiest way to me if you don't have another callibrated sensor handy to compare with.
A hand drill would be easier
KenF:
A hand drill would be easier
How do you work out wind speed from there if there's no easy way to correlate wind speed with RPM (from mauried's observation, above)? In the car you have your speedo, so I figured on a still day any RPM in the anemometer while driving at a constant speed on a straight road is directly relatable to the road speed?
strykeroz:
How do you work out wind speed from there if there's no easy way to correlate wind speed with RPM (from mauried's observation, above)? In the car you have your speedo, so I figured on a still day any RPM in the anemometer while driving at a constant speed on a straight road is directly relatable to the road speed?
The drill wouldn't be much use for calibration, but might help determining the type of signal to be had. So far we don't know what that is. My guess is a rotary encoder. But there are other possibilities. Once you've worked out what kind of signal is available, then you could take it for a drive to calibrate it.
