Vintage Windmill and Wind Generator Forum

With my solar production dropping off in the last couple weeks, I got to thinking about putting up a Wincharger to keep my battery charged throughout the winter. Where I live the average wind speed is only about 8.8mph, however that measurement is fairly subjective as we get almost no wind for about 3 months in the summer. I've been tracking the wind at my house, and I get about 22 hours of approx. 14mph wind weekly Sept. to May. As far as I can tell those are ideal conditions for a Streamliner, however finding one seems unlikely.

Here is where the comparison comes in. I have not been able to find any output values for the 12 volt streamliner, other than they produce 225W (15? amps) at 15mph, whereas the standard heavy duty charger only puts out 14 amps at 23mph. Obviously the larger propeller can take advantage of slower speed winds. One thing I'd like to know is what the cut-in wind-speed would be, I assume it would be somewhat slower than the standard charger? I charted a basic line graph of what I estimate the ampere output to be, starting the Streamliner at 7mph and the Heavy Duty at 9mph. From the graph you can see that the 7 1/2' propeller gives more than double the output of the standard charger at 14mph. The greater output of a Streamliner would be exceptionally useful for charging my battery; the standard charger would be much less so, as it is rare to get more than an few hours a month with enough wind (23mph) to get good output.
This leads to to my second question, what is the functional difference between a standard 12 volt Heavy Duty charger and the 12 volt Streamliner? Electrically the generator looks to be identical, however I could be wrong as I have never seen a streamliner in person. Mechanically, all I can tell is the streamliner has a larger 7 1/2' prop. with larger ( inch) governor. Maybe the tail would need to be longer, but I don't know. I am not that familiar with wind energy but it seems to me that one could install the larger propeller assembly on a standard Heavy Duty charger, and get double the output at low (14mph) winds, just like with a Streamliner.

If this is the case I could hunt down a Heavy Duty charger and stick a 7 1/2' propeller on it. This would produce a much better output with the wind I get, compared to a factory charger. What do you all think?

In case anybody wants to see, this is my solar/battery setup; 220AH 12 volt battery charged manually from a few 100w panels. This runs 12 volt lights and once I find some, a couple tools for my off-grid workshop. (Anybody have any corded 12 Volt Milwaukee drills for sale ?)

Mike , this info is your expertise !

As of 1954, Wincharger had produced 22 12V models, 4 of which were Streamliners. The table below was created in 1947 and the last model added was the 1222 Streamliner in 1954……not to be confused with the 1222H which is a product of the 1970s. The 1222H is distinguished by its blue color and 6’ prop. I believe all of the early 12v machines and the heavy duty 6v machines used a 7-1/2’ prop. The table has a wealth of information that may help you. You can see the earliest machines were all Delco generators. Wincharger started making their own generators in the late 30’s. About 1940, Wincharger switched to Autolite for the 6v line and a few of the 12v machines. Pretty much with every new model, they fiddled with the generator design. Josh’s Streamliner, model 1219, is a Wincharger made generator as is your 1222H. Good to know there are young guys like you and Josh interested in the early machines.

Thanks for the explination ! Cant wait for the book to be printed , I will buy a copy of your lifes work and compiling of these electrical wonders . And thanks for sharing with all of us .
Mike B
New Braunfels TX

Thanks for the words of encouragement Mike. Still much to do.

Thanks for the very helpful table Mike, and thank you for the words of encouragement. It looks like the 1215 Streamliner I saw the advertisement for has essentially the same rating as the Heavy Duty charger (~14amps at 900rpm, cut-in at ~270rpm), except peak output for the 6' is at 23mph vs. the 15mph for the 7 1/2' prop. Something I would be interested to know is what the relationship between wind speed and rpm is for the 7 1/2' propellers, I tried looking online but the overwhelming answer was it depends greatly on the propeller/generator design and therefore cannot be easily calculated. Maybe you have access to specifications or testing data for the 7 1/2' props? Maybe something similar to the amperes/mph table given for the Heavy Duty charger in the brochures.

Looking again at the rating for the Streamliners and the 'Super Heavy Duty' models, a 1219 looks to be even more ideal as the rating is even higher with a peak output of 22 amperes at 900rpm, cut-in at 250rpm. Again I'm curious what windspeed this rpm correlates to, with the 'lo-wind' designation and different winding configuration I assume cut-in is fairly low (4 or 5mph?) and governing speed would be about the same as the regular Streamliner at 15mph? Too bad they are so difficult to find here .

I was surprised by the ratings on some of the other 12 volt models, particularly the 1210 (32 amperes) and the 128/1212 (35 amperes). I would guess these are larger tower mount models (600w?) wound for 12 volts instead of 32 volts. I wonder if any survive today?

As a last note, I hope all our Canadian collectors have a Happy Thanksgiving Monday

Gaberal , have you seen the 2 "for sale " collections listed in this blog ? the collections would be a good imvestment for a young man like yourself who has a lifetime to sell , trade , restore and make a business helping others , the inventory would be enormanus . Just sayin'

mtblah, I did see the David Ballinger collection in Iowa, not sure where the other one is though? The major issue is distance, I did have a fellow (Larry Vernazza) contact me through one of my Facebook 'wanted' ads about his collection for sale close to San Francisco, but again, the time and cost of the trip and then transporting everything back is prohibitive. I do agree that buying a whole collection would put me well on my way to becoming a full blown wincharger 'nut' , hopefully at some point I find someone a little closer to home that is ready to pass on their collection.