The really cool part of it is that you do not need any special diverters or channels to redirect the wave energy in your showing of it, because the waves just dump water in for you, and it drains out generating power! I honestly did not see, read about or think of this SPLENDID eventuality, but its SO GREAT that it is indeed there! All one needs to maximize this even further, is a semi funnelly-troughy like top so more water lands within the confines of the device, and it will almost run constantly without complex channeling, back gates or such! This is not to say such additional features would not increase efficiency and stabilize the ebb and flow/surge-and-cease issues inherent in the pulses of waves, but if one had such a device as would employ a flywheel, to some extent it could still overcome such intermittent power application. For those who would say a flywheel would never work on such a slow system, especially one with such a low basic power, I must say 1, Flywheels can work at almost zero turning speed if they contain enough mass, 2, a properly geared, or passively clutched connection to said flywheel could be made, simply needing some period of initial time to spin the flywheel up to speed before applying a properly rated generator load, and 3, since this whole thing is scalable, a much larger screw, with 2 or 3 helices, a shallower baseline draft, and more water head capacity would be far more capable of driving said flywheel, so "Don't knock it until you have tried it"...and done so with an open mind, and a goal to be fair and honest in the attempt, because it CAN be done!
I agree and I like your concept - there is one other thing I noticed but didn't mention - the sea life that was washed into the device exited unharmed and the detritus around it didn't seem to clog it
You can construct a floating device which is semi submersed, with a slope concentrating incoming waves so they get a higher altitude, could be some kind of collector bath, with an outlet driving whatever generator you like
just inspired me to build one of these for a stream which fills up when it rains by my house. Currently gathering as much insight as I can to get the best build!! love your videos and your engineering wisdom. It is priceless and unique in a way that any top university could never provide this learning.
I appreciate how you use tested methods like the Archimedes screw to display your principal beliefs and point of view. I would really enjoy seeing how well your bellows runs an aeolipile and how you would scavenge parts for one of those 😊
"An aeolipile, also known as a Hero's engine, is a simple, bladeless radial steam turbine which spins when the central water container is heated. Torque is produced by steam jets exiting the turbine, much like a tip jet or rocket engine." so in essence, put more fluid pressure in than can leave the jets in a given time scale, a positive pressure tank feeding fluid to the moving outlets... so pressurised manual water sprayer and banned plastic straws/thicker plastic stemed ear buds on a sealed revolving head.
Man, I enjoy your videos. Watching you going at it makes my hands itch and see what other purpuses I can come up with for the Archimedes Screw. I have no idea yet, but I'll come up with something 🤔🤔
It's more suited to a constant flow like in a river, waterfall or in a pipe or at the bottom of a pipe. The weight of the incoming water holds the blades still in the sea, until it gets to the top and then provides enough weight to move it, and most of the energy available is lost. A waterfall would be the screamer.
Great mechanics lecture! Thanks Teach! I like how the screw was turned by both the upwards and downwards motion of the wave. Hey, just thought of something. If you put this on a boat or a buoy, maybe you wouldn't have to put it in the water? Could you seal it completely with a certain amount of water inside, and let the rocking of the boat slosh the water inside this container and turn the screw?
yes you could and I like that - to me that is clever thinking - you really should build one and give it a go - it really is an awesome idea - in fact I might build a version and call it a Forrest generator!
I vaguely recall an article in a magazine about wave generated energy from submerged air bladders. The bladders had pipes that went to shore and the pipes would push air into turbines for electrical generating. I do not remember anything else other than it was just at the testing phase. Apparently the submerged part was so that it wouldn't be an eyesore or interfere with water traffic. The idea worked because as waves passed over the spot with the bladders the pressure changed. It was a closed system as the air generated power both on inhale and exhale. I think that water in submerged bellows would power your archimedes screw back and forth.
Turn the screw and its housing into the generator by mounting permanent magnets on a ring around the OD of the screw turning it into a rotor. Build suitable stator coils into the housing. Encapsulate everything for corrosion protection and you would have a simple system having only 1 shaft, 2 bearings, and no couplings, gears, sprockets, chains, or belts.
Spot on! Harnessing energy differentials in new and creative ways, is the future. Recognizing energy differentials seems to be a blind spot for most though.
The Russians did in fact build a Off Road Vehicle what employed the Pontoons with Screws for Slow , Ice and Water. Other then wear and tear it was quite good.
It gave me a different perspective on how to power the Archimedes screw. Seeing the water fill up the area around the screw and then drain away made me realize that you can fill a container with water by wave action.the screw doesn't have to be turned by the ocean directly, but powered by a bucket being filled by wave action. I guess i just described a hydro electric dam. Seemed ground breaking when I started. lol. =-P Cheers. I Enjoy watching to invent. It inspires me.
it's an awesome idea mate - basically you are using the sea as a mechanical battery and the screw to convert that mechanical battery energy into electrical energy - it's a different perspective and leads to different conclusions - nice thinking
Very well said, if you don't first focus on the screw you won't have anything that will allow you to focus on the generation. It's pretty much like walking, focus on the first step or there won't be a second or a third. The generator can be matched afterwards, if you need better efficiency then you could start looking at gears and even angles of the screw to achieve the desired outcome. Love your work, need more out there like you.
I'm on your side with this stuff. That was the concept behind the homemade chainsaw bicycle I built, a tiny 8000 rpm engine reduced with gears carries me around quite well.
Wow, did not think that would work in the waves, but was not thinking at that angle either, worked very well, I was looking into linear wave generators long ago in a past life and never thought an Archimedes screw would have anything on it, and it might !
The inventor: what can I do with this thing The engineer: how efficient can I make this thing The accountant: how cheap can I make this thing The boss: get the thing done
I think what most people are failing to realize is that Robert is not trying to create a perfect mechanical device. What Robert is trying to do is give a lot of ideas in concept that can be tweaked and would work very well. Rob, you got my vote. Also I love the fact that you show one different type of device to the next in giving a lot of ideas. You always get me thinking on ways to improve or add to each device. I love a good mechanical device challenge. For example, I think your ocean air pump would had worked to turn something like this idea as well. The one that you showed a drawing of the idea where the force of the ocean created a strong pocket of air by the swells of the ocean. If you think about it hard enough in idea, you could even enclose this screw and put a check valve on it to make the screw only turn as water pushes it. I mean there are a lot of different ways we could make this device work. I thought of at least 10 ideas within minutes, LOL but the concept that you have showed is golden mate, Thank you for showing and making me think. LOL, "Me Daughter" what do you like with your coffee in the morning Dad, "me", some Robert Murray-Smith videos, LOL.
Love it. Wave action, tides, currents' tc. - more energy in water (oceans, rivers, etc) then humans could use provided we harvest it. Great stuff Robert!
Hey I just saw a video that shows the use Archimedes screws to generate electricity for Windsor Castle. I thought of your devise. So it's being used already. Looked very much like your devise except much bigger. You can probably do a search and have a look for yourself.
How about covering the open 'front' of the screw with a sheet of clear acrylic plastic. Then submerging the column with the screw so that the water rushing in and out of the bottom end twists the screw back and forth. Match the higher torque of the screw to the motor shaft with large and small pulleys and a belt. Or a large diameter motor out of a washing machine (I forget what its name is). Thanks for the innovative demonstration.
This is very interesting stuff. There's a large screw up in Hebden Bridge which is fascinating to watch. Something that I think that would be interesting to investigate is generation using the boundary layer effect. Maybe 30 or so CDs on a shaft with floats at either end that sit/float in a stream. Construction should be simple and many could be placed on a stretch of river/stream with the added benefit of self adjusting to the height of the stream.
Hi. If you you cover the bottom half of the screw it will only allow water to flow in 1 direction and prevent the motor from spinning in both directions.
I'd be curious to know if adding a lip to the outside edge of the screw might improve performance by keeping the water (weight of the water) on the screw rather than letting it spill out around the top/sides/bottom.
I worked in a place that did R&D for the defence industry. What Rob does in the majority of his videos are what we called "technology demonstrators". Proving things could be done and getting to the basics in real life. It's not about final products. It's about understanding the technology and its potential. As we have seen with this channel, others see the demonstrations and expand on them. If you want a final product, continue the basics in Robs content. Do it yourself and make it better.
I think a river with a drop of 2 ft or so would have helped your archimedes screw perform more efficiently Mr Smith. With a bit of testing to find a more powerful generator that little device would be awesome I'm sure of it. Archimedes would be proud sir.
In the mountains in Poland they have archimedes screws in bucket like containers, very slow turning with a lot of torque.... connected to a gear box that generates very high revs for electricity production. You could easily modify your existing models and connect gears made as in a previous video. That could be interesting. Just got permission to put a model hydro plant in a private section of River Blackadder. If anybody wants to trial any designs I am up for it so long as it uses 'scrap' or 'cheap' for the construction.
I've been thinking along these lines for ages, if I ever move into a house with a stream in the garden a water driven generator would be in place before I'd unpacked my packing cases! You can use gears or pulleys to convert high speed/low torque to high torque/low speed and vice-versa. That's what the large wind turbines you see in fields do, a gearbox is used to match the high torque & low speed available from the slowly rotating blades to the higher speed (and lower torque) the generator needs. In your project the capacitor on the output of the rectifier is good at storing pulses of electricity, for example like that odd-shaped wind turbine you made would produce if a gust of wind came along. I don't think you'd need it in this application if the water flow was steady, as in a stream A capacitor would be useful where you used the Archimedes screw in the waves, it would even out the varying voltage produced because the rotor has to stop and reverse on each cycle.
What would be cool is using it to catch the energy between high and low tide. Looks like water can rise quite a bit and if you had a collecting area you could generate power from water flowing in and back out of it.
Pelton wheel style generators rely on high head pressure. That takes a lot of height. The Archimedes screw can function on a gentle slope. In backwards mode (not as a pump) it tries to slow the water down, but gravity weighs upon it, compelling it to turn. At some point the water will bypass it and flow over it, so the longer it is the more work it could do. If it were on a vertical axis where the fluid entered a toroid shaped vessel in a spiral, and the discs that made up the Archimedes screw reduced in size to match the shape of their container I wonder what that would do? It would take full advantage of gravity and maximize rotational force. The top of the vessel could have taller walls to increase pressure. I can not visualize what orientation the impeller should have to the flow, but I think it should be counter to maximize pressure.
Hey, the screw could be flexible and sliding so you have a degree of freedom to control the efficiency. If you are lucky the stretched screw will accomodate/like larger wave aplitude and vice versa. Great show!
This is an excellent idea. You could turn the generator 180 degrees, when it's placed by the sea. Dig a hole and place the lower part there. Gravity would help with the electricity generation.
As always totally fascinating, I wonder about a cylinder in the sea, with a small air turbine on top, I know it’s easy to sit back and come out with suggestions😊, building these things is a totally different matter all together, I’m shielding as I’m a carer, been waiting 3 months for a sheet of builders board aaarrrggg!!, I’ve got a huge project in the kitchen it won’t fit in my tiny newly built glass workshop lol, Love the way you put it across to us cheers Rob
That was a good comparison. You also have to account for the type of material you are using.. Again the large wind turbines are turning slow, but using a reduction gear system to turn the generator faster producing very high voltage. Pretty sure you would need a flywheel system to ensure the you kept the speed up during the reversal of the blades using wave power. Actually someone did a video 10 Years ago?, they were using a water wheel for power; they hooked it up directly to the load, it stopped the wheel cold., Thats why they always go through a battery first, it absorbs the large current flow that happens at any start up.
I don't remember where I saw it. A geek squad worked out a hamster wheel generator to power an LED night light, using every consideration in this discussion.
On the sea .... how about a floater that's being pushed up and drops down ... and from there you take it with a linear to rotary motion ... it will give a tremendous torque. As usual : great content and intent.
I have to agree with you, power is power wether it’s high torque low rpm or vice a versa. We seem to be conditioned to wanting high torque but in the case of electric cars for example I think that a high speed low torque motor would be much lighter than a high torque low speed motor. There is of course the need for a large gear reduction which has it’s problems in a car though I think I’ve found a good solution that would work with a harmonic drive which is why I was hoping you would’ve made one in you series about making gears. Any way it’s all great stuff that you are doing here.
I think feeding the water into the top via a wide converging ramp scoop from the wave and the screw part being inside a tube to return water out, would be most efficient to produce max energy from a wave. Then as you stated focus on the generator optimization. Try that :)
Excellent work and a really great explanation about generator. Super clear and to the point! May i suggest a useful bit in my japanese motorcycle, lol. Thay have a very cheap and awesome already made core of wires and steel for charging the battery. I think it can be converted to a really good brushless motor and/or generator. Just put some magnets in a case that spins around it. It is incredibly cheap, very well done, several turns of thick cooper wire on each tooth, it even has epoxy coating, super fancy stuff and already available everywhere. Hope it helps :)
The power of the moon. Water is heavy and the moon pushes it around for us, so why not use wave power. I agree that you need bigger blades but once you work it out millions of wave generators around the world could generate a lot of power.
industrially made wave generators all over the earth could do most of our power generation ideally, just need to make sure it wont hurt fish and other sea life and we're golden, bonus points if they use it as an intake for water distillation for areas that are struggling with water despite being right by the ocean.
Rather, the part of Earth u observe rotates into and out of a bulge of water (that we call ‘tide’) that is already there that is created by gravitational attraction from the moon (and sun in the other side)
"That's an old way of looking at it based on Victorian principles; and I don't mean that to be an insult so please don't take it that way." Rob, the only people that would take that statement as an insult are the educated idiots that need 360 pages of mathematics to prove that 1 + 1 = 2, and will reject two sticks as being sufficient evidence to prove it.
Oh sorry Rob, I forgot about antifa and the plethora of leftists that operate under the delusion that they can force American's to vote for lawlessness and disorder. Those idiots may decide that they have a right to go out and riot because you said that.
Hey Robert, maybe your looking at this wrong. Maybe a different direction is needed. Maybe you need to have a look at self winding watch mechanisms. You can buy the cheap book of 501 mechanical movements. You then could build if you want too, a spring activated movement to run your device. Your right,. It's all in the way of gearing. Check out the forever Light. It works almost the same as an Old Cuckoo Clocks with the Corn Cob Weights. Use the Screw you built to wind the Spring and the Spring to turn the Gears and the Gears to turn the Motor that intern product the power for your project. Just a uneducated thought. Thanks for the upload. PS I forgot to add Robert. Your going to need some way to collect the power until it has reached the level your products need. Your going to need some Capacitors to hold what ever your project needs.
So many variables for maximum power extraction. I suppose that you also have to distinguish between wave power and tidal power. One being essentially a rapid horizontal movement the other one a slow vertical one. Unfortunately i like my sleep too much so i will leave you to have at it.😉
With a whole lot of wave area, one can simply put tens of millions of these out, if they lack enough height to obtain much length, and any width/diameter one uses, the larger, the better, and with a whole ocean ahead of you, the size you can make it is pretty large, AND if you include such things as tidal forces [there are actual tidal dam generators out there already, so its proven technology] one has just a tremendous amount of power on tap, 24/7/365 [barring storms, icebergs, wreckage, sea trash, etc] so while one might need to take additional steps to protect their devices from damage from undesirable eventualities, MOST of the time, the machine(s) can run most of the time at full power.
Now put that at the bottom of a cliff with a long pipe and screw and at the top a gearbox that will always turn in the same direction and you have a generator.
@@ThinkingandTinkering Yeah, you get a cliff or a very steep bank with a strong wave action, put the pipe into the sea and the waves rising and falling will turn it, they did it with a propeller that turned in the same direction regardless of air direction and produced power. I don't kow if they ever made it permanent or it was just an experiment, but it worked.
First observation, the screw needs a ratchet to keep rotation in one direction with a wave application. But if the one you made were water sound, it really looks like a great size for a rain gutter downspout. Someone in a rainy area could use that to supplement their energy, surely. Four of those on house corners might be wonderfully practical.
screw direction doesn't really matter that much mate as there is a diode bridge and capacitor bank at the output end but I do like your downpipes idea for sure
@@ThinkingandTinkering Well, yeah if you can produce energy both ways then, yeah, a ratchet wouldn't technically help at all. I wouldn't have thought to wire it that way, runs against my design sense. Aesthetically there's something about that reciprocating design which gives me pause. I suspect that the reversal of motion, the constant shift from positive to negative angular momentum, is a recipe for high wear. But aesthetics are only a good rule of thumb, so I guess experimenting with it is the only way to tell. But if I had to bet, I'd say it comes apart faster than a similar design which only turns in one direction. But of course, that would produce less energy, too.
I think it's the hurky-jerky motion of the waves that makes the reciprocation seem odd to me, because the mechanical advantage is plain. Like, if you made a big, floating, vertical screw like that, and anchored it, to harness tidal change, then I can see the reciprocation being effective. The slower movement would seem to allow for reciprocation better. But whatever works is what matters. Always good if I can ferret out a flaw in my thinking.
I remember reading somewhere that in a wave the individual molecules of water actually move up and down vertically, not elliptically as one would think, so I wonder whether this would work if it was mounted vertically without an enclosure and just extracting power as the water molecules impact the vane of the archimedes screw.
Directly into the waves like that will produce an alternating turn on the screw which isn't ideal for generating. If you aim for bigger waves that can overtop the the high end of the screw then the flow through the device can be more consistent just like a river or stream. That of course leads on to questions of 'how big to make the catchment area' for the top lock, but that's the fun of prototyping!
was wondering, what if you glued a 1" high plastic rib aligned from the center mast to the outer edge of the screw with a 1/2" lip on top like cupped fingers set every 2 inches down the screw, if that would significantly increase the efficiency of the screw?
could you not use a float instead of a handle to lift water ? as in an old school village pump ? use the wave power to lift water into a storage pool,then down the screw when you need sparks ? just a thought
what if.... the top of the screw core was dropped to the the hight of the incoming wave? That way the water wouldnt back flush as much and just maybe, create enough draw on the screw to keep it rotating in a forward/positive manner; in preparation for the next wave? I think the angle of the 'sluice' should directly correlate to the size/height of the wave Just a though. Appreciate your efforts. Cheers for sharing.
All these small generator ideas makes me think a BEAM circuit (Solar Engine) might be useful to make the small voltages and current into something that can actually be used. These circuits are often used to run small robots from solar cells that are too small to power the robot's motor directly. I think the same idea could be used to trigger a charging circuit when the generated power reaches a certain point.
Excellent! I wonder if you could tape the blade diameter (big at the bottom, small at the top). If the conditions change, maybe that would give you the best of both options?
🤔 you could mate it with a wave capture device. (Just a tank with shallow slopes.) I was just thinking 🤔 of a different style, you could use buoyancy to generate. By attaching floating anything's to slide up and down a pole, and use your differential gearbox and toothbrush ratchet,or a rectifier circuit and a stick bowed with a string attached. And can wrap once or twice around a small drum long enough so it dosen't fowel up and tangle, that will give it more flexableity as the sea is very unforgiving, and raises the generator out away from waves. 🥺 Please make it ❤😊 ⚡ ⚡ ⚡ ⚡ ⚡ ⚡ ⚡ ⚡
what about a graphene or hemp plastic blade that is ultra wide, something very lightweight that the waves can easily turn, but something huge to harvest tons of power at once.
A shorter cylinder and bigger diameter...I can imagine the next iteration made from vinyl records. If a 3 phase generator is used then it should produce power in both rotational directions with a 3 phase rectifier. Add your capacitor and Bob's your uncle lol. What do you think, Mr.Murray-Smith?
Make it cheap make it simple to make.... Love your videos, was just thinking that your windgenerator could easily generate electricity at sea as a buoy concept.... None stop movement... Like a floating bell with the clapper swinging around...
I'm not so sure you'll get it more efficient than a normal turbine style water power generation system, I seem to remember a story about an engineer experimenting with screw driven boats that found his vessel picked up speed when the screw snapped off short, leading to experimentation with screw propellers as we know them today. I assume the frictional loses in an Archimedes screw are greater than the power the extra surface area provides compared to a normal prop or turbine?
I’m quite fascinated. The linear motion has potential as a pump air / water - low volume desalination ?? Low volume water purification? Heating or cooling. Thanks for the simulating discussion.
It would be interesting to see the results if one could use this contraption to utilise surplus power from a power plant (during, for example, off-peak periods/ to pump water up to a reservoir and then, during peak periods of demand, allow the water to flow freely to a lower reservoir. PS You've got the patience of a saint. I would have told a noisy neighbour like yours to have bu99ered off, a long time ago.
This is a silly proposition Robert but what would happen if you put an elastic band a big heavy duty elastic band as the linkage or to control the linkage in between the auger and the generator so that it would wind it up and it would get to a point and break loose and really turn it blazingly fast once it reaches that point where it can't hold back anymore that way you would reach a point where could generate a lot of electricity I know certain motors slash generators are not efficient when they're spinning slowly that it isn't a exact one to one deal that there are diminishing returns if you move them slowly do you know what I'm trying to get across? Of course it would have to have a ratcheting system so as the waves rolled up it would turn only One Direction and wind up the elastic and when they rolled down it would do nothing rolled back up it would wind it up a little more do you know what I'm saying?
Is having big torque low speedgood for transforming to low torque high speed with gears? There should be loss of energy in conversion but better if the electrical generation device at hand only can generate it that way right?
The really cool part of it is that you do not need any special diverters or channels to redirect the wave energy in your showing of it, because the waves just dump water in for you, and it drains out generating power!
I honestly did not see, read about or think of this SPLENDID eventuality, but its SO GREAT that it is indeed there!
All one needs to maximize this even further, is a semi funnelly-troughy like top so more water lands within the confines of the device, and it will almost run constantly without complex channeling, back gates or such!
This is not to say such additional features would not increase efficiency and stabilize the ebb and flow/surge-and-cease issues inherent in the pulses of waves, but if one had such a device as would employ a flywheel, to some extent it could still overcome such intermittent power application.
For those who would say a flywheel would never work on such a slow system, especially one with such a low basic power, I must say 1, Flywheels can work at almost zero turning speed if they contain enough mass, 2, a properly geared, or passively clutched connection to said flywheel could be made, simply needing some period of initial time to spin the flywheel up to speed before applying a properly rated generator load, and 3, since this whole thing is scalable, a much larger screw, with 2 or 3 helices, a shallower baseline draft, and more water head capacity would be far more capable of driving said flywheel, so "Don't knock it until you have tried it"...and done so with an open mind, and a goal to be fair and honest in the attempt, because it CAN be done!
I agree and I like your concept - there is one other thing I noticed but didn't mention - the sea life that was washed into the device exited unharmed and the detritus around it didn't seem to clog it
You can construct a floating device which is semi submersed, with a slope concentrating incoming waves so they get a higher altitude, could be some kind of collector bath, with an outlet driving whatever generator you like
"You're going to find that many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view." - Obi-Wan Kenobi
that is very true
just inspired me to build one of these for a stream which fills up when it rains by my house. Currently gathering as much insight as I can to get the best build!! love your videos and your engineering wisdom. It is priceless and unique in a way that any top university could never provide this learning.
Wonderful torque,sory Talk. Took me back 50 years to General Energy equations and all that.
Brilliant!
Thanks
Glad you enjoyed it
Victorian engineering motto:
"When in doubt, make it stout".
I thought you had to poke it with a stick before you take it home.
lol - yep
Nah, when in doubt, drink Stout.......
I appreciate how you use tested methods like the Archimedes screw to display your principal beliefs and point of view.
I would really enjoy seeing how well your bellows runs an aeolipile and how you would scavenge parts for one of those 😊
"An aeolipile, also known as a Hero's engine, is a simple, bladeless radial steam turbine which spins when the central water container is heated. Torque is produced by steam jets exiting the turbine, much like a tip jet or rocket engine."
so in essence, put more fluid pressure in than can leave the jets in a given time scale, a positive pressure tank feeding fluid to the moving outlets... so pressurised manual water sprayer and banned plastic straws/thicker plastic stemed ear buds on a sealed revolving head.
I like that idea mate - I might give it a go - I have a sphere somewhere if I dig around
Man, I enjoy your videos. Watching you going at it makes my hands itch and see what other purpuses I can come up with for the Archimedes Screw. I have no idea yet, but I'll come up with something 🤔🤔
It's more suited to a constant flow like in a river, waterfall or in a pipe or at the bottom of a pipe.
The weight of the incoming water holds the blades still in the sea, until it gets to the top and then provides enough weight to move it, and most of the energy available is lost. A waterfall would be the screamer.
cheers mate
Great mechanics lecture! Thanks Teach!
I like how the screw was turned by both the upwards and downwards motion of the wave.
Hey, just thought of something. If you put this on a boat or a buoy, maybe you wouldn't have to put it in the water? Could you seal it completely with a certain amount of water inside, and let the rocking of the boat slosh the water inside this container and turn the screw?
yes you could and I like that - to me that is clever thinking - you really should build one and give it a go - it really is an awesome idea - in fact I might build a version and call it a Forrest generator!
Delightful notion
I vaguely recall an article in a magazine about wave generated energy from submerged air bladders. The bladders had pipes that went to shore and the pipes would push air into turbines for electrical generating. I do not remember anything else other than it was just at the testing phase. Apparently the submerged part was so that it wouldn't be an eyesore or interfere with water traffic. The idea worked because as waves passed over the spot with the bladders the pressure changed. It was a closed system as the air generated power both on inhale and exhale. I think that water in submerged bellows would power your archimedes screw back and forth.
Turn the screw and its housing into the generator by mounting permanent magnets on a ring around the OD of the screw turning it into a rotor. Build suitable stator coils into the housing. Encapsulate everything for corrosion protection and you would have a simple system having only 1 shaft, 2 bearings, and no couplings, gears, sprockets, chains, or belts.
nice one mate
Excellent Presentation -- Sound good; Lighting Excellent; Scripting Excellent; Pacing Exccellent; Outstanding use of analogies. Superb Video. Thank You!
You clearly are a very good student and teacher by the words you use.
Wow, thank you!
Spot on! Harnessing energy differentials in new and creative ways, is the future. Recognizing energy differentials seems to be a blind spot for most though.
I agree - to me it is an odd thing
The Russians did in fact build a Off Road Vehicle what employed the Pontoons with Screws for Slow , Ice and Water. Other then wear and tear it was quite good.
Didn't Colin Firth make a small version of a similar vehicle on his YT channel
So did Henry Ford
I've seen it mate - an awesome thing
It gave me a different perspective on how to power the Archimedes screw. Seeing the water fill up the area around the screw and then drain away made me realize that you can fill a container with water by wave action.the screw doesn't have to be turned by the ocean directly, but powered by a bucket being filled by wave action. I guess i just described a hydro electric dam. Seemed ground breaking when I started. lol. =-P Cheers. I Enjoy watching to invent. It inspires me.
it's an awesome idea mate - basically you are using the sea as a mechanical battery and the screw to convert that mechanical battery energy into electrical energy - it's a different perspective and leads to different conclusions - nice thinking
@@ThinkingandTinkering Thank you. :-D
Very well said, if you don't first focus on the screw you won't have anything that will allow you to focus on the generation. It's pretty much like walking, focus on the first step or there won't be a second or a third.
The generator can be matched afterwards, if you need better efficiency then you could start looking at gears and even angles of the screw to achieve the desired outcome. Love your work, need more out there like you.
it's the way I see it mate for sure - cheers
Great video Rob. Loved the discussion bit about priority of the elements in the system being of great importance.
cheers mate
I'm on your side with this stuff. That was the concept behind the homemade chainsaw bicycle I built, a tiny 8000 rpm engine reduced with gears carries me around quite well.
Wow, did not think that would work in the waves, but was not thinking at that angle either, worked very well, I was looking into linear wave generators long ago in a past life and never thought an Archimedes screw would have anything on it, and it might !
I know it was kind of a surprise to me too - I found it pretty interesting that the thing worked at all
The mind of an inventor, never mind what it can do. How efficient is it at doing it.
bob fourjs Isn’t that the mind of an accountant? IMO the inventor is trying to figure out if it can do the thing at all.
@@twestgard2 No, the accountant is asking how cheaply it can be done and will a cheaper fitting not do!
The inventor: what can I do with this thing
The engineer: how efficient can I make this thing
The accountant: how cheap can I make this thing
The boss: get the thing done
@@sirsteamtrain7913 Yeah, that's about it, but......
The Buyer: It's for to expensive!
lol
All this talk about torque has my head spinning and generating loads of ideas :-D
talk about torque - lol - very good mate - cheers
Rotary thought? Funny one....
@@dgpreston5593 Rotary thought engine, runs on inspiration. Currently only outputting hot air 🙈
I really like to hear You torque. 😃
lol - awesome
I think what most people are failing to realize is that Robert is not trying to create a perfect mechanical device. What Robert is trying to do is give a lot of ideas in concept that can be tweaked and would work very well. Rob, you got my vote. Also I love the fact that you show one different type of device to the next in giving a lot of ideas. You always get me thinking on ways to improve or add to each device. I love a good mechanical device challenge. For example, I think your ocean air pump would had worked to turn something like this idea as well. The one that you showed a drawing of the idea where the force of the ocean created a strong pocket of air by the swells of the ocean. If you think about it hard enough in idea, you could even enclose this screw and put a check valve on it to make the screw only turn as water pushes it. I mean there are a lot of different ways we could make this device work. I thought of at least 10 ideas within minutes, LOL but the concept that you have showed is golden mate, Thank you for showing and making me think. LOL, "Me Daughter" what do you like with your coffee in the morning Dad, "me", some Robert Murray-Smith videos, LOL.
Love it. Wave action, tides, currents' tc. - more energy in water (oceans, rivers, etc) then humans could use provided we harvest it. Great stuff Robert!
A few hundred thousand of these on unusable shore line would be awesome!
I will make like this, with improve.sir.. Thanks for u r knowledge. Very help me to make prototype microhidro plant.
Hey I just saw a video that shows the use Archimedes screws to generate electricity for Windsor Castle. I thought of your devise. So it's being used already. Looked very much like your devise except much bigger. You can probably do a search and have a look for yourself.
How about covering the open 'front' of the screw with a sheet of clear acrylic plastic. Then submerging the column with the screw so that the water rushing in and out of the bottom end twists the screw back and forth.
Match the higher torque of the screw to the motor shaft with large and small pulleys and a belt. Or a large diameter motor out of a washing machine (I forget what its name is).
Thanks for the innovative demonstration.
This is very interesting stuff. There's a large screw up in Hebden Bridge which is fascinating to watch. Something that I think that would be interesting to investigate is generation using the boundary layer effect. Maybe 30 or so CDs on a shaft with floats at either end that sit/float in a stream. Construction should be simple and many could be placed on a stretch of river/stream with the added benefit of self adjusting to the height of the stream.
go for it mate and do a video I would love to see
Hi. If you you cover the bottom half of the screw it will only allow water to flow in 1 direction and prevent the motor from spinning in both directions.
I'd be curious to know if adding a lip to the outside edge of the screw might improve performance by keeping the water (weight of the water) on the screw rather than letting it spill out around the top/sides/bottom.
it probably would mate and to be honest not that difficult to do
I worked in a place that did R&D for the defence industry.
What Rob does in the majority of his videos are what we called "technology demonstrators".
Proving things could be done and getting to the basics in real life.
It's not about final products. It's about understanding the technology and its potential.
As we have seen with this channel, others see the demonstrations and expand on them.
If you want a final product, continue the basics in Robs content. Do it yourself and make it better.
I like to try this while sailing and just tow it behind. If a shark bites it I could easily make a new one. Thanks for sharing you awesome ideas
I do see lots of potential with this.
I think a river with a drop of 2 ft or so would have helped your archimedes screw perform more efficiently Mr Smith. With a bit of testing to find a more powerful generator that little device would be awesome I'm sure of it. Archimedes would be proud sir.
You may want to view a video posted by a UK engineering company, using the term "wind powered fish frendly Archimedes screw"
In the mountains in Poland they have archimedes screws in bucket like containers, very slow turning with a lot of torque.... connected to a gear box that generates very high revs for electricity production. You could easily modify your existing models and connect gears made as in a previous video. That could be interesting. Just got permission to put a model hydro plant in a private section of River Blackadder. If anybody wants to trial any designs I am up for it so long as it uses 'scrap' or 'cheap' for the construction.
no way - that is an awesome opportunity you offer there
@@ThinkingandTinkering The Blackadder is 300 metres from my cottage and land with riverbank access.
I really like the way you explain things.....you have a natural teaching ability 👍
cheers mate - thanks for taking time to say that
I've been thinking along these lines for ages, if I ever move into a house with a stream in the garden a water driven generator would be in place before I'd unpacked my packing cases!
You can use gears or pulleys to convert high speed/low torque to high torque/low speed and vice-versa. That's what the large wind turbines you see in fields do, a gearbox is used to match the high torque & low speed available from the slowly rotating blades to the higher speed (and lower torque) the generator needs.
In your project the capacitor on the output of the rectifier is good at storing pulses of electricity, for example like that odd-shaped wind turbine you made would produce if a gust of wind came along. I don't think you'd need it in this application if the water flow was steady, as in a stream A capacitor would be useful where you used the Archimedes screw in the waves, it would even out the varying voltage produced because the rotor has to stop and reverse on each cycle.
What would be cool is using it to catch the energy between high and low tide. Looks like water can rise quite a bit and if you had a collecting area you could generate power from water flowing in and back out of it.
like a reserve pool? that would be a good way for sure
Pelton wheel style generators rely on high head pressure. That takes a lot of height. The Archimedes screw can function on a gentle slope. In backwards mode (not as a pump) it tries to slow the water down, but gravity weighs upon it, compelling it to turn. At some point the water will bypass it and flow over it, so the longer it is the more work it could do. If it were on a vertical axis where the fluid entered a toroid shaped vessel in a spiral, and the discs that made up the Archimedes screw reduced in size to match the shape of their container I wonder what that would do? It would take full advantage of gravity and maximize rotational force. The top of the vessel could have taller walls to increase pressure. I can not visualize what orientation the impeller should have to the flow, but I think it should be counter to maximize pressure.
Wow free energy. All the
Work done by Mother Nature.
Hey, the screw could be flexible and sliding so you have a degree of freedom to control the efficiency. If you are lucky the stretched screw will accomodate/like larger wave aplitude and vice versa. Great show!
This is an excellent idea. You could turn the generator 180 degrees, when it's placed by the sea. Dig a hole and place the lower part there. Gravity would help with the electricity generation.
nice one mate - cheers
Excellent as usual. Thank you Robert.
cheers mate
As always totally fascinating, I wonder about a cylinder in the sea, with a small air turbine on top, I know it’s easy to sit back and come out with suggestions😊, building these things is a totally different matter all together, I’m shielding as I’m a carer, been waiting 3 months for a sheet of builders board aaarrrggg!!,
I’ve got a huge project in the kitchen it won’t fit in my tiny newly built glass workshop lol,
Love the way you put it across to us cheers Rob
That was a good comparison. You also have to account for the type of material you are using.. Again the large wind turbines are turning slow, but using a reduction gear system to turn the generator faster producing very high voltage.
Pretty sure you would need a flywheel system to ensure the you kept the speed up during the reversal of the blades using wave power.
Actually someone did a video 10 Years ago?, they were using a water wheel for power; they hooked it up directly to the load, it stopped the wheel cold., Thats why they always go through a battery first, it absorbs the large current flow that happens at any start up.
cheers mate and nice points thanks for posting
Yeah, I think an Archimedes screw would work great at generating wave electricity if it was laid flat and funneled more of the water into it.
I don't remember where I saw it. A geek squad worked out a hamster wheel generator to power an LED night light, using every consideration in this discussion.
On the sea .... how about a floater that's being pushed up and drops down ... and from there you take it with a linear to rotary motion ... it will give a tremendous torque. As usual : great content and intent.
nice one mate - cheers
Very interesting! Enjoyed this! Really like how you made it out of CDs etc.
Glad you enjoyed it mate
I have to agree with you, power is power wether it’s high torque low rpm or vice a versa. We seem to be conditioned to wanting high torque but in the case of electric cars for example I think that a high speed low torque motor would be much lighter than a high torque low speed motor. There is of course the need for a large gear reduction which has it’s problems in a car though I think I’ve found a good solution that would work with a harmonic drive which is why I was hoping you would’ve made one in you series about making gears.
Any way it’s all great stuff that you are doing here.
the gear series is still going on mate - I just do them every now and then
Robert Murray-Smith that’s great, I’ll be looking forward to see what you come up with.
I think feeding the water into the top via a wide converging ramp scoop from the wave and the screw part being inside a tube to return water out, would be most efficient to produce max energy from a wave. Then as you stated focus on the generator optimization. Try that :)
Excellent work and a really great explanation about generator. Super clear and to the point!
May i suggest a useful bit in my japanese motorcycle, lol. Thay have a very cheap and awesome already made core of wires and steel for charging the battery. I think it can be converted to a really good brushless motor and/or generator. Just put some magnets in a case that spins around it.
It is incredibly cheap, very well done, several turns of thick cooper wire on each tooth, it even has epoxy coating, super fancy stuff and already available everywhere.
Hope it helps :)
I'll have a look into that mate - cheers
i really enjoy you video's and knowledge on making things, please may i ask what's a nema motor ?
The power of the moon. Water is heavy and the moon pushes it around for us, so why not use wave power. I agree that you need bigger blades but once you work it out millions of wave generators around the world could generate a lot of power.
industrially made wave generators all over the earth could do most of our power generation ideally, just need to make sure it wont hurt fish and other sea life and we're golden, bonus points if they use it as an intake for water distillation for areas that are struggling with water despite being right by the ocean.
Moon makes tides not waves
Rather, the part of Earth u observe rotates into and out of a bulge of water (that we call ‘tide’) that is already there that is created by gravitational attraction from the moon (and sun in the other side)
"That's an old way of looking at it based on Victorian principles; and I don't mean that to be an insult so please don't take it that way."
Rob, the only people that would take that statement as an insult are the educated idiots that need 360 pages of mathematics to prove that 1 + 1 = 2, and will reject two sticks as being sufficient evidence to prove it.
Oh sorry Rob, I forgot about antifa and the plethora of leftists that operate under the delusion that they can force American's to vote for lawlessness and disorder.
Those idiots may decide that they have a right to go out and riot because you said that.
lol - so very true mate - lol
Hey Robert, maybe your looking at this wrong. Maybe a different direction is needed. Maybe you need to have a look at self winding watch mechanisms. You can buy the cheap book of 501 mechanical movements. You then could build if you want too, a spring activated movement to run your device. Your right,. It's all in the way of gearing. Check out the forever Light. It works almost the same as an Old Cuckoo Clocks with the Corn Cob Weights. Use the Screw you built to wind the Spring and the Spring to turn the Gears and the Gears to turn the Motor that intern product the power for your project. Just a uneducated thought. Thanks for the upload. PS I forgot to add Robert. Your going to need some way to collect the power until it has reached the level your products need. Your going to need some Capacitors to hold what ever your project needs.
So many variables for maximum power extraction.
I suppose that you also have to distinguish between wave power and tidal power. One being essentially a rapid horizontal movement the other one a slow vertical one.
Unfortunately i like my sleep too much so i will leave you to have at it.😉
you can also use gears to trade speed for torque
That is a great idea , if you used a one way sprag, the screw would always turn in the same direction
it doesn't need to mate there is a diode bridge and capacitor bank on the output
Great tidal generator possibilities.
for sure mate
With a whole lot of wave area, one can simply put tens of millions of these out, if they lack enough height to obtain much length, and any width/diameter one uses, the larger, the better, and with a whole ocean ahead of you, the size you can make it is pretty large, AND if you include such things as tidal forces [there are actual tidal dam generators out there already, so its proven technology] one has just a tremendous amount of power on tap, 24/7/365 [barring storms, icebergs, wreckage, sea trash, etc] so while one might need to take additional steps to protect their devices from damage from undesirable eventualities, MOST of the time, the machine(s) can run most of the time at full power.
they would be cheap to produce as well
VERY INTERESTING. Thanks for sharing.
Glad you enjoyed it
Great Video Sir....
cheers mate
Now put that at the bottom of a cliff with a long pipe and screw and at the top a gearbox that will always turn in the same direction and you have a generator.
for sure - not really sure if you need the cliff though
@@ThinkingandTinkering Yeah, you get a cliff or a very steep bank with a strong wave action, put the pipe into the sea and the waves rising and falling will turn it, they did it with a propeller that turned in the same direction regardless of air direction and produced power. I don't kow if they ever made it permanent or it was just an experiment, but it worked.
First observation, the screw needs a ratchet to keep rotation in one direction with a wave application. But if the one you made were water sound, it really looks like a great size for a rain gutter downspout. Someone in a rainy area could use that to supplement their energy, surely. Four of those on house corners might be wonderfully practical.
screw direction doesn't really matter that much mate as there is a diode bridge and capacitor bank at the output end but I do like your downpipes idea for sure
@@ThinkingandTinkering Well, yeah if you can produce energy both ways then, yeah, a ratchet wouldn't technically help at all. I wouldn't have thought to wire it that way, runs against my design sense.
Aesthetically there's something about that reciprocating design which gives me pause. I suspect that the reversal of motion, the constant shift from positive to negative angular momentum, is a recipe for high wear. But aesthetics are only a good rule of thumb, so I guess experimenting with it is the only way to tell. But if I had to bet, I'd say it comes apart faster than a similar design which only turns in one direction. But of course, that would produce less energy, too.
I think it's the hurky-jerky motion of the waves that makes the reciprocation seem odd to me, because the mechanical advantage is plain. Like, if you made a big, floating, vertical screw like that, and anchored it, to harness tidal change, then I can see the reciprocation being effective. The slower movement would seem to allow for reciprocation better.
But whatever works is what matters. Always good if I can ferret out a flaw in my thinking.
RMS, instead of CDs or DVDs, use old laser discs. They're bigger and basically a dying breed...
I was thinking vinyl LPs I can get a few of those
@@ThinkingandTinkering Great idea!
I remember reading somewhere that in a wave the individual molecules of water actually move up and down vertically, not elliptically as one would think, so I wonder whether this would work if it was mounted vertically without an enclosure and just extracting power as the water molecules impact the vane of the archimedes screw.
Vertical might extract its full potential with least friction.
That is awesome! You are so prolific sir!
cheers mate
I saw, on one of the narrow boat vlogs, Archimedes Screws being used for power along one of the rivers or canals.
ah - interesting - there are a lot of smart people out there
Appropriate circuit isolation is indeed required for varying loads. Circuit protection 101.
Thank you Robert
cheers mate
Directly into the waves like that will produce an alternating turn on the screw which isn't ideal for generating. If you aim for bigger waves that can overtop the the high end of the screw then the flow through the device can be more consistent just like a river or stream. That of course leads on to questions of 'how big to make the catchment area' for the top lock, but that's the fun of prototyping!
Or have a series of generators arranged so that a wave crests on each one in turn?
it is indeed mate and I think you are spot on there
was wondering, what if you glued a 1" high plastic rib aligned from the center mast to the outer edge of the screw with a 1/2" lip on top like cupped fingers set every 2 inches down the screw, if that would significantly increase the efficiency of the screw?
you could possibly compensate for the mismatch by gearing up the screw shaft to the motor shaft, converting that torque into speed.
good point mate - cheers
Maybe with a funnel going into the bottom, to get more water flowing into it, with the screw in a pipe, it should do quite well,
could you not use a float instead of a handle to lift water ? as in an old school village pump ? use the wave power to lift water into a storage pool,then down the screw when you need sparks ? just a thought
what if.... the top of the screw core was dropped to the the hight of the incoming wave?
That way the water wouldnt back flush as much and just maybe, create enough draw on the screw to keep it rotating in a forward/positive manner; in preparation for the next wave?
I think the angle of the 'sluice' should directly correlate to the size/height of the wave
Just a though.
Appreciate your efforts.
Cheers for sharing.
Couldn’t the whole thing be submerged in the surf so the back and forth movement of the Archemedes Screw would make full use of the waves?
give it a go mate
All these small generator ideas makes me think a BEAM circuit (Solar Engine) might be useful to make the small voltages and current into something that can actually be used. These circuits are often used to run small robots from solar cells that are too small to power the robot's motor directly. I think the same idea could be used to trigger a charging circuit when the generated power reaches a certain point.
for sure and implicit to what you are saying I think is that control and organisation of lots of small generators is where the issue is
Awesome video, thanks!
cheers mate
Someone is having some fun outside or up the other end of the room.
Excellent!
I wonder if you could tape the blade diameter (big at the bottom, small at the top). If the conditions change, maybe that would give you the best of both options?
🤔 you could mate it with a wave capture device. (Just a tank with shallow slopes.)
I was just thinking 🤔 of a different style, you could use buoyancy to generate.
By attaching floating anything's to slide up and down a pole, and use your differential gearbox and toothbrush ratchet,or a rectifier circuit and a stick bowed with a string attached. And can wrap once or twice around a small drum long enough so it dosen't fowel up and tangle, that will give it more flexableity as the sea is very unforgiving, and raises the generator out away from waves.
🥺 Please make it ❤😊
⚡ ⚡ ⚡ ⚡ ⚡ ⚡ ⚡ ⚡
what about a graphene or hemp plastic blade that is ultra wide, something very lightweight that the waves can easily turn, but something huge to harvest tons of power at once.
A shorter cylinder and bigger diameter...I can imagine the next iteration made from vinyl records. If a 3 phase generator is used then it should produce power in both rotational directions with a 3 phase rectifier. Add your capacitor and Bob's your uncle lol. What do you think, Mr.Murray-Smith?
In a way, his little nema motor it's a 3 phase generator. Some of them are 2 phase, but they sell those rectifiers for cars "dynamos"
I think it is an awesome idea mate - off to thrift store to get some LPs!
So now you have your generator driven by the long-shore drift down the North Sea
Friction is the bane of efficiency.
for sure lol
Make it cheap make it simple to make....
Love your videos, was just thinking that your windgenerator could easily generate electricity at sea as a buoy concept.... None stop movement... Like a floating bell with the clapper swinging around...
that is a good idea mate - cheers
I'm not so sure you'll get it more efficient than a normal turbine style water power generation system, I seem to remember a story about an engineer experimenting with screw driven boats that found his vessel picked up speed when the screw snapped off short, leading to experimentation with screw propellers as we know them today. I assume the frictional loses in an Archimedes screw are greater than the power the extra surface area provides compared to a normal prop or turbine?
How about funnelling the sea waves up the screw more water more force to push upwards?
Loved the video, wave potential, and 'efficiency' versus big n slow.
.
Norton & BSA versus my Yamaha 125 RD lol
.
No shame in 125cc my man, i have a Honda Storm 125cc and works great.
lol - glad you liked the vid mate - cheers
Or perhaps Honda CB750 and Kawasaki Z1 versus Triumph 750 Bonneville and Norton 850 Commando?
I’m quite fascinated. The linear motion has potential as a pump air / water - low volume desalination ?? Low volume water purification? Heating or cooling. Thanks for the simulating discussion.
that is very interesting mate - those are ideas that didn't occur to me - thanks for inspiring me and others
make it bigger but keep the mass low. it has to speed up each time the wave changes level so you dont want too much inertia.
It would be interesting to see the results if one could use this contraption to utilise surplus power from a power plant (during, for example, off-peak periods/ to pump water up to a reservoir and then, during peak periods of demand, allow the water to flow freely to a lower reservoir.
PS You've got the patience of a saint. I would have told a noisy neighbour like yours to have bu99ered off, a long time ago.
yes it would and yes he is a bit noisy but I do stuff that annoys him I am sure lol
This is a silly proposition Robert but what would happen if you put an elastic band a big heavy duty elastic band as the linkage or to control the linkage in between the auger and the generator so that it would wind it up and it would get to a point and break loose and really turn it blazingly fast once it reaches that point where it can't hold back anymore that way you would reach a point where could generate a lot of electricity I know certain motors slash generators are not efficient when they're spinning slowly that it isn't a exact one to one deal that there are diminishing returns if you move them slowly do you know what I'm trying to get across? Of course it would have to have a ratcheting system so as the waves rolled up it would turn only One Direction and wind up the elastic and when they rolled down it would do nothing rolled back up it would wind it up a little more do you know what I'm saying?
I wish I could find the video where he assembles it to the motor. I am a member and can't find it.
Is having big torque low speedgood for transforming to low torque high speed with gears? There should be loss of energy in conversion but better if the electrical generation device at hand only can generate it that way right?
that would work well mate