Send some rain our way. Our rain barrels have been empty for weeks! Speaking of rain barrels. Mounting a few right below the gutter could be a great way to store and recapture the overflow in peak times. Like a potential energy capacitor. Also has the added benefit of watering the garden.
I wish I could Sean! It's raining hard here even as I type! And yeah, in retrospect some kind of storage like a water tower would fix all the problems I had early on. Wait until it fills and discharge on-demand at whatever power rate is desired. Though in some places storing rain water like that is illegal which makes zero sense to me. Hope you eventually get the rain you need!
@@QuintBUILDs The problem with letting everyone store all the rainwater they want is that it limits the amount of water that makes it into underground reservoirs, which are important for everyone. Sure one or two people keeping a barrel behind their shed isn't going to do much, but imagine if people who owned large areas of land completely blocked out the natural water cycle for themselves. It would be potentially catastrophic.
Here in California. It's illegal to store or hinder the flow of rain water that falls on your house. You are not allowed to use rain barrels although a lot of people do. Keep in mind that its the government's water, not the people's.
@@QuintBUILDs Another main reason for policies like that is the health hazard posed by open-topped storage barrels, as the standing water creates an ideal environment for mosquitos to breed.
I dunno, as an A&P (yeah, I'll be that guy), I gotta question the calibration of that finger. When was it last calibrated? I didn't see a cal date sticker.
I'm a hydroelectricity engineer in British Columbia and we deal with a lot of the same problems you are going through Quint! As soon as the marble bag came out I thought you end up with some differential head problems 😊. As for overflow - need a bigger reservoir!
A bigger reservoir would be nice, but how about this as a possible solution. Send the overflow into a secondary reservoir (a rain barrel). Use a bell siphon again here to feed it back to the same charging station (no need to make another one). The siphon can either be triggered manually when there is no rain, or when it reaches a minimum fill level and the other siphon is not currently pumping. Thoughts?
shi Bar Tb t yang tidak bisa di ajak ke dalam Teks yang disalin akan otomatis ditampilkan di siniTeks yang disalin akan otomatis ditampilkan di sinister dan Teks yang q ik L akan otomatis ditampilkan di sini
While I've enjoyed watching these videos, it's totally put me off the idea of using rain to generate electricity lol With so many challenges and such little output, I'd rather just use a hand crank generator.
Yeah, literally any other energy source around the home will likely do a better job! 😂 But at least I showed it's not impossible, just horribly impractical.
Interesting that this was uploaded two days ago, just got the text this morning! Glad to be one of the first to witness the next step on the project, though!
@@callaeris bingo. It gives me one last chance to look it over before publishing. That's also when patrons get to watch it since they help fund the experiments.
Love watching you tinker around with stuff like this. If the overflow water seems wasted, you could add a large 'storage tray' somehow on the end of the gutter to try and capture a few extra gallons before overflowing. Then as the rain lessens, the 'storage tray' would drain back to the gutter to extend production time. And since your roof is inclined, how about adding a cleat/rail about halfway up to divert half the water to a similar setup that is higher? Higher overall head means although you'd have half the water, you'd get more than half the output from this second system. Or maybe divide the roof into thirds? Or fourths? Could do a whole cost-benefit of the optimal number of sections where each section benefits from slightly different available head. lol. Just kidding with these ideas, I know the capital cost of a second turbine would far outweigh things, but it's fun to speculate on paper. And I was glad to see the caption about the issue of 'peak power' capture. Wind machines have this problem as well. If you size them for the 'highest expected wind', they operate almost the entire year at far below capacity. Again, love the content and how well you present things.
The text message service promoted in this video is no longer available, SORRY! A huge thanks to my super awesome Patreon supporters who made this video possible. To become one of them visit: www.patreon.com/QuintBUILDs If instead you prefer a one-time donation option, here's a PayPal address you can use: BUILD2LRN@GMAIL.COM With regard to the solar panel, I verified the electronics in the module don't charge the battery at all until it's in direct sunlight. It never left that shelf facing north under the overhang of the roof so rest assured it added zero energy to the battery. Prior videos in this series Part 1 - How Much Power? ruclips.net/video/S6oNxckjEiE/видео.html Part 2 - Alternator Rectifier Explained ruclips.net/video/YLb4enCgnP4/видео.html Part 3 - Turbine Testing ruclips.net/video/vify0k2sHlQ/видео.html Part 4 - Charging Station Electrical ruclips.net/video/amu5LJaDUPY/видео.html Part 5 - Bell Siphons Suck! ruclips.net/video/z-GLzQ2bqEk/видео.html Merch: www.quintbuilds.com/shop Currently just the coffee cup I use literally EVERY morning. At some point I'll offer shirts but so far the quality of the samples has been kinda cruddy so still working thru that. 2nd Channel with engineering and coaching to help you learn: ruclips.net/channel/UCOEykxFhALobv5CF-wYLnWw Quint's Background: ruclips.net/video/oqES86u8eTc/видео.html
couldn't you have two filter bags? so when you have to remove the first one to get rid of needles and leaves the rest will hit the second one that you slide forwards as you remove the first and then the one that you cleaned gets put behind (basically when you clean the main filter, the secondary takes its place and they keep changing every time they get cleaned?) if I make any sense
Just putting a large tank on a few bricks, and linking it so it will drain into the main reservoir would work as long as you have some idea of what the maximum possible amount of rainfall could be in the area. It could still cause overflow issues if the tank is too small or an unusually large amount of rain occurs, however, so it would likely require some experimentation to determine how large a reservoir would be needed.
Exactly, i commented in the other videos... a big 50.000l tank above ground (the top of the tank leveled with the roof) and endless power all year round
One of my dreams is to have a completely off-the-grid DIY cabin as a getaway spot. Though I am a long away from that point in my life, videos like these make the idea of DIY renewable energy a reality!
Great Job! After this journey I was as excited as you were to see those blue lights! This was all something I had run through my own head over the years being from SE Louisiana and so often facing power outages after major storms. Especially the recent Hurricane Ida, we were without power for almost three weeks. It was a little disheartening to learn no more power could be produced from such a system. But all the knowledge I gained simply watching the process was invaluable. Thank you so much
Might need an overflow bucket with a bell siphon of it’s own… I’ve heard of bell siphons but never knew exactly how they worked. Thanks for the great explanation on how they work. Whoever thought up that idea must have blown their mind to see it actually work the way they had planned. Amazing!!!
That's what I was thinking. Not a great power source but if you had a large reservoir you could use it to supply extra power if solar energy is particularly low or draw is high.
You should have all your gutters fill a water tank that is mounted at a height just 6" from the gutters. When the tank gets full then flow it through a turbine that is mounted 8' below. I think this would be optimal energy output.
You should totally invest in a webcam and continously stream your bell siphon and turbine! I'm invested in this project! Also, can you store the overflow in a tank and run it down to the turbine on demand? Using the power stored by the turbine to switch a solenoid valve to release the water in the tank. This is a great project!
What, I've never thought about this potential energy being stored in your gutters. You are a genius. Will definitely utilize that energy the same way you do! THANK YOU VERY MUCH
I'm glad you finally got a system automated and working. I know how that free power feels, I love charging my laptop and phone powerbank with the solar then using it free that night 😎
It is indirect solar energy:) the sun lets the water evaporate and turn into clouds and then it rains and is turned from potential energy into electrical. If you have a biget downspout you can store more water and thus more energy.
As a fellow Beavertonian, I've thought about these videos about this a lot over the past 2 years. 5 words: "Let Bernoulli be your friend." You're losing a substantial amount of energy by letting that water bounce off your wheel. Print an enclosure for the waterjet and flywheel. This allows water exiting the flywheel to pull water through the flywheel (just like your siphon).
I've enjoyed watching this rain water generation project. Could you try increasing the down pipe size or have a large tank just under the gutter so more water is held in the vertical position increasing the water pressure at the bottom of the down pipe? Just a thought.
Sugestions: 1) redirect your watter into some barrell/s, or other reservoir and let the gutter only to filtrate and catch the watter. When full for all time, it will brake from your roof pretty quick. 1B) If you expand your "supply" capacity, you can overstep the dry days, AND you will have free watter for wattering garden, or cleaning your car. 2) you can connect the gutter emergency overflow to the pelton you already have, for higher output...? Good luck anyway. BTW, if im trying a shot on home generator operating with watter, i probably would go for ballance on the leverage, with watter as weight, combined with siphon.
Love it! How to improve, my suggestions: #1 paint protect the nail/wood iso lowering the water level. #put that mosquito screen over the whole gutter #3 replace the whole gutter by a monster gutter (placing a rain bucket directly under = losing hight) #4 place an extra ball bearing on the axle (it seems to wiggle out of balance).
Hello. I come from the Philippines where it rains 6 or more months of the year and I am desperate to encourage a better way to harness energy from all that water. Got the wild idea and tried searching until i found your videos only to be more confident it could work and thank for proving it does. I am not an engineer neither techy that is why half of your video I had to fast forward especially when it come to all those mathematical formulas... but hey your work is ultra inspiring !!!!!
A more permanent solution to the caulk is using gutter caulk that is designed for heavy rain and the beating sun the only down side is that it's about 17 dollars a tube but then it would be a good time to seal up all of your gutters with whats left after the project but great video! And love seeing people use alternative solutions to get power👍
Have you thought about putting some sort of silicon around the nail entry and the open crease at the edge so you can still use the entire capacity of the gutter?
That was my exact question..... He is showing the voltage intake on a sunny day.... He needs to do this with a battery back up that doesnt have a solar charger
Great work Quint! Thanks for making a video of your engineering project. I haven't gone through all the series, but have you considered a surge tank with an overflow rather than having to make all the work arounds on the actual gutter. Thanks for making the videos!
How can you be sure that the solar panel on the powerbank didn't trickle-charge it over the period of a few months? "Technically correct" is the best kind of correct :p
Change your hanger to a vampire type and you can seal the back and the gutter can be supported from under your shingle. This can work around your "old" style tube nail hanger. Ones today are a crimped aluminum bracket that can still use a nail, but a screw works better. It just doesn't go threw the entire gutter, so it only makes one hole. A vampire hanger has a few spikes that puncture the back and are crimped up. Might provide a better seal and wont risk rotting out your fascia board.
If you wanted to save investment just route both gutters to the back side of the house and have a backup tank full of water that can run the generator after it rains which can also store the overflow
Maybe you could try a different energy generation method for the overflow side. Like using the falling weight of the water in a bucket to spin a gear or whatever
Bucket on a rope, slowly lowering as it fills with water and turns the generator. When the bucket reaches the bottom, it needs to self empty and go back up to start filling again. 20L of water in a bucket with the right gear ratio could surely give much more energy to the generator than his current setup.
@@iamdave84 I think a turbine in his current setup would even generate more power. Like how an actual dam works for electricity generation instead of a fancy water wheel
This project I've been following since you posted the first one! I keep thinking to my self what I would do if I was doing the same. Love watching these
You can replace the old square gutters with 3" PVC pipe, with a smal slit cut in the top to allow only rain in some small debris will make it in on occasion. You can simple tape the tube and run a quick shot of air once it dries out and blow all the debris out quickly if the water flow itself doesn't clear it. You can make a quick disconnect on the end to fiddle around with your various experiments.
Some ideas that may improve your electrical output. 1. I noticed your propeller shaft has a wobble in it so your loosing power, adding a second fidget spinner barring on the other side to steady it would help it run faster and smoothly. 2. Your water nozzle hits the top of the propeller rotating it clockwise, if you flip the wheel and alternator so the position the nozzle to hit the bottom of the propeller your should get faster rotations as you aren't fighting against the gravity and water being back splashed and running underneath (perhaps even helping it rotate faster?). 2alt. An ever more efficient idea would be to modify the bottom of the downspout to trapper to the nozzle itself because you are loosing atmospheric and water pressure of the surface area from the 90 degree nozzle insertion inside the downspout. 3. Cock around the gutter's mounting pins. 3a. block the gutter overflow, shouldn't need it. 4. Cut a large hole in the gutter and reposition/attach the bell siphon so it sits below and in the gutter to be able to fully drain and start at the gutter's maximum capacity. 5. Alternate propeller design: Make a tesla turbine propeller. It is said that Nickola Tesla crated such a perfect/efficient water turbine that material science at the time wasn't up to the task to use it at hydro electric plants, however it doesn't mean ppl at home can't couldn't use it. Google Tesla Turbine.
Wow almost 400k subs? Dude you deserve it! I think I subbed at 67k? Just remember seeing the air compressor video and I knew you would continue to make good content, always look forward to watching your videos! Keep it up!
Very cool project. Seems like the flow of water can be greatly improved by reducing turbulence before, and as it enters the nozzle. To do this: 1. The nozzle should be positioned at the bottom, rather than on the side of the large vertical pipe. 2. A gradual and smooth taper should bring the diameter of that large vertical pipe down to the diameter of the nozzle. A long/skinny automotive funnel would work for that. Likewise, the Pelton wheel would be positioned directly under it. 3. The internal geometry of that large vertical pipe (as well as the general geometry of the setup) could be experimented with, in order to get the water inside the large vertical pipe to spiral. Like that preschool "experiment" where a bottle is emptied faster by swirling the water inside it. If they haven't been already, the Pelton wheel "cups" should be sanded. 3D printers leave steps. Steps on a propeller would never be excepted, so they shouldn't be excepted on a waterwheel either. I get that using the rain gutters is kind of the whole gimmick, but if you decide to keep chasing the Watt dragon, I'd bet anything that you could come up with a much better rainwater collection system, designing it from scratch. Please don't take these ideas as critiques of your content. I enjoyed this whole series. I did have to watch it on 2x speed :P
Intresting way to install gutters (usually they are supported from The underside not nailed on directly into wood) with the filtering problem just use that fine mesh all the way across the cutter, smaller bit won't clog up the jet it's nice seeing this setup of yours but a drain pipe diverter into a water collection barrel (that get your head pressure up and would continue to make power after the rain stopped as it would be capturing all the rain water until its full) would accomplish the same thing without having the mess with the gutter and having extra holes in your gutter (still would install the mesh over the gutter to filter out the larger debris)
I never found an inexpensive gutter screen system that worked particularly well. I remember when we had gutter screens installed at my now-ex's house in central North Carolina, where we got lots of pine straw, etc. It was an expensive system that used a fine steel mesh on anodized aluminum frames (as I recall a decade later) but was worth it because we never had to clean the gutters again.
Your overflow could be another one set at a different height. Also have multiple inline one halfway and at the bottom. That test could be another video. Great work.
I believe if you add a expansion chamber under your water drain using a fitting coming off of your pipe to a slightly larger pipe and then back down to your regular size pipe that should help stop the dribbling problem and create a more positive flow. I hope that helps, I like your creativity.
Will there be a new season 2 of rain gutter generator😊? Season 1 was inspirational and fun 😂, all the little iterations 😅 Sidenote. Maybe first charge another battery with a charge controller (MPPT)
You could make a large shallow reservoir that accepts only from the overflow and flows back through a lower hose with a one way valve. A ram pump would allow a higher reservoir but would only save a portion of the water.
Good clever system. Like it and a good fun video! My only suggestion would be to install a large reservoir with a conical base instead of a downpipe, eliminating the overflow. Perhaps 330 litres in size which reduces the freezing? But it's only fun I know so file me with the cranks ;)
You could totally redesign the water wheel Portion to get a lot more efficiency and making a second generator optimized for high flow on the overflow side would be great! Also adding a “holding tank” on the main side to recoup help lost energy
Have you ever thought of getting a 3d printed turbine wheel like the ones used in hydroelectric dams for optimizing power output? might help or might do nothing noticeable but 3d printers are cheap out there and its even cheaper to get somebody to make it for you.
Send some rain our way. Our rain barrels have been empty for weeks! Speaking of rain barrels. Mounting a few right below the gutter could be a great way to store and recapture the overflow in peak times. Like a potential energy capacitor. Also has the added benefit of watering the garden.
I wish I could Sean! It's raining hard here even as I type! And yeah, in retrospect some kind of storage like a water tower would fix all the problems I had early on. Wait until it fills and discharge on-demand at whatever power rate is desired. Though in some places storing rain water like that is illegal which makes zero sense to me. Hope you eventually get the rain you need!
@@QuintBUILDs The problem with letting everyone store all the rainwater they want is that it limits the amount of water that makes it into underground reservoirs, which are important for everyone. Sure one or two people keeping a barrel behind their shed isn't going to do much, but imagine if people who owned large areas of land completely blocked out the natural water cycle for themselves. It would be potentially catastrophic.
Here in California. It's illegal to store or hinder the flow of rain water that falls on your house. You are not allowed to use rain barrels although a lot of people do. Keep in mind that its the government's water, not the people's.
@The Tired Horizon Google also says that Biden won fair and square, that China didn't make the Bat flu, etc etc.
@@QuintBUILDs Another main reason for policies like that is the health hazard posed by open-topped storage barrels, as the standing water creates an ideal environment for mosquitos to breed.
I can just imagine your neighbours.."Honey, the mad scientist is out looking at his gutter in the rain again!".
🤣😂👍
They're asleep at that time
Lmao, calibrated finger! Totally an engineering tool. I've actually used this tool as well.
That goes along with the calibrate elbow (torque wrench) and the safety squint (safety glasses)
I dunno, as an A&P (yeah, I'll be that guy), I gotta question the calibration of that finger. When was it last calibrated? I didn't see a cal date sticker.
I'm a generous guy, I give people the (calibrated) finger, and they just throw it back in my face.
I've used calibrated finger all the time for cooking rice
Comment: posted 4 days ago
Video: posted 3 days ago
Me: "wait a minute"
The genuine laugh I had from the screaming needle = instant liked video. The rest is great, too, of course.
Wasn't sure anyone would notice but it cracked me up so much I had to do it! 👍
I liked the video at the start.
I'm a hydroelectricity engineer in British Columbia and we deal with a lot of the same problems you are going through Quint! As soon as the marble bag came out I thought you end up with some differential head problems 😊. As for overflow - need a bigger reservoir!
A bigger reservoir would be nice, but how about this as a possible solution.
Send the overflow into a secondary reservoir (a rain barrel). Use a bell siphon again here to feed it back to the same charging station (no need to make another one). The siphon can either be triggered manually when there is no rain, or when it reaches a minimum fill level and the other siphon is not currently pumping.
Thoughts?
My immediate thought too: add a reservoir at (near) gutter height to store all the wasted water (energy) from rainy days.
The scream had me laughing because my focus was totally stolen by that little thing 5:56
It made me laugh too
In the middle of the night, my neighbors probably thought I lost my sh*t.
LMFAO
6:00 😅
Most people sleep on a rainy 5am .... he is out there, monitoring his inventions😂
If I was his neighbor I would probably think he is some type of crackhead 🤣
5 AM digging around in the gutter 🤣🤷♂️
He Is a man of focus, commitment, sheer will...
shi Bar Tb t yang tidak bisa di ajak ke dalam Teks yang disalin akan otomatis ditampilkan di siniTeks yang disalin akan otomatis ditampilkan di sinister dan Teks yang q ik L akan otomatis ditampilkan di sini
@@ahmadnasir9370 nooo idea what the fck you said... next time try english like all of us
Such an amazing attitude to life! You seem authentic, down to earth, and just outright a good man. Thanks for sharing your enthusiasm with us.
While I've enjoyed watching these videos, it's totally put me off the idea of using rain to generate electricity lol
With so many challenges and such little output, I'd rather just use a hand crank generator.
Yeah, literally any other energy source around the home will likely do a better job! 😂 But at least I showed it's not impossible, just horribly impractical.
I had the idea of putting turbines at the end of Seattle's massive storm drains, but it looks like it would just flood the city.
@@QuintBUILDs impractical on small scale.....
What if this was applied to a warehouse that is really big?
@@mrwess1927 It'd have to be the size of an aircaft carrier
@@mrwess1927 impractical on a small scale, but on a large scale it works great. In fact it's my town's main source of electricity: hydro electric!
I especially liked that falling guy cry when pushed debris into the outlet of the siphon. Good edit.
I always love watching a fellow Oregonian getting power from the sky trying to soak us
I love how you make this fun and educational.
Keep adding the funny interloods and comic noises. It totally works for your audience. Nice work 👏 👌
the amount of energy you used to blow out the debris from the gutter could have charged your phone twice
Well the blower could be 600 watts, if he cleaned it for 10 minutes = 60 Wh of energy. That would charge an iPhone 11 five times.
@@Mike-kr5dn well, 600W x 0.17h roughly equals 102Wh, not 60. But... 😀 you're still right!
@@Lad140490 yeah I see it now lol. Thanks
Interesting that this was uploaded two days ago, just got the text this morning! Glad to be one of the first to witness the next step on the project, though!
Could be it was uploaded two days ago in preparation for release today
@@callaeris bingo. It gives me one last chance to look it over before publishing. That's also when patrons get to watch it since they help fund the experiments.
Technically anyone who lives near a hydro electric dam has been charging there phones off rain the whole time....
He should add Free Rain Energy on his tittle :)
Yeah, was looking for this comment hahahah
You are not wrong but you don't have to say it
But not a rain *gutter*
Canadians don’t call the power company the “hydro company” for nothing …
Literally laughed out loud at the 6 minute mark
yea that was fuckin' great! :D
😂
I had to go back to it but it's funny and I laughed as well.
Me too!!! 🤣🤣🤣
And when he turned into needleman and smitty "nailed it" from monsters inc at 2:10 mark "go get em, mr soloman" dude is a genuine laugh. awesome.
@6:00 Oscar winning sound editing choice
RIP that blade of grass....
Love watching you tinker around with stuff like this. If the overflow water seems wasted, you could add a large 'storage tray' somehow on the end of the gutter to try and capture a few extra gallons before overflowing. Then as the rain lessens, the 'storage tray' would drain back to the gutter to extend production time.
And since your roof is inclined, how about adding a cleat/rail about halfway up to divert half the water to a similar setup that is higher? Higher overall head means although you'd have half the water, you'd get more than half the output from this second system. Or maybe divide the roof into thirds? Or fourths? Could do a whole cost-benefit of the optimal number of sections where each section benefits from slightly different available head. lol.
Just kidding with these ideas, I know the capital cost of a second turbine would far outweigh things, but it's fun to speculate on paper.
And I was glad to see the caption about the issue of 'peak power' capture. Wind machines have this problem as well. If you size them for the 'highest expected wind', they operate almost the entire year at far below capacity.
Again, love the content and how well you present things.
The text message service promoted in this video is no longer available, SORRY!
A huge thanks to my super awesome Patreon supporters who made this video possible. To become one of them visit:
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With regard to the solar panel, I verified the electronics in the module don't charge the battery at all until it's in direct sunlight. It never left that shelf facing north under the overhang of the roof so rest assured it added zero energy to the battery.
Prior videos in this series
Part 1 - How Much Power? ruclips.net/video/S6oNxckjEiE/видео.html
Part 2 - Alternator Rectifier Explained ruclips.net/video/YLb4enCgnP4/видео.html
Part 3 - Turbine Testing ruclips.net/video/vify0k2sHlQ/видео.html
Part 4 - Charging Station Electrical ruclips.net/video/amu5LJaDUPY/видео.html
Part 5 - Bell Siphons Suck! ruclips.net/video/z-GLzQ2bqEk/видео.html
Merch: www.quintbuilds.com/shop
Currently just the coffee cup I use literally EVERY morning. At some point I'll offer shirts but so far the quality of the samples has been kinda cruddy so still working thru that.
2nd Channel with engineering and coaching to help you learn:
ruclips.net/channel/UCOEykxFhALobv5CF-wYLnWw
Quint's Background: ruclips.net/video/oqES86u8eTc/видео.html
Sometimes the link does not work the 1st one you send few weeks ago does not work
Apart that great job
@@adityab7318 a handful of people have said that which is weird. Do you mean the initial welcome message?
couldn't you have two filter bags? so when you have to remove the first one to get rid of needles and leaves the rest will hit the second one that you slide forwards as you remove the first and then the one that you cleaned gets put behind (basically when you clean the main filter, the secondary takes its place and they keep changing every time they get cleaned?) if I make any sense
How many down spouts with generators on them do you think you could put down the gutter length?
Like one every 6" to a foot.
Would a water storage container be more practical then a whole second overflow?
Just putting a large tank on a few bricks, and linking it so it will drain into the main reservoir would work as long as you have some idea of what the maximum possible amount of rainfall could be in the area. It could still cause overflow issues if the tank is too small or an unusually large amount of rain occurs, however, so it would likely require some experimentation to determine how large a reservoir would be needed.
I love this vid because I actually considered this gutter electricity concept in my mind space and here a video from someone who actually created it.
Did you think about rainwater collection? I’m working on running my washing machine and watering my garden using collected rainwater!
Exactly, i commented in the other videos... a big 50.000l tank above ground (the top of the tank leveled with the roof) and endless power all year round
Illegal in many places, likely including where he lives.
@@Dragonofshame interesting. Where I live you are unlimited if you only collect rain from your roof
@@Dragonofshame ridiculious... just because its free! We run showers , toilets and laundry machines on it
@@jasmijnariel some areas consider it theft from the water company
I've been waiting for 5 months, and now I get something amazing...
One of my dreams is to have a completely off-the-grid DIY cabin as a getaway spot. Though I am a long away from that point in my life, videos like these make the idea of DIY renewable energy a reality!
Great Job! After this journey I was as excited as you were to see those blue lights! This was all something I had run through my own head over the years being from SE Louisiana and so often facing power outages after major storms. Especially the recent Hurricane Ida, we were without power for almost three weeks. It was a little disheartening to learn no more power could be produced from such a system. But all the knowledge I gained simply watching the process was invaluable. Thank you so much
Oh that sound effect of the stick falling down the pipe made me gut laugh! that was awesome!!!
😁
@@QuintBUILDs I came back for second watch, had forgotten about this comment, and the stick falling sound got me again :) haha, sooo good. :)
Nested experiments... Love it.
And yes, thanks for following up on the rain gutter product along with providing the price paid.
Might need an overflow bucket with a bell siphon of it’s own… I’ve heard of bell siphons but never knew exactly how they worked. Thanks for the great explanation on how they work. Whoever thought up that idea must have blown their mind to see it actually work the way they had planned. Amazing!!!
Text gang !!
Text gang indeed
Hear hear!
This system is lacking a ram pump to store extra water for later usage 😁
That's what I was thinking. Not a great power source but if you had a large reservoir you could use it to supply extra power if solar energy is particularly low or draw is high.
I want to see this addition!
You should have all your gutters fill a water tank that is mounted at a height just 6" from the gutters. When the tank gets full then flow it through a turbine that is mounted 8' below. I think this would be optimal energy output.
That's .. genius. You don't touch the gutter, but can play around the water tank instead. No need to mess with cleaning much
Quint BUILDs: Finally after six years I can play flappy bird.
You should totally invest in a webcam and continously stream your bell siphon and turbine! I'm invested in this project! Also, can you store the overflow in a tank and run it down to the turbine on demand? Using the power stored by the turbine to switch a solenoid valve to release the water in the tank. This is a great project!
What, I've never thought about this potential energy being stored in your gutters. You are a genius. Will definitely utilize that energy the same way you do! THANK YOU VERY MUCH
I'm glad you finally got a system automated and working. I know how that free power feels, I love charging my laptop and phone powerbank with the solar then using it free that night 😎
It is indirect solar energy:) the sun lets the water evaporate and turn into clouds and then it rains and is turned from potential energy into electrical. If you have a biget downspout you can store more water and thus more energy.
Most electricity is indirect solar energy. Hydro, wind, thermal, coal, gas, etc. Trace the energy back and they all come from the sun.
And the sun is nuclear energy, so all the energy on the planet is nuclear in origin. 🤣
As a fellow Beavertonian, I've thought about these videos about this a lot over the past 2 years. 5 words: "Let Bernoulli be your friend." You're losing a substantial amount of energy by letting that water bounce off your wheel. Print an enclosure for the waterjet and flywheel. This allows water exiting the flywheel to pull water through the flywheel (just like your siphon).
Just found this channel and this is a really cool project! This system is also a great example of the law of constraints!
The streams of this video will consume more energy than these things will generate in a million years
😂😜👍
That scream when the needle fell down really made me chuckle
I've enjoyed watching this rain water generation project. Could you try increasing the down pipe size or have a large tank just under the gutter so more water is held in the vertical position increasing the water pressure at the bottom of the down pipe? Just a thought.
Do it 💪
This is a great analogy for how useless renewable energy is. 👍
Solar and wind power is very useful, just not large scale. Look at wind turbines and "green" energy. It's horrible.
Sugestions: 1) redirect your watter into some barrell/s, or other reservoir and let the gutter only to filtrate and catch the watter. When full for all time, it will brake from your roof pretty quick. 1B) If you expand your "supply" capacity, you can overstep the dry days, AND you will have free watter for wattering garden, or cleaning your car. 2) you can connect the gutter emergency overflow to the pelton you already have, for higher output...? Good luck anyway. BTW, if im trying a shot on home generator operating with watter, i probably would go for ballance on the leverage, with watter as weight, combined with siphon.
Your wife and neighbours must think you are bonkers! absolutely brilliant project.
Love it! How to improve, my suggestions: #1 paint protect the nail/wood iso lowering the water level. #put that mosquito screen over the whole gutter #3 replace the whole gutter by a monster gutter (placing a rain bucket directly under = losing hight) #4 place an extra ball bearing on the axle (it seems to wiggle out of balance).
Amazing work! But the irony that building and maintaining the system costs orders of magnitude more energy than it would ever make lol
This was the most awesome experiment I've seen on quite some time. Congratulations.
Glad you enjoyed it!
Very cool! now you just need tank to use as a revivor to save all that wasted power from the over flow :)
Hello. I come from the Philippines where it rains 6 or more months of the year and I am desperate to encourage a better way to harness energy from all that water. Got the wild idea and tried searching until i found your videos only to be more confident it could work and thank for proving it does. I am not an engineer neither techy that is why half of your video I had to fast forward especially when it come to all those mathematical formulas... but hey your work is ultra inspiring !!!!!
That is one overengineered gutter. LOL It's amazing that all the passive features work so well. :)
the voice that little pine needle made after falling in the tube is what got you a like.
Never seen anyone have so much fun with his rain gutters.
A more permanent solution to the caulk is using gutter caulk that is designed for heavy rain and the beating sun the only down side is that it's about 17 dollars a tube but then it would be a good time to seal up all of your gutters with whats left after the project but great video! And love seeing people use alternative solutions to get power👍
Have you thought about putting some sort of silicon around the nail entry and the open crease at the edge so you can still use the entire capacity of the gutter?
Loved it when you tried to catch that pine needle and it went screaming all the way down! Lol! 🤣
Hahahaha I love how much effort you've put into so little electricity! hahahahah love it. Keep it up!
Solar charging battery, how much really comes from the water system? should close the box to get an accurate result.
That was my exact question..... He is showing the voltage intake on a sunny day.... He needs to do this with a battery back up that doesnt have a solar charger
Even i had this idea...you did it before me
Your dedication to the experiment is out of this world! Much respect to you, my good man👍
Great work Quint! Thanks for making a video of your engineering project. I haven't gone through all the series, but have you considered a surge tank with an overflow rather than having to make all the work arounds on the actual gutter. Thanks for making the videos!
Wow, all those efforts you go through.
Hats off sir!
I can’t believe it took that long to charge the bank
that twig scream got me
I love this project, it seems like such an incredibly fun thing to tinker with
How can you be sure that the solar panel on the powerbank didn't trickle-charge it over the period of a few months?
"Technically correct" is the best kind of correct :p
This series inspired me to clean my gutters. They aren't horrible, but I need efficient flow.
Congratulations with the first rain gutter charger!👍🇺🇸
Change your hanger to a vampire type and you can seal the back and the gutter can be supported from under your shingle. This can work around your "old" style tube nail hanger. Ones today are a crimped aluminum bracket that can still use a nail, but a screw works better. It just doesn't go threw the entire gutter, so it only makes one hole. A vampire hanger has a few spikes that puncture the back and are crimped up. Might provide a better seal and wont risk rotting out your fascia board.
ive really enjoyed watching this project, and even your youtube chops, develop over time. great job all around, sincerely.
You had one great rain related bit of movie history there, "Singin in the rain, Gene Kelly".
I had this idea a couple of days ago. Im happy someone with some bigger brains did it.
If you wanted to save investment just route both gutters to the back side of the house and have a backup tank full of water that can run the generator after it rains which can also store the overflow
Maybe you could try a different energy generation method for the overflow side. Like using the falling weight of the water in a bucket to spin a gear or whatever
Bucket on a rope, slowly lowering as it fills with water and turns the generator. When the bucket reaches the bottom, it needs to self empty and go back up to start filling again. 20L of water in a bucket with the right gear ratio could surely give much more energy to the generator than his current setup.
@@iamdave84 I think a turbine in his current setup would even generate more power. Like how an actual dam works for electricity generation instead of a fancy water wheel
This project I've been following since you posted the first one! I keep thinking to my self what I would do if I was doing the same. Love watching these
You can replace the old square gutters with 3" PVC pipe, with a smal slit cut in the top to allow only rain in some small debris will make it in on occasion. You can simple tape the tube and run a quick shot of air once it dries out and blow all the debris out quickly if the water flow itself doesn't clear it. You can make a quick disconnect on the end to fiddle around with your various experiments.
Some ideas that may improve your electrical output.
1. I noticed your propeller shaft has a wobble in it so your loosing power, adding a second fidget spinner barring on the other side to steady it would help it run faster and smoothly.
2. Your water nozzle hits the top of the propeller rotating it clockwise, if you flip the wheel and alternator so the position the nozzle to hit the bottom of the propeller your should get faster rotations as you aren't fighting against the gravity and water being back splashed and running underneath (perhaps even helping it rotate faster?).
2alt. An ever more efficient idea would be to modify the bottom of the downspout to trapper to the nozzle itself because you are loosing atmospheric and water pressure of the surface area from the 90 degree nozzle insertion inside the downspout.
3. Cock around the gutter's mounting pins.
3a. block the gutter overflow, shouldn't need it.
4. Cut a large hole in the gutter and reposition/attach the bell siphon so it sits below and in the gutter to be able to fully drain and start at the gutter's maximum capacity.
5. Alternate propeller design: Make a tesla turbine propeller. It is said that Nickola Tesla crated such a perfect/efficient water turbine that material science at the time wasn't up to the task to use it at hydro electric plants, however it doesn't mean ppl at home can't couldn't use it. Google Tesla Turbine.
Wow almost 400k subs? Dude you deserve it! I think I subbed at 67k? Just remember seeing the air compressor video and I knew you would continue to make good content, always look forward to watching your videos!
Keep it up!
billy mays here with FLEX SEAL ! mr.ANDERSEN
Incredible quint, i know it took a couple months but it is an amazing piece of engineering
Very cool project. Seems like the flow of water can be greatly improved by reducing turbulence before, and as it enters the nozzle. To do this:
1. The nozzle should be positioned at the bottom, rather than on the side of the large vertical pipe.
2. A gradual and smooth taper should bring the diameter of that large vertical pipe down to the diameter of the nozzle. A long/skinny automotive funnel would work for that. Likewise, the Pelton wheel would be positioned directly under it.
3. The internal geometry of that large vertical pipe (as well as the general geometry of the setup) could be experimented with, in order to get the water inside the large vertical pipe to spiral. Like that preschool "experiment" where a bottle is emptied faster by swirling the water inside it.
If they haven't been already, the Pelton wheel "cups" should be sanded. 3D printers leave steps. Steps on a propeller would never be excepted, so they shouldn't be excepted on a waterwheel either.
I get that using the rain gutters is kind of the whole gimmick, but if you decide to keep chasing the Watt dragon, I'd bet anything that you could come up with a much better rainwater collection system, designing it from scratch.
Please don't take these ideas as critiques of your content. I enjoyed this whole series. I did have to watch it on 2x speed :P
Intresting way to install gutters (usually they are supported from The underside not nailed on directly into wood) with the filtering problem just use that fine mesh all the way across the cutter, smaller bit won't clog up the jet
it's nice seeing this setup of yours but a drain pipe diverter into a water collection barrel (that get your head pressure up and would continue to make power after the rain stopped as it would be capturing all the rain water until its full) would accomplish the same thing without having the mess with the gutter and having extra holes in your gutter (still would install the mesh over the gutter to filter out the larger debris)
5:59 that scream was pleasantly surprising
Thanks for the text! Love the video!
You earned my respect when u simply said "I am cheap, don't want to pay for it 😎"
In Cali we had channels that had screens, and they had water wheels that powered the scrapers to keep them clean lol
Have you thought about doing the same setup with gray water from a shower or sink?
You've got a really good roof for solar it looks like
I never found an inexpensive gutter screen system that worked particularly well. I remember when we had gutter screens installed at my now-ex's house in central North Carolina, where we got lots of pine straw, etc. It was an expensive system that used a fine steel mesh on anodized aluminum frames (as I recall a decade later) but was worth it because we never had to clean the gutters again.
Was it MasterShield by chance?
Your overflow could be another one set at a different height. Also have multiple inline one halfway and at the bottom. That test could be another video. Great work.
5:59, that scream 😂😂😂😂 I am still laughing
I believe if you add a expansion chamber under your water drain using a fitting coming off of your pipe to a slightly larger pipe and then back down to your regular size pipe that should help stop the dribbling problem and create a more positive flow. I hope that helps, I like your creativity.
That was awesome! Very nice work.
Isn’t it an option to connect the overflow to the generator with a secondary tube?
Will there be a new season 2 of rain gutter generator😊? Season 1 was inspirational and fun 😂, all the little iterations 😅
Sidenote. Maybe first charge another battery with a charge controller (MPPT)
You could make a large shallow reservoir that accepts only from the overflow and flows back through a lower hose with a one way valve.
A ram pump would allow a higher reservoir but would only save a portion of the water.
Good clever system. Like it and a good fun video! My only suggestion would be to install a large reservoir with a conical base instead of a downpipe, eliminating the overflow. Perhaps 330 litres in size which reduces the freezing? But it's only fun I know so file me with the cranks ;)
Got the text and came running. Cleaning the bath can wait!
LOL!
You could totally redesign the water wheel Portion to get a lot more efficiency and making a second generator optimized for high flow on the overflow side would be great!
Also adding a “holding tank” on the main side to recoup help lost energy
I really enjoy the format of your video this time! Keep up the good work!!
Have you ever thought of getting a 3d printed turbine wheel like the ones used in hydroelectric dams for optimizing power output? might help or might do nothing noticeable but 3d printers are cheap out there and its even cheaper to get somebody to make it for you.
Go back and watch parts 1 and 3.
Actually, you need a secondary wheel powering a bubbler to break up the ice
The effort you put into these videos is definitely inspiring