DIY Micro Hydro Part 1 Head, Flow, Power Calculations
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- Опубликовано: 12 сен 2024
- This is the first video of my Micro Hydro Electric system. it is a very small system but we will go over all the steps it takes to make a small functioning hydro system that makes a good usable amount of power with good efficiency
www.KrisHarbour.co.uk
help this project..www.patreon.co...
Rambling or not, the fact that this guy has the knowledge and motivation to work how to best serve his needs without buying fancy tools and equipment is phenomenal. Kris is an example of the kind of work ethic that the forefathers of our respective countries had. I love his dedication and his commitment to innovation.
People like him are the reason the world we live in so easy compared to back then. I watch these videos trying to soak up all I can because it's easy to see he's doing things right
Love it! The water level surveying is such a simple, efficient, cost effective method. This episode got me so excited for those to come!
Little behind on the times since ya posted, but I just started to watch your videos, and I'm seriously amazed and interested in what you'll have to show in the upcoming videos. Started watching the hydro system videos, those are extremely interesting to me as it's a way to get what you need without going on grid. Again thank you for taking the time to do these videos, there are people interested obviously lol. Good day to you sir!
Great Heath-Robinson engineering and back of the envelope calculations! There used to be 20,000 water mills in England. You have shown how we can return to using water to power our lives. I’m going to enjoy learning from the other videos you have made.
Hi Kris, my Dad is a civil engineer who has worked in hydrology for over 40 years and now consults to the utilities industries. However, as he's my dad his advice is free if you need it, as long as I'm asking him the questions for you anyway! If you think you need any help, just ask. Mind you, I think you're doing a great job, can't wait for the next video!
Jeni Bland Hello Jeni. I need help to understand Hydrology and how to calculate the power of water and how to produce power from it. Thank you.
@@hhhunzai u don't calculate power of water. You calculate the discharge of the water per unit time. Just what he did in the video☺
You're a star offering that kind of help, best wishes.
My goodness. He is smart. I wish my mathematic teacher would teach me this way. I found it interesting enough to finish watching the video; )
You should really start offering work shops on your experience and learned skills. Many people can benefit from it all. Hydro energy will be a life changer for you . Thanks for another great upload. Cheers!
I do plan to in the future im still finding my feeting after just moving here. Thanks, glad you are enjoying.
Kris Harbour I'm looking to do this in Wales at the end of next year. If you wanted any help at any point send me a message.
Kris Harbour That's great. Let us know ahead of time, it'd be a good motive for me to pay the U.K a visit again!
Great Stuff. I Remember my grandad using a 1foot carpenter's level screwed to a stick to survey his farm when I was a child, Guess whoo got to stand in the briars and the mud with the height stick? You might want to check out MRHydroHead. ruclips.net/video/le8zg3T_2_k/видео.html They are using 6'/150mm pipe... Of course, they are moving water about 2 Km.
Water level pipe is absolutely foolproof and time tested over centuries, probably more. It can’t fail
As a old fashioned carpenter....it hurts me a lot to see your tools like that....but also as a old fashioned carpenter you showed the ancient magic landmeter way and water leveling way, this was very nice!!!! Cheers on that💪
I’ve been watching your videos for a little while. And I get it. Could I do it… I prob could. Many thanks for the inspiration and fantastic content Kris
Tenacity, determination. Your videos are inspiring sir!
for those that follow, ensure your staff is vertical the accumulative error could be significant. Hooked on these vid's excellent work.
I love your progress with all of this! I've been watching since the beginning of the roundhouse. I cant wait to see you start building this!
Great video. Will keep ny eyes open for the part 2. Greetings from Andreas on Off Grid Sweden
This was a fantastic series! Extremely well presented. Thanks Kris!
Here are my energy and power calculation if it helps.
The formula I'm using is Potential Energy ("PE" in joules) = mass in kg X g (acceleration due to gravity, 9.8m/sec/sec) X vertical height in metres X efficiency as a fraction (ie 60/100 or 0.6).
Plugging in your most conservative number for the mass of water flowing in a second, we get PE = 0.5 X 9.8 X 17 X 0.6 = 49.98 joules rounding out to 50 joules. This energy will also be the power because we are calculating energy per second of flow.
If you want to generate 200 watts consistently, you will need to be able to draw 2 litres of flow a second.
Looking forward to you building it. Any power is better then none
This is only the second video i watched but THIS IS FUCKING AWESOME. Gonna binge them all from start now. This is like finding a new series :)
Ikr
I've never seen someone set up a water level like this. Around here we have the two ends of the pipe on two sticks with a length of garden hose between them, and we measure whether two points are level or the difference in elevation directly from the two ends of the water line. Of course, this requires two people to make it work.
With your level, I'd be looking into a drop of food colouring in the water to make it more visible, but it would need to be a colour that wouldn't stain the clear pipe.
Love your work Kris! The kWh explanation was a little confusing until you said "per day" at the end and then very informative and interesting. Really looking forward to watching your other stuff!
you have a gate valve from the pond you can open you should put one on the leg from the stream coz if you open up the pond valve you might suck a lot of air down from the stream end if its dry and that will slow your flow.
+thesparewheel that is probably a good idea.... I didn't think of that. I think I will try without first because they are quite expensive but I think you ought be right... Thanks for the comment.
cool level, thanks for reminding me of the accuracy of a bit of kit I have deep in the back of a cupboard having been "sucked" into the world of laser levels
Just watched your most recent video and at 8:42 you nailed the power generation estimation!
Hi Kris, thanks for the vids, we appreciate the time it takes you to film and edit. Would we be right in thinking your now living there? Would you be able to give us a chat, say maybe by the fire, on a day that you get rained off? Maybe telling us what made you decide to escape the 'typical' 9-5 work day and 30 year mortgage trap etc etc maybe share your views on varied topics, what you plan for the future etc, thanks in advance
Amazing how you put that all together. What a joy to soon be sourcing your own energy!
The maths was wonderfully intuitive to me.
I will look forward to seeing that system being built
Already looking forward to the next instalment. Nice work Kris
The world needs more of you sir
Hi Kris, great work as always, loving this project. Is the stream and your pond at the same level? Could you divert the stream to flow into your pond directly, then take overflow water from pond as your power source pipe?
Another guy below suggested damming the stream, this sounds good to build up water pressure if it can be done effectively?
Your pond figures assume a constant depth of water, but I imagine it tapers in shallows at edges, so where it us half meter deep is not at the edges? I'm going from memory in one of your earlier videos.
Is it possible to install more than one turbine on the network? If several were in a stepped configuration, with water dropping to build power?
Thanks for sharing all this information on your channel! Always looking forward to your new videos.
And nice shirt by the way... AvE will most likely be also interested in this upcoming project!
Keep the good work up!
+Folxweise man if I had Ave watching my videos I could die happy! 😊👍
I believe everybody could! :D
Who is AvE?
I have looked into forms of hydroelectricity.. I think you would be better off with a traditional Flume and a larger than 10 ft. Water wheel my current drawings utilizes oil drums that have been modified into a circle and have been cut into to maximize the gravity weight of water.. all of this you would cut the barrel so that it will be in the into the next Barrel to utilize spillage flow.. now of the suggestion of a square box Flume you can line The Flume with some type of rubberized floor kitchen floor mat that you glue down to a wood floor.. This is quite popular and is better than touring the whole thing. To do such a thing you may need to invest in a home-built sawmill that runs on DC current with a worm Drive feed so you can set it and forget it for an hour or two has a DC motor will not cut as fast as the gasoline. Now do note the goal of this larger system is to power larger things such as Heating and Cooling of your homestead.. you probably should have a solar panel that is wired heavily to run directly to small motors and to a recharging system for tools not forgetting night time lighting. I encourage you to go with the traditional system or put in a slow screw system that is working out well enough except floor trash such as leaves and sticks. You will have great videos on building your trusses for your Flume and once it's all accomplished you can tell people what you are putting on your two and a half inch spinning shaft period. You may be able to put on a grinding mill or even taking apart a small generator and produce household current 110 or 220 yes I am from the United States and I am aware of different Power designations. In closing I thank you for allowing me to add a suggestion it is up to you if you do it period. I have heard of someone utilizing rockstone and mortar right into their Flume support in this support they have created a Smokehouse out of rock and mortar and a luxury steam Shack with The Flume right above it one can also add a garden stretch and Shaq right underneath it and have plenty of water throughout the year to water their Garden period. Next thing you know a chicken house ultimately he had the idea of expanding his Flume to a larger wheel down the valley... Thank you and do consider humanitarian religion you can see my channel for some of that. Utilize car parts for your DC electric Sawmill Drive especially Ford Crown Vic driver seat motors that adjust the seat it is hard to get them out but they come with spare parts as you can utilize only one spinning hytorc belt adapted shaft.
I dont think the volume calculation on the lake is correct from memory your lake does not have vertical sides so the volume would reduce with depth. You're volume calculation would be more accurate if you used the diameter and depth to calculate a conical volume. Unfortunately if im correct it will cut your available water volume in approximately in half as you also calculated your area as a square not a circular. Still 4 hours of continuous power at 400w would be very useful. Keep up the great work kris i await each video with anticipation.
Add some strawberry squash to the water to see it more clearly 👌
so... if you manage to find a piece of sloping land with a spring, lake, at the top (which is a once in a life time or less chance), then you're good!
Cool project you have in mind. I'm really interested to see how it turns out, Thanks for sharing!
I was hoping to get more insight on your thoughts and plan. For example, there is a comment below pointing out your loss of flow due to the slope of your pipe and you responded by saying you'll be using a nozzle to increase pressure at the end. I'd be super interested in knowing your conclusions and how you came about getting to them.
There is a problem with piping airlocks and friction not to mention blockages all slow the flow so it will be interesting if you can gurarentee flow over the long term
First channel I've subscribed to AND turn on notifications for. Amazing work!
Great stuff with using the lake as energy storage! I was wondering though; How much will the flow rate change depending on the water level in the pond, or is that height difference compared to the total head insignificant? I think it could alter your predictions of how much energy you can reliably get from the pond over time, might be important if you plan to depend on the pond.
+Nout Hogesteeger the pipe will e at a set hight in the lake witch will be 500mm below the water line when the water gets to that point in will stop. So yeah the pressure would change by 500mm over the course of 8 hours so that would be about 200wh or something like that. So not a big deal at all. Because all those numbers were for 60% efficient so I'm hoping to get better than that anyway...... But yes there would be a small curve downward as the lake level drops. But also as the level drops and the power goes down the efficiency goes up due to less cable loss and less pipe loss. So it really would be very small.
Awesome, glad you thought about it already, good luck building the system!
@@KrisHarbour It's 4 years on. Has your system produced the kWh output you calculated here? Thanks for posting all your videos. You're my HERO! You're DOIN' IT!!! I think many would be intimidated by the amount of water on your land. Not you. You know how to harness and harvest it and that's why you really are a hero. :)
ok, now this is really cool! Can't wait for the following videos
Fantastic project looking forward to the next video.
absolutely fantastic. Well done.
everything ok Kris things have gone quiet. hope all is okay looking forward to your next videos :)
Been waiting on this video. Can't wait to see the progress.
Great video as usual man, can't wait to see more on this.
This is so cool, great job Kris!!!
Another great video, the hydro will be a gd project, I think you will be nursing the intake for a while till you work out the best filtering method. What Internet did you settle on in the end, is it mobile network and wifi ?
Thank you for sharing your work. It was really helpful I am also planing to start the same project.
Hello, the correct calculation is liters per second multiplied by jump in meters multiplied by 9.81 (grace acceleration) multiplied by the total efficiency of the system, usually below 5kw never reaches 60%, i do not have any disappointments I insert from 50% below KW and even less when it's around 100W, at 58% with Pelton impellers under 8kw
For all others, the important is not the inclination of the jump but the pressure of the water column, which can be reached quickly by having a very vertical jump or slowly with a very sloping slope, is the pressure that counts, of course, that we need limit to the maximum the distributed discharge loads of the pipeline, from turbocharging, to low power below 500 / 600W, use permanent magnets alternators above for robustness of reliability and limitation of costs, using three-phase auto asynchronous motors excited by capacitors, using the C-2C for single-phase or 3C for the three-phase, this island generation technique and high-performance electrical power-derived dissipation, and cost-effective stability, the IGCs control voltage asynchronous and frequency controlled ELCs for synchronous, synchronous alternators always known as non-Chinese or low cost / quality brands, it is advisable to take them into account above 10/15 kw.
Use the water bubble or laser level or a small tube and gauge
An English speaker who uses metric? Yay!! Welcome to the rest of the world
Awesome job! Love the shed
Great Vids. Are you burying the pipe to avoid freezing, especially the lake one where there will be standing water when switched off. How much flow do you estimate into the lake as that would offset what you are taking out when using it.
hi kris what an awesome idea. using the lake as a battery like that can you make the lake bigger ? with the weather we got just now your not gona be short on power. another great video
mate love the videos, can't wait for more episodes on the new turbine. also have you thought about creating a top up feed to the dam for a bit more stored power? not just the spring /rain feed? when you have excess power generation.
My flat in brum was all electric, no gas and even not converving power I was using 5.5kw you hydro would go a long way to supplying enough for most house holds. Have you considered using a sailing ship wind turbine....
Very nice, looking forward to seeing it go in. Have you considered a windmill?
Could you source surplus or recycled pipe? Wouldn't much matter what had been in the pipe before, if the water is just going through the turbine. Or use wood, lined with 6mil or thicker plastic that you can get in rolls? Looking forward to details on that turbine!
Is there any way you could dam up the creek and make small pond it would give you a constant flow. just thinking.
Hey kris, good luck with this project and extending your dream into reality. When you were talking about limited water flow in summer months you got me thinking..do you think that there's any way of using this system in conjunction with a swimming pool or jacuzzi whilst the pump is running? Just a thought...
+Silver surfer I don't really know what you mean?
I do actually plan on building a hot tub at some point but it will be wood fuelled.
Kris Harbour hi, what I'm thinking is that surely this system isn't just restricted to a natural source and could run off a system with a pump and ample flow of water perhaps??
Umm. What you are suggesting is a perpetual motion machine; so at best you recover 70% over the energy expended by the pump...
It's perfect! Exciting stuff, happy for you. Good Luck, 👍 Vinny 🇺🇸
I hope all is well kris. Will you be living there over the winter? I look forward to seeing how you over come the challenge.
All the best.
What do you/did you do for work Kris? Are you an engineer of some kind?
Kris, very nice video.... Looking forward for next ones.... Regards, Tom
Love your vids Kris! Keep up the great work.
Is it the most efficient to have 1 turbine. Or we could add another turbine in the middle to add another power source(?)
remember you will lose some power from hydro unto battery banks & from battery banks to the house, so try make them close as possible. get most can out of your hydro into your battery banks
Rexism7 yeah thats right. best store batteries and convert dc as close to the source as possible to ac. Saves costs on wires too. AC has allot less loss
Pretty cool video. Good work!
Great video Kris! You left out one important detail when measuring with the water level. When you set up the markers, were they at the same distances away from each other each time, meaning the water level and the marker board were always X metres apart? I am trying to setup my own flow rate study and I'm stuck on this. Anyone?
What is the exact calculation that Kris is using to predict the amount of power he will produce using the head of water available and the liters per second?
easier with some red or other dark color food dye in the water, but way cool.
I got a stream that will fill that bucket in a split second in autumn, and 4 seconds in summer.
Could you not funnel the water that comes out of the turbine to a water wheel to create more electricity.
Hi Kris just an observation, your water level measuring staff you measured every 100 then used that thicker marker pen , now the thuckness of that nib must of added to your measurements guides ?
+poulsonarrow hey, I was going to the middle of the thick line each time. And I also rounded the numbers down as I was doing it.
Kris Harbour well i did think that ..... no Wayne not scot just big fingers typing on small key pad ( thickness )
Hi Kris, I hope you are well .... I have not seen a video from you for a month therefore I have worries whether both you and roundhouse are ok....Looking forward for your next videos.. Regards, Tom
+Tomáš Truksa Hi thanks for your concern. Yes we are both ok (me and the house) I have just been volunteering at another eco village helping a friend and doing a bit of socialising making new friends and dating. I am right at the last few days before finalising the sale of my flat and once that is done I will have a bit of money for more projects so I will be back making videos very soon. Thanks for the comment
Sorry bud, didn't know you and Melana had split.
Just out of curiosity, what's the GPS on your phone say in terms of altitude difference? I live in a pretty flat place so I have no idea how trustworthy that is.
I didn't get how quick the pond refills. he wants to use 125k litres per 8 hours (4L/s), but what is the flow rate at which it refills ? I guess there's a valve so that he can let it refill as I'm guessing the flow rate of refill is < flow rate to turbine?
It's a backup, not a continuous source of power.
Was that poison ivy across your stream? Great video. Lots of great info. Thanks for sharing. Blessings...
We don't get poison ivy in the uk.
Very smart fellow.
Any videos due Kris ? 3 weeks since this one I need my off grid fix 3 weeks is too long 😂
Kris Hi, nice video, great knowledge, how can I get more details on how you made you 500Kwh Generator. I would like to know how to do such.
Instead of running a separate pipe for the lake, why not divert the stream into the lake, and run the pipe from there, and build a small electric dam/sluice setup driven by stepper motors, where you increase/decrease flow based on the level of the lake and your electricity needs? That way you truly do turn the lake into a battery, instead of having to store all the electricity by charging batteries, or potentially wasting it during times of day/night when you don't need it.
You could run an arduino or raspberry pi at the dam, and connect it to the internet with eg. a 3g receiver so you can control it from your house, and workshop.
+Mathias Grønnebæk hi, thanks for taking the time to add some really great suggestions. I am actually away helping on another build at the moment. But when it back I will take some measurements and work out if that could be done. It sounds like quite a good idea but I will need to work out how I would do it.
Thanks.
I am no engineer, but I guess it depends on where the stream is located in relation to the lake in terms of elevation. Laser measurement would help greatly in figuring out exactly how tall you can make the dam without the lake eroding the hillsides, and flooding elsewhere. Check out this guy's channel, they built a hydro solution, although with access to a much larger water inlet, since the source is more of a river than a stream, but the principle is the same, just larger. ruclips.net/channel/UCi_j30Zxju3HollCKaKZYTw
Also, on a related note, should use a clear garden hose as a water level instead, more precise than eye-balling it when you don't have laser equipment: www.wikihow.com/Use-a-Water-Level
BTW: I enjoy your videos, really impressive how much you have built, I have only built an outdoor kitchen this year, and you built an entire house, and a shed :P I don't know if you said in one of your other videos btw, but how big is your land?
what you think about water harvesting?
+88Yuriy in what way?
i mean colection tanks, as reserve of water...maybe near the roundhause... i'm asking becouse i like to watch DIY Homestead Projects channel, but they livivng in Arizona... im shure that you don't have any a water problems, but you say that you may let down the water of the pond if you need ...
he told about little streams, which feed the lake
this is just my suggestion...
this is my logic: streams->lake->reserve tank(when he wants to lower the water of the lake, to increase electricity production, and to have a lot water)... only if it's needed
i don't mean to harvest all of the lake's water... only some RESERVE if he need it
if he want to drain the lake to produce the electricity(drought season) from where he will get extra water?
Nice looking poison ivy.
NICE VIDEO
Hay Kris, how's hydro and other projects going ?
I need a generator but i can't seem to find one online. unless it's ebay or other third party sites. HELP!!
How does he know all of this ?
Hey, I really like to see how your project is working out but I think you calculation is applied in a wrong way. I agree with 17m water drop you achieve 100 W for 1L/sec at 60% efficiency, but that would only be true if you had a real 17 meter VERTICAL drop for the water. I understand that you will lay the pipe on the ground with just a small slope. Then the water will not accalerate as fast as it would in a 17 meter vertical drop. Or do you build some kind of 17m high "viaduct" on which you will guide water above the ground to then drop it? A theortical 17m vertical drop would mean that the water is accalerated to a velocity of 18,2 m/s when it hits your turbine. But I assume that the water speed you achieve when laying the pipe flat on the ground is much slower than 18,2m/s.
+Till Marter the water will flow through the pipe very slowly and then accelerated through a nozzle. your physics is way over simplified for this. You have not factored in pipe diameter and the use of nozzles to increase water speed. At 4lps the water will only be moving very slowly through the pipe because of the pipe diameter.
No is the pressure it counts, the water column, NOT the speed of the water or the slope, the speed in a free-flow channel and in a pressure conduit is synonymous with loss of load and consequently loss of power .
you do not get to 100W but well to 90w real electric that would already be a good result with PMA alternator!
pipe losses are based on diameter, length, and flow rate. The length increases when horizontal but the diameter can be increased to remove the associated losses from length by reducing the flow rate.
Then you neck down at the exit and your losses are very low because the restriction is over a short length. TLDR; properly sized pipe diameter negates length losses, and a nozzle increases flow velocity while having minimal length losses.
Where are you Kris? We all thought you would be uploading pretty steady now. What happened?
What about wind power?
What's the metres for?? Is it the drop or the distance from where??? So confused :(
It is the difference in hight from the intake to the turbine. The more hight the more gravity can build pressure and make more power.
@@KrisHarbour ah, I'm with ya!!! Perfect!! Is there a minimum level drop that you can use? And it's there like a golden number?
Nice AvE shirt!
I’ve just had a thought. All this stuff you’ve done (extremely impressive, by the way) makes you a ‘preper’, doesn’t it? ;-)
i guess it does in a way.
So Kool ...thnx
You want to configure something like 1500 watts the just to run a AC or oil-filled heater on high for your bedroom and toilet room to keep your pipes from freezing.. the only alternative is to get a 12 volt DC hot water heater element and put everything you got into it and the element will be attached into a water heater radiator.. of this you'll be dumping everything that the poor little alternator will produce.. yet there is a problem of getting electricity to the house DC current can I go that far.... I'm saying that there it might be something not right in our matching up of electricity American standard versus English or is it European..
My only real concern is the ecological impact of diverting the water from its natural bed.
Why not run water to the lake then out of it to your turbine?
Just use a slash instead of the p Kris (0.5l/s) people and geeks will understand you more easily.
More videos please!!!
Kris - where you been dude! You haven't posted an update in over a month? Hoping all is well!!!