Differences between

Horizontal and Vertical axis

Wind Turbine
Published by Aromal Karuvath on June 11, 2017
Wind turbines have two main design categories: horizontal and
vertical axis. The horizontal-axis turbine typically has a three-blade
vertical propeller that catches the wind face-on. The vertical turbine
has a set of blades that spins around a vertical axis. Each type has its
advantages and disadvantages and is suited to different
environments. Horizontal and Vertical axis Wind Turbine Differences.

Horizontal and Vertical axis Wind

Turbine Differences
 DIFFERENCES BETWEEN HORIZONTAL AND VERTICAL AXIS
WIND TURBINE

Wind Direction and Speed

Recommending to Read: DIY Wind Turbine HAWT How to Make
Tutorial
To work properly, the horizontal-axis turbine needs the wind to flow at
a right angle to the blades. If it blows from a different direction than the
blades are facing, the turbine gets much less energy from the wind. To
accommodate changes in wind direction, the turbine has a yaw drive
that rotates the unit’s direction. However, the drive adapts slowly to
changing directions because it must turn the entire turbine and
propeller assembly. By contrast, a vertical turbine runs well regardless
of wind direction, making it better-suited to urban areas with tall
buildings where wind turbulence is a given. The vertical-axis design
allows it to operate on lower wind speeds than is possible with the
horizontal turbine. (wind turbine differences)

Wind Energy Efficiency

Horizontal-axis turbines convert more of the wind’s energy into useful
mechanical motion because the blades are perpendicular to wind
direction, and the blades pick up the energy throughout their range of
movement. By comparison, the blades on a vertical-axis turbine suffer
an efficiency disadvantage, capturing energy from the wind only on
the front side; at the rear part of their rotation, they drag on the
system.

Mechanical Complexity and Stress

Because it requires a yaw mechanism to adjust to changing wind
direction, the horizontal-axis turbine is mechanically more complex
than the vertical design. The gyroscopic action of the spinning blades
of a horizontal-axis turbine produces
stress when the yaw mechanism turns to catch the wind. Over time,
the stress can crack the turbine blades and hub. The vertical-axis
turbine does not experience this stress.

Suitable Location
The horizontal turbine’s tall tower and long blades work well only in
wide-open spaces. Vertical turbines are generally much more compact
and can be placed on building rooftops and other urban locations with
fewer restrictions. The vertical unit’s low height also makes it suitable
for areas where wind picks up speed between buildings or over
hilltops.

Market Preference
Although the vertical-axis turbine has some advantages over the
horizontal design, more large-scale energy developers have chosen
the horizontal-axis layout, leaving vertical-axis generation to small
commercial operators or individuals. The horizontal axis is simpler to
understand and meets the expectations of what a wind turbine should
look like. Vertical-axis generators have historically been the object of
exaggerated claims, causing skepticism for potential investors of the
technology.
PWM VS. MPPT

What follows is a summary of our white paper with the same title.
For the full white paper, see: Which solar charge controller: PWM or
MPPT? in the White papers section of our site.
1. What they do
The PWM controller is in essence a switch that connects a solar array to a
battery. The result is that the voltage of the array will be pulled down to near
that of the battery.
The MPPT controller is more sophisticated (and more expensive): it will adjust
its input voltage to harvest the maximum power from the solar array and then
transform this power to supply the varying voltage requirement, of the battery
plus load. Thus, it essentially decouples the array and battery voltages so that
there can be, for example, a 12 volt battery on one side of the MPPT charge
controller and a large number of cells wired in series to produce 36 volts on
the other.
2. The resultant twin strengths of an MPPT controller
a) Maximum Power Point Tracking
The MPPT controller will harvest more power from the solar array. The
performance advantage is substantial (10% to 40%) when the solar cell
temperature is low (below 45°C), or very high (above 75°C), or when
irradiance is very low.
At high temperature or low irradiance the output voltage of the array will drop
dramatically. More cells must then be connected in series to make sure that
the output voltage of the array exceeds battery voltage by a comfortable
margin.
b) Lower cabling cost and/or lower cabling losses
Ohm’s law tells us that losses due to cable resistance are Pc (Watt) = Rc x I²,
where Rc is the resistance of the cable. What this formula shows is that for a
given cable loss, cable cross sectional area can be reduced by a factor of four
when doubling the array voltage.
In the case of a given nominal power, more cells in series will increase the
output voltage and reduce the output current of the array (P = V x I, thus, if P
doesn’t change, then I must decrease when V increases).
As array size increases, cable length will increase. The option to wire more
panels in series and thereby decrease the cable cross sectional area with a
resultant drop in cost, is a compelling reason to install an MPPT controller as
soon as the array power exceeds a few hundred Watts (12 V battery), or
several 100s of Watts (24 V or 48 V battery).
3. Conclusion
PWM
The PWM charge controller is a good low cost solution for small systems only,
when solar cell temperature is moderate to high (between 45°C and 75°C).
MPPT
To fully exploit the potential of the MPPT controller, the array voltage should
be substantially higher than the battery voltage. The MPPT controller is the
solution of choice for higher power systems (because of the lowest overall
system cost due to smaller cable cross sectional areas). The MPPT controller
will also harvest substantially more power when the solar cell temperature is
low (below 45°C), or very high (above 75°C), or when irradiance is very low.
The summary above and the full white paper, has been written and compiled
by Reinout Vader.
John Rushworth
What is the Difference
between 8051, PIC, AVR and
ARM?
by Tarun Agarwal

Difference between AVR, ARM, 8051 and PIC

Microcontrollers
The differences between the microcontrollers are mainly include what is a
microcontroller, difference between AVR, ARM, 8051 and PIC
microcontrollers and its applications.

What is a Microcontroller?
A micro-controller can be comparable to a little stand alone computer; it is an
extremely powerful device, which is able of executing a series of pre-
programmed tasks and interacting with extra hardware devices. Being packed
in a tiny integrated circuit (IC) whose size and weight is regularly negligible, it
is becoming the perfect controller for as robots or any machines required
some type of intelligent automation. A single microcontroller can be enough to
manage a small mobile robot, an automatic washer machine or a security
system. Several microcontrollers contains a memory to store the program to
be executed, and a lot of input/output lines that can be a used to act jointly
with other devices, like reading the state of a sensor or controlling a motor.
8051 Microcontroller
8051 microcontroller is an 8-bit family of microcontroller is developed by the
Intel in the year 1981. This is one of the popular families of microcontroller are
being used all across the world. This microcontroller was moreover referred
as “system on a chip” since it has 128 bytes of RAM, 4Kbytes of a ROM, 2
Timers, 1 Serial port, and 4 ports on a single chip. The CPU can also work for
8bits of data at a time since 8051 is an 8-bit processor. In case the data is
bigger than 8 bits, then it has to be broken into parts so that the CPU can
process easily. Most manufacturers contain put 4Kbytes of ROM even though
the number of ROM can be exceeded up to 64 K bytes.

8051 Microcontroller

The 8051 has been in utilized in a wide number of devices, mostly because it
is easy to integrate into a project or make a device approximately. The
following are the major areas of focus:

Energy Management: Efficient metering systems facilitate in controlling energy

usage in homes and manufacturing applications. These metering systems are
prepared capable by incorporating microcontrollers.
Touch screens: A high number of microcontroller providers incorporate touch-
sensing capabilities in their designs. Portable electronics such as cell phones,
media players and gaming devices are examples of microcontroller-based
touch screens.
Automobiles: The 8051 finds wide taking in providing automobile solutions.
They are broadly used in hybrid vehicles to handle engine variants.
Furthermore, functions such as cruise control and anti-brake system have
been prepared more capable with the use of microcontrollers.
Medical Devices: Moveable medical devices such as blood pressure and
glucose monitors use microcontrollers will to show data, thus provided that
higher reliability in providing medical results.
PIC Microcontroller
Peripheral Interface Controller (PIC) is microcontroller developed by a
Microchip, PIC microcontroller is fast and simple to implement program when
we contrast other microcontrollers like 8051. The ease of programming and
simple to interfacing with other peripherals PIC become successful
microcontroller.

PIC Microcontroller

We know that microcontroller is an integrated chip which is consists of RAM,

ROM, CPU, TIMER and COUNTERS. The PIC is a microcontroller which as
well consists of RAM, ROM, CPU, timer, counter, ADC (analog to digital
converters), DAC (digital to analog converter). PIC Microcontroller also support
the protocols like CAN, SPI, UART for an interfacing with additional
peripherals. PIC mostly used to modify Harvard architecture and also
supports RISC (Reduced Instruction Set Computer) by the above requirement
RISC and Harvard we can simply that PIC is faster than the 8051 based
controllers which is prepared up of Von-Newman architecture.
AVR Microcontroller
AVR microcontroller was developed in the year of 1996 by Atmel Corporation.
The structural design of AVR was developed by the Alf-Egil Bogen and
Vegard Wollan. AVR derives its name from its developers and stands for Alf-
Egil Bogen Vegard Wollan RISC microcontroller, also known as Advanced
Virtual RISC. The AT90S8515 was the initial microcontroller which was based
on the AVR architecture, though the first microcontroller to hit the commercial
market was AT90S1200 in the year 1997.

AVR Microocntroller

AVR Microcontrollers are Available in three Categories

TinyAVR:- Less memory, small size, appropriate just for simpler applications
MegaAVR:- These are the mainly popular ones having a good quantity of
memory (up to 256 KB), higher number of inbuilt peripherals and appropriate
for modest to complex applications.
XmegaAVR:- Used in commercial for complex applications, which need large
program memory and high speed.
ARM Processor
An ARM processor is also one of a family of CPUs based on the RISC
(reduced instruction set computer) architecture developed by Advanced RISC
Machines (ARM).

ARM Microcontroller

An ARM makes at 32-bit and 64-bit RISC multi-core processors. RISC

processors are designed to perform a smaller number of types of computer
instructions so that they can operate at a higher speed, performing extra
millions of instructions per second (MIPS). By stripping out unnecessary
instructions and optimizing pathways, RISC processors give outstanding
performance at a part of the power demand of CISC (complex instruction set
computing) procedure.

ARM processors are widely used in customer electronic devices such as

smart phones, tablets, multimedia players and other mobile devices, such as
wearables. Because of their reduced to instruction set, they need fewer
transistors, which enable a smaller die size of the integrated circuitry (IC). The
ARM processors, smaller size reduced difficulty and lower power expenditure
makes them suitable for increasingly miniaturized devices.