Update; the optimisation and finalisation of the turbine design are going to have to wait til the end of the summer while we do some upgrades on the test site, but I'm going to just start in on the build tutorial in the meantime, and probably do a part two with the optimisations. So there's something for people to build who have been waiting a while now.. In the immediate term, here's a basic list of material needed: docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1t3waIfeX9DJHoFF3sw-QL5JTSyStC_JXH09etDdG5oI/edit?usp=sharing
I'm going to take this opportunity to get out ahead of the three most asked questions on this: 1: The turbine isn't better placed at the outlet, it's a momentum turbine, not pressure. It's most efficient above the draft tube. 2: Multiple turbines in the one pipe won't produce more power overall as they'd each steal momentum from each other, while doubling your material costs or more. 3: No you can't run a pump off the turbine and have the water flowing in an infinite loop between two tanks. I get asked this more than anything else. Oh and bonus question yes the tutorial is in the works and will be available soon. I know I've been saying this a while now but things are steadily moving forward. I'm glad that so many folk are keen. Any other questions tho please comment them here and I'll make sure to get back to you. Also if you just want to say hi to bump the algorithm, would be much appreciated as this channel is currently about the only thing paying my rent. Thanks all.
About the first point. Can we run several dynamos in one pipe? Perhaps the pipe needs to be slightly modified and try to retain the momentum with gravity.
nice to see a video of the turbine again!, looking forward to see what results do you get from adding a prerotating stage, or as you call it verctorizer :P. I believe you should get a chunk more than 5 -10 % as the prerotating stage is what converts the pressure into speed, kind of like the nozzles in a pelton wheel (now that the pelton turbines are so popular between RUclipsrs). Keep in mind that with the prerotating stage the turbine will want to rotate quicker
Did one of these in a local dam spillway using a 16 spoon Pelton wheel and a 1000 watt motor I had shipped in from the states. Dld really well during the winter months combined with a 400 watt wind turbine and 400 Watts of solar also. Haven't had to use the grid for just under a year..
I'm writing this comment in order to positively influence the algorithm so that the video creator receives additional video views and consequently money.
Absolutely love what you are doing, but my two cents are, if this is to run 24/7 ,maintainance free, the turbine setup has to be much more sturdy. Maybe even look into outboard propellers, or even complete lower leg assembly off an old outboard. Just a thought, but again, very helpful video, much appreciated!
Very glad my channel is finally fixed so I can post this. Any questions let me know. I'll be doing a quick how to build when I'm back in Scotland, and a full tutorial after that once it's optimised.
I will soon be going to the Philipines to Build a Little hut in the mountains and this water turbine is just THE solution for free Energy!! Also almost every other video will be helping a lot! I will be waiting for the tutorial on how to build exactly. Thank you very very much for all the effort you‘re putting in! I think there is a special place in heaven for people like you:) Keep up the Good work
Love your video mate. I’m in Scotland,and have a similar head of water ,and flow rate. Thanks for posting, you are really helping me to leapfrog ahead without having to go through all the painful trial and error which you share so freely. Good luck with your endeavours, you have a great outlook!👌
@ 1:20 U DON'T want undulation in your pipework... The inlet screen need 2 B in non-aerated water with adequate supply;... so when it starts to siphon it pulls clean water & NO leaves;... bubbles...
Bumping your algorithm, Love your stuff. i hope one day i have an off grid setup and can use all of your handy ideas! really envy the cool projects that you are apart of. imagine if someone funded you somehow
Not sure if you tried something like this, or fine tuned this, but 11:07, try a reducing coupling just before the fan to funnel the water inward to control where the small particular matter goes. This will force any small particles through the blades rather than the getting them on the outside. river flow water will always have small bits of sand, so you are essentially just sand blasting the fan blades and they will fail over time faster. you could try building a larger version of this and use a furnace fan, or something similar in metal to cut down the damage, but that all adds in some weight.
I like the simple genius of placing all the electronics out of the water...Not much water in the south of Australia here but I know getting 200w of constant power would make the lives of many ppl much easier....
Hey ! Cool to see you're still at it and progressing nicely, I remember the first video, and was excited to see how this turned out as I live beside a brook, practically no head unless I ran the pipe a couple kilometers to the mountain and that can't happen unfortunately. I went fully off grid in 2016, only a 235w solar panel and a couple batteries, still, lol. Have another panel on the roof already to hook up but haven't bothered, once you're use to less, you don't need more, I guess :) Good luck with your project!
I'm thinking of options for flat water, but it's a bit of a famous problem to solve. Is there any point where you have even only like 2m drop over not hugely much horizontal?
@@OpenSourceLowTech no, not even remotely, it's basically flat for a couple klms, and I'm the end of the line, once it passes my house it's around the corner and out to the watershed, then out to the river, flat the whole way. I had considered the piston pump idea, I think it's called, which works ok in flatwater to my limited knowledge Also, the brook runs barely faster than a lazy river, barely over your foot deep... until it rains. Then it comes ups 6- 10ft and roars like a beast within a 12h + event... thru my house once in 2016, and nearly several times since, so realistically, sadly, thanks to vast swaths of relentless clearcutting upstream, my time here is quickly coming to a close. 💔 I'll still be following along though, as I desperately HOPE to find another spot with running water on site. I'm going to miss it too much to be happy 'landlocked' elsewhere.
I'm currently in Western Australia, been seeing the damage from the massive flooding out east, three 500 year rain events in a month.. Brutal. And yeah all the worse when it's at least partly due to incompetent land management upstream. Britain's also pretty bad for that.
wow looks like you opted for making all the beginner mistakes in the book, but as long as you take that as fun and persist you're bound to succeed . there are a lot of critics abound your system I could point to but I truly appreciate the idea of keeping it low cost (even if less efficient), low tech and more importantly open source ! good luck, you're almost there ;-)
Been saying for years, we need to find a better way to generate hydro electricity, and to be able to do it without having to dam up rivers and waterways. This is a good start in that direction.
The problem is scale. If they make this thing large enough then all the water would flow through it, and you end up with a natural dam. Small is fine, but bigger is less environmentally friendly. Unfortunately, bigger also means more power, and it's cheaper to just put a bigger pipe and turbine in than it is to find another location and do an install from scratch. Also, there aren't many (any?) places left where a commercial installation makes sense in the developed world.
Real nice Mate Cheers. You could increase your output massively by adding, 3 or more Trompe pipes in series and using all that clean free compressed air, and put your turbine on the exit? I also have an idea for a self looping Trompe almost silent air compressor, to use with the Kinetic Boyancy Genorator.
It's nice to see one of your videos about the water turbine again! I was waiting for it for so long! I'm working on a similar project, would be nice to have a chat someday! :)
May I suggest using the blower head from a leaf blower? All you need is a momentary expansion below the impeller, to let the water flow. It is very durable and should do well in water, as most are made from aluminum and are balanced for very high speed.
That kind of centrifugal impeller is one of the first I tried, but turns out they don't reverse well. A couple of the 3D printed options I'll be trialling next tho do borrow from some of those principles, but (hopefully) more optimised for this kind of use.
Yeah that's currently the main problem to solve. Coandas seem to do a decent job, but I'm wanting something that doesn't require much to any earthworks if possible.
I like the easy setup. The siphon solution is easy, it is however bound to be inefficient. I guess you would see great gains if this systen used the potential head pressure.
Great job !! Later, if we manage to make the design for 3D printing of our current powerspout turbine for 2 measurements, I will send it to you, it can be of great help to improve it for low-resource areas! Currently we achieve about 280w at 1.9m height, but improving the pipes and with a hooverboard generator we hope to reach 350w 24x7 (7-8kwh/day). We are also testing with different sizes of pipes (200-250), shapes at the outlet: cone, conch, etc.
Decent numbers, what kind of rate of flow? I'm currently in Nepal, working with the university to more comprehensively test the various 3D printed runner and stator options. Will publish the results when I have them.
I have a 10-month creek on my property with a ~16m head on it, and I've been following for ideas of using your concept to provide power for the property. Is there a specific reason you use straight piping? I'm considering using 2.5-4cm flexible agricultural irrigation piping for my run, and running the piping into a barn that is 10m from the creek, about 6m of head below the intake. At a guess, there would be less momentum losses from the flexible piping than from the angled joints? I'm also intensely interested in non-battery methods of power storage, such as gravity storage. Having a 20m tall barn that is empty most of the time makes that really tempting to figure out.
Maybe this very detailed playlist going through the construction of an entire hydro system from scratch would interest you, ruclips.net/p/PLEZ2hvCDKUpEvvgEy_b5C6UnYNslaYcik You also have similar head available as he does so it's a good indication for how much power you can expect.
Flexi should work ok, but probably more friction and turbulence, tho as you say, should be better on corners. You'll probably want to use something a lot fatter diameter tho if you want to get any decent flow, even with that head. Gravity is surprisingly low energy density unfortunately. Like; 1 kWh is 10 tonnes elevated 37m.
It's mostly a matter of friction against the flexi-pipe wall rather than 'bends', especially on relatively long runs compared to the small dia you have in mind. You can get 'long-bends' for drainage pipes, but those are mainly to get cleaning rods around corners rather than fluid flow issues. At a 10m run, with 6m head, anything bigger than 60mm dia shouldn't make too much % difference to flow available. Doubling to 120mm would give 4xflow, and frictional losses per unit of flow would be halved. 30mm pipe would be 1/4 the 60mm flow AND you would start to see significant friction losses. If you need to get maximum power from each unit of water, for that you need shortest/widest pipe for the available head, an efficient/matched generator, and generate power as close to the source as feasible (run power cables from that to your property/storage-batteries). You'll also gain from the extra head available.
That a clever system. A Bing search for (vortex-grit-removal) looks like something that would cost 2 or 3 feet of head and get rid of all the stones that would outright break your turbine blades and clean up a lot of sand that would wear the blades awfully fast. In the end, making molds from your plastic blades and injecting wax in the mold then making an investment casting the blades out of metal is the only thing that will stand up as a water turbine. I expect if you stay with it very long you will end up using bronze.
I expect a vertical 12 inch round pipe 2 or 3 feet tall with a horizontal inlet tangent to one side at the same level or below the vertical 3 or 4-inch outlet pipe, Tuning the height of the outlet pipe and the diameter of the trap should trade head loss for grit removal. The depth of the trap is a place to collect sans and rocks. I expect you will find turbines engineered for the water flow you male enough more power you can't afford not to make them.
like a rifle bore, create a spiral affect along the entire pipe. pick more of a vortex screw/ blade so it could be printed thicker. may limit shattering. possible to lose that precious RPM, but less down time can truly mean 24-7-365 power production. Looks good in a spreadsheet.
Don't be surprised if the h2o spins in the opposite direction than expected. I have found that vortexing vains can have a counterintuitive effect . It should spin one way, but it spins the other way instead.
We need the plans brotha, asap lol I'd definitely pay the money for it I've been following your stuff for awhile and I've been wanting those construction plans
Wow fantastic! I wonder if a boat propeller could be used with larger pipes (maybe a permanent dam like fixture) and an alternator from the same boat in order to produce a larger power output with more durable parts.
The design should be fairly arbitrarily scalable and yeah a boat prop or similar would probably do a fairly decent job. Haven't worked with boat alternators, but they seem to resemble car alts, which aren't permanent magnet and so not ideal. For larger versions something like a treadmill motor might work, they do middling volts per rev but the turbine spins pretty fast.
Kris Harbor in wales is building turbines. You may want collaborate with him! He doesn’t have the head water you do but your unique ideas may resonate! Good luck
Yeah I've been watching his videos a while now and was going to visit some mates in Wales this summer, might see if he's available. His turbine is a Turgo, which is for higher heads than mine (think he's got about 15-16m or similar, mine is meant for 2-5). But a lot of the principles are similar.
It’s about experimenting. We see thing in our minds eye! If we can find common knowledge we all gain. Kris is trying his best. You are too! Water is powerful stuff! Dig deep and explore the possibilities! At about 13:30 this gentleman throws a twist. HTTPS://ruclips.net/video/QSnHShly5R0/видео.html
There are some /great/ designs, but unfortunately 3D prints are only ~20% as strong as a proper injection-molded item of the same material. There's some neat ways to post-process a 3D print to get it up near 100% as strong (packed with powdered salt crucible, reheated to annealing point to remelt/solidify layers), but it's some additional work.
Look up Hatco 02.12.088.01 Fan Blade,Metal,3",Rh . Not sure what material this fan blade is made of but it appears to be aluminium or stainless. Figured I'd share to see if it could meet your needs. This fan blade appears to be approximately the same size as an 80mm computer fan from what I'm reading. I also found an identical fan in a 5" diameter that says it's made from aluminium. Part: Baxter 01-1000V8-00117 Fan Blade, 5" Diameter. These appear to be refrigeration / condenser fan blades. Look forward to seeing your progress! Good luck!
Interesting. I tried a steeper pitch fan on the Berlin build, it did about 20% less power than the standard PC fans, but your suggestion did lead me to this: www.partstown.com/silver-king/svk99196#id=spec which seems kind of maybe ideal. Slightly pricier.
@@OpenSourceLowTech you can see the casting marks and numbers on the center portion near where the shaft goes through. I’d be willing to bet it’s plastic based on what those look like
Quite possibly. I'll probably invest in a couple similar types and see how they go. Even if they are plastic, they only need to be a little stronger than the PC fans to hold up.
you should use spiral screw blade instead, because the angle of your water feed will easily destroy that kind of propeller type blade because all the water pressure is directly hitting your blade that counters it, screw blade will smoothly allow the flow of water
If you put another sliver of pipe say two inches long in front of the fan blade next size smaller that protect it against stones and increases of efficiency, also put a cone ideally or you could use a straight piece of pipe blocked off 3 " in the front of the fan the diameter of the Hub and the same on the back end that will increase its efficiency even further giving you're a better Venturi without turbulence
Please let us know about type of output circuit as well, and what else needs to be attached to get smooth electric power with your turbine. I hope what i have asked make sense.
The hoverboard wheels put out three phase AC, so that'll either go direct into a charge controller if it takes it, or more likely through a bridge rectifier first to convert to DC. The voltage is super stable, as the water speed is pretty much fixed. It's way easier to work with than a wind turbine, kind of more like solar, but 24/7.
Great vid Daniel, I love this sort of stuff, a what a great water flow u have. I do have a suggestion, and that is too consider an auger tube flight arrangement in single, double & maybe even triple flighting. The benefits With your near vertical drop are: 1) you will have less likelihood of block ups from rocks sticks etc. 2) by varying length, pitch and amount of flights added to the Auger type impeller , you will get different results, ie: speed, torque, etc. you could have an auger from 1 -20 foot long here, couldn’t you? Length gives torque, number of flight per shaft give you speed variations, ie: more flights, the slower the speed & torque probly goes up too, 1 flight will increase speed and reduce drag/friction which is another consideration here of what will work best for your situation and hopes for higher outputs. 3) dont make the auger fight too tight in tube, keep a bit of gap, it will still work fine and will have plenty of torque to help chew up ant bits of sticks n stuff that go through including rocks, to some degree. A farmer in the grain industry here in Queensland, Australia, once told me he tried to put a 12” petrol auger about 35’ long into a dam once to clean fertiliser out of it, and he said it nearly choked and blew off the end angle for grain to drop into bins/silo’s/ trucks, etc. He said he had to crack the throttle back so quick once it picked up the dam water, before it hit the end, and it pumped a huge volume of water like this. I believe this maybe a better answer here for you, with numerous benefits from this type of turbine arrangement, and while having some sort of bottom bearing support would be nice, I dont think this is completely necessary, but is simple to do anyhow, just a 3 prong/brace arrangement twisted sideways so not to restrict water flow, and support a bearing for centre spigot of Auger flight. Bearing could be a piece of drilled Nylon material. With what you have done, which looks awesome by the way, I am sure without much more materials and labour costs, you would find you could have a much more reliable and powerful turbine capable of probable so much more power with that sort of water flow. I am also a big proponent of using large supercapacitors for various output upgrades as another commenter has suggested to use capacitors. There are a number of different ways that capacitors can be used in a solar/ hydro system to obtain great benefits. What u have here is gold, great job guys! I am looking forward to seeing how this all progresses, thanks for sharing this great project info. I would love to have this water capability in my back yard.
I'll be trying several printed impellers, including a couple screw types. Will see how they go. I think something that long tho you'd lose a lot to friction with the water.
you might try a conical design like a lily impeller or one of those football shaped ones, rather than a standard fan blade. I'm not sure on off the self costs, but they're not too hard to make out of various materials, as I understand it. Seems like it would be more durable in this application though. just a thought.
Since you have the head pressure, why didn’t you try an easier route of using a Pelton wheel and a couple of jet nozzles your generator seems to be more in line with a river flow with little head pressure
if you're going to impart a spin on the water, then i think there might be a couple ways to get more torque out of the turbine. Shouldn't that allow you to get more power?
@@OpenSourceLowTech There is a huge gap between my knowledge and my ideas, so this it may sound dumb. If you trail some fins from the blade hub up the pipe, you should get a lot more torque. If you have more torque then you can use stronger magnets right? you'd probably have to do a lot of designing in 3d printing to get the ration of the fan blades and the "tentacles" to not create interference for each other. If I had any of the skills or equipment needed to attempt it, I would. I don't know what I don't know, but I think I'm on to something
I tried a stator turbine type approach in Berlin, but it ended up doing about 20% less power than with nothing. I'll be trialling some more exotic 3D printed runner shapes, will see how they do. As it is I'm fairly happy with the rpms/volts to torque/amps ratio, I'm pretty much just looking to squeeze out any extra efficiency and watts I can get.
Just moved to a cottage in Cornwall with a stream looking at a hydro system. May seem a stupid question but how do you work out what the drop is , it looks like about 3M, I am guessing that its border line for a hydro system. It doesn’t need to power the house , even if it trickle charges the battery we are intending to install , every little helps! Any advice greatly appreciated appreciated
I know you answered this multiple times, about 1 motor + multiple blade design. BUT, maybe it will Slow the blade spin speed down for Durability, and hopefully the extra torque can make up for the difference in power. This is probably not what you are after, ie simple small design, but for the readers out a large water wheel may be an option for simple Durable applications. Overshot Waterwheel Design, they are very nugget, no need to worry about debris. more complex / material large wheel design, but low / easy maintenance. Pitchback Water Wheel has better efficiency, same wheel design but needs a catchment channel bottom area.
I was wondering about using the power of siphon to pull water through a dyanmo at the top, instead of the bottom. Low budget, low power dyanmo that screws onto the hose at the top of the 300ft of siphoning hose.
Having a pool at the top and siphoning the water should eliminate your clogging issues. Debris either sinks or floats so putting your inflow pipe 250mm below water level should solve the problem, also the pool would provides a constant water level no matter stream flow rate.
There's quite a bit of suction on these, so pretty much anything anywhere near the inlet is going to get brought through. Still thinking about inlet filter options.
@@OpenSourceLowTech Idea: Take a sheet of Pvc and make it into a cone and attach it to a coupling OR steal (better used with smaller pipe but I'd give it a try) xwreflective.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Traffic-cone.jpg
Love the project and work, power generation for $50 is a no brainer, I have an RV on an off grid plot of land and want to keep the batteries charged (without using fossil fuels, what would you hook up to this generator, to turn it into a battery charger ?
It should more or less plug straight in to any charge controller or equivalent which is happy with the max volts and amps. You may need to put it through a three phase bridge rectifier first, depending on whether the box wants AC or DC.
Alphacool makes metal CPU fans you might be able to use. They'd probably last the longest. If anyone is building these at home, you should make a bypass valve and pipe for the turbine. Maybe even have a backup turbine with a 3 way system if you are depending on the energy generation.
Interesting, I'll keep an eye out for them. The heatshrink / bottle plastic reinforcement method does make the plastic ones pretty much indestructible tho. Bypass?
@@OpenSourceLowTech A bypass can allow you to control how much flow your turbines get if it's too much as well as make it possible to remove all flow if you need to work on it in like 4 feet of snow. Last town I lived in had that setup with 2 turbines and a bypass.
A Japanese school teacher is doing something similar but he uses a corkscrew a corkscrew is stronger than that propeller that you got it will be less likely to break maybe it's something to think about
i commented on your similar video but ill repast it here ..... just stumbled across this channel and havn't watched more yet ,have you considered using a pulley system in place of the motor to lift weights or even water to a perscribed height as a means of storage of potential power which can be then lowered using pulleys and gravity to power a generator as required , it would mean far less wear and tear on motors and an easier way of power storage than batteries and far more available and reliable in any situation
Great stuff. I can’t help but wonder why you didn’t opt for a more powerful turbine since you have such an abundance of water and flow. I guess it’s down to cost; bigger turbine means bigger electricity management systems, etc? Maybe you only need a little electricity. I think a steady 130 watts is ample if you can store it.
This scale kind of makes the most sense given general off the shelf availability of the materials and components. Aiming tho to have it be fairly easy to make smaller or bigger as needed.
Maybe try this : make the fan from pvc pipe that u cut earlier , make it flat , cut some slots , heat it up and bend (a lot ...make cuts as thin as possible (angle grinder disc etc) because u have to narrow blades so they dont have enough torque to spin the motor (u can try the Centrifugal type turbine) make the shaft from stainless steel rod (u can grind some tooth at the end and JB Weld etc the fan (turbine)maybe take some screw , drill it through , and glue it to the rod so u will get something to mount the turbine to and change it if needed use the ceramic bearings that u put in small pvc pipe etc where u add some plastic spacer (super tight) or rubber seal where most of the water hit it (intake) mounted inside using 3 strips of plastic etc.. then ad second bearing at the end before connecting the motor ,,, dont connect the motor to the shaft just like that .... use clutch like in cnc motors ...super simple to make , on the motor u mount the spacer etc with 2 or 3 pins and on the shaft with 2-3 slots then even if its not perfectly mounted on the motor it will still run perfectly straight because the bearing (dont need to be ceramic) glued to the cap hold it straight like that u can make rly good turbine ps there is a chance that inside the motor is 2x smaller magnets and coils ...some cheaper motors have less copper inside if u find perfect angle of the turbine (fan) it should output more power
Yeah, but real world topology often has other ideas. We've got the draft straight at least, and minimised corners in the input as much as possible. I'm aiming for something that works well enough in actual use, rather than needs to be optimal or nothing.
since you got a long outlet, why don't you use a screw type of blade, all the way to the exit, so you can extract more potential force due to the mass of water queuing in the screw blade?
I've 3D printed a couple types of short screw runners, will see how the go. A longer one tho would be fairly involved to fabricate and mount, and would increase friction. Also it would presumably trade off revs for torque, and I'd rather run this higher voltage lower amps.
Эта турбина с открытым исходным кодом может быть построена примерно за половину стоимости солнечной панели мощностью 120 Вт и будет производить примерно в десять раз больше энергии в день. Его можно подключить к любому подходящему водному пути без необходимости проведения земляных работ, и в нем используются только стандартные готовые и переработанные материалы, а также основные ручные инструменты. 2Обновлять; оптимизация и окончательная доработка конструкции турбины должны быть отложены до конца лета, пока мы делаем некоторые обновления на испытательном полигоне, но тем временем я собираюсь просто начать обучение по сборке и, возможно, вторая часть с оптимизацией. Так что есть что построить людям, которые ждали некоторое время..
So more generators steal momentum then can you add a tri pipe/gen supply but increase out flow pipe diameter. The cost would go up but triple the power output. Just trying to think it through. Incredible by the way what you are doing!!
More diameter would mean more power, up to the point that you exceed the water supply, but unless it's seriously huge you're still unlikely to max out the alternator, so still makes sense to just use the one. I'm also considering a manifold type outlet for very low head (ie ~1m) but high flow situations to just blast as much volume through the system as possible to compensate for the lack of gravitational potential.
You should check out "the fan showdown" on youtube. People 3d printing computer fans and compete what works best. Might be some good designs in there for you?
As I saw it, the turbine was attached at the TOP of a long vertical down-pipe. I would have thought the bottom, to use that extra 3 metres of head. No?
Nice build, thanks for sharing! It looks to me like $50 is too little to do a good job. I'd like to see the $500-1000 versions with heavier turbines and a better screen option. The one in my head would be more like a good pump used as a turbine instead of a fan. It needs to be heavier, also less corners on the pipe, the screen is tricky, perhaps the right pump choice with bigger stronger blades would help to allow more solids through. Then I would also consider a diverter for irrigation once batteries are charged... So much potential. I live in Canada and our hydro potential is through the roof. Unpowered dams with relatively low head but large flow abound near me. I'd like to see us tap into that potential in a good way. Solar is ok here but hydro is king here for a reason. Bountiful base load power
The impeller I'll be improving on with 3D printed options, for those with access to a printer, the screen as well but that's going to be a matter of some kind of cleverness I haven't quite thought of yet...
The place is very good. Therefore, I think here it is necessary to approach more seriously and fundamentally. To build an engineering-correct concreted section with well-thought-out technical channels here in this place, to build a covered room on a light frame and then bring water into the concrete channels. That is, to raise the idea to a decent engineering level.
Peltons and Turgos are good and effective, but only really at heads higher than 15-20m. Runner can be metal, including cast aluminium, if you're wanting to make one.
I often have to drain large volumes of water/fluid using siphons in 40-120mm dia. I never have to get 'wet' to start them. Connect a floppy tube to the outlet (bike/car/truck inner-tube) about 4-5 times the length of the dia, so that it 'collapses' flat under no/low pressure, drop that end in a bucket of water or drop it in a drain, so the 'open' end is submerged. Connect a 'T' pipe, small-bore pipe, somewhere near the highest point of the siphon, (arrange a valve on it so air does not suck back in) drop the 'suction' end of the main siphon in the fluid to be removed. Suck some air out of the small 'T' junction/valve, with a hose and hand pump. Eventually the fluid level reaches the tipping point and some flows down the outlet pipe; soon this flow entrains more air out through the outlet/rubber 'inner-tube' and the whole dynamic increases air removal, at this point you can stop sucking air out of the small 't', and the siphon rapidly reaches full flow. if you arrange the end bucket properly it blows off from the inner-tube (If the innertube is initially submerged in a drain/ditch no bucket is required). If you have several siphons (i.e. need to remove LOTS of fluid) you only have to start the first one (e.g. 40mm dia) once it is running you can connect it's suck/start pipe to the next/larger siphon and it will suck/start that one: repeat for each siphon. Leaving the innertubes connected does not restrict flow AND it prevents air back-flowing if flow rate is low.
That's sorta kinda what I had going in Berlin (check the Part 2 video), except pumping water in and with a lever flap valve instead of the tube, tho that is an interesting idea I hadn't thought of. In real world use tho I'd see this as being a straight down siphon, as opposed to the up-over-and down types I had to use on the first two due to coming over walls which wouldn't ideally be there.
@@OpenSourceLowTech As long as the tube isn't too long (or large/heavy) you can also use the 'inner-tubed' type (maybe flap valve too) to auto start the siphon by 'pumping' the inlet up and down in the source fluid. Then you don't need the 'T' suction/pump method. I have seen disc valves used on the inlet for the same 'pump start' process and that works on long tubes (small/house-hold aquarium siphons sometimes use these). For larger dia 120-200mm and long tubes I still use the 'T' off method, maybe 'pump' starting the 40mm primer for the initial suck/start provider. It's lazy, needs no power or manual pump, but very effective. There are dozens of natural and easy ways of starting siphons. I used to work at a youth club and during summer schemes I'd demo these methods to the various groups, it always surprised me how many of the parents were clueless/fascinated by the demos, nearly all only knew of the 'suck the end of the pipe' method, which I cannot recommend with some of the stuff I've had to drain; although some of the parents had mouths and lungs big enough if you get my drift.
![Blox Fruits Dragon Rework Update [Full Stream]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/EqDAp8udhm0/mqdefault.jpg)
Update; the optimisation and finalisation of the turbine design are going to have to wait til the end of the summer while we do some upgrades on the test site, but I'm going to just start in on the build tutorial in the meantime, and probably do a part two with the optimisations. So there's something for people to build who have been waiting a while now..
In the immediate term, here's a basic list of material needed:
docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1t3waIfeX9DJHoFF3sw-QL5JTSyStC_JXH09etDdG5oI/edit?usp=sharing
Thanks for sharing this and the information on the website. It is most appreciated.
I'm going to take this opportunity to get out ahead of the three most asked questions on this:
1: The turbine isn't better placed at the outlet, it's a momentum turbine, not pressure. It's most efficient above the draft tube.
2: Multiple turbines in the one pipe won't produce more power overall as they'd each steal momentum from each other, while doubling your material costs or more.
3: No you can't run a pump off the turbine and have the water flowing in an infinite loop between two tanks. I get asked this more than anything else.
Oh and bonus question yes the tutorial is in the works and will be available soon. I know I've been saying this a while now but things are steadily moving forward. I'm glad that so many folk are keen.
Any other questions tho please comment them here and I'll make sure to get back to you. Also if you just want to say hi to bump the algorithm, would be much appreciated as this channel is currently about the only thing paying my rent.
Thanks all.
Hi
About the first point. Can we run several dynamos in one pipe? Perhaps the pipe needs to be slightly modified and try to retain the momentum with gravity.
nice to see a video of the turbine again!, looking forward to see what results do you get from adding a prerotating stage, or as you call it verctorizer :P. I believe you should get a chunk more than 5 -10 % as the prerotating stage is what converts the pressure into speed, kind of like the nozzles in a pelton wheel (now that the pelton turbines are so popular between RUclipsrs). Keep in mind that with the prerotating stage the turbine will want to rotate quicker
@@javier3218 Hopefully.
Why not try the compressor blades from a scrap large turbo Diesel truck ??
Very happy to have some news from u ! cant wait for the info and see output voltage
Did one of these in a local dam spillway using a 16 spoon Pelton wheel and a 1000 watt motor I had shipped in from the states. Dld really well during the winter months combined with a 400 watt wind turbine and 400 Watts of solar also. Haven't had to use the grid for just under a year..
Nice.
I'm writing this comment in order to positively influence the algorithm so that the video creator receives additional video views and consequently money.
Thanks!
That is a great idea! 😊
Absolutely love what you are doing, but my two cents are, if this is to run 24/7 ,maintainance free, the turbine setup has to be much more sturdy. Maybe even look into outboard propellers, or even complete lower leg assembly off an old outboard. Just a thought, but again, very helpful video, much appreciated!
Very glad my channel is finally fixed so I can post this. Any questions let me know.
I'll be doing a quick how to build when I'm back in Scotland, and a full tutorial after that once it's optimised.
I will soon be going to the Philipines to Build a Little hut in the mountains and this water turbine is just THE solution for free Energy!!
Also almost every other video will be helping a lot!
I will be waiting for the tutorial on how to build exactly.
Thank you very very much for all the effort you‘re putting in!
I think there is a special place in heaven for people like you:)
Keep up the Good work
@@davidseiffert3999 Nice one.
Love your video mate. I’m in Scotland,and have a similar head of water ,and flow rate. Thanks for posting, you are really helping me to leapfrog ahead without having to go through all the painful trial and error which you share so freely. Good luck with your endeavours, you have a great outlook!👌
Glad to hear it.
So impressed! Your team is contributing so much to the world...with very little funding and it's inspirational. Thank you
Thanks.
I am happy to see the second video of this great project & I wish you good luck and more improvements.
Third, but cheers.
@ 1:20 U DON'T want undulation in your pipework...
The inlet screen need 2 B in non-aerated water with adequate supply;... so when it starts to siphon it pulls clean water & NO leaves;... bubbles...
Indeed.
Looking forward to the tutorial! My bro lives in Papua New Guinea, and people there could really benefit from something like this, by all acconts!
Bumping your algorithm, Love your stuff. i hope one day i have an off grid setup and can use all of your handy ideas! really envy the cool projects that you are apart of. imagine if someone funded you somehow
Not sure if you tried something like this, or fine tuned this, but 11:07, try a reducing coupling just before the fan to funnel the water inward to control where the small particular matter goes. This will force any small particles through the blades rather than the getting them on the outside. river flow water will always have small bits of sand, so you are essentially just sand blasting the fan blades and they will fail over time faster. you could try building a larger version of this and use a furnace fan, or something similar in metal to cut down the damage, but that all adds in some weight.
I like the simple genius of placing all the electronics out of the water...Not much water in the south of Australia here but I know getting 200w of constant power would make the lives of many ppl much easier....
Still working on the Tutorial for this water turbine? Just found this channel & all it's treasures.
Thanks. Yeah I'm just now in the process of finishing off the update to the wind turbine and I'll jump straight in on this soon as that's done.
@@OpenSourceLowTech Cool man, I'll be looking out for that one.
An Archimedes screw tipe propeller in the pipe will be a good choice, less speed but a lot of torque
Hey ! Cool to see you're still at it and progressing nicely, I remember the first video, and was excited to see how this turned out as I live beside a brook, practically no head unless I ran the pipe a couple kilometers to the mountain and that can't happen unfortunately.
I went fully off grid in 2016, only a 235w solar panel and a couple batteries, still, lol. Have another panel on the roof already to hook up but haven't bothered, once you're use to less, you don't need more, I guess :)
Good luck with your project!
I'm thinking of options for flat water, but it's a bit of a famous problem to solve. Is there any point where you have even only like 2m drop over not hugely much horizontal?
@@OpenSourceLowTech no, not even remotely, it's basically flat for a couple klms, and I'm the end of the line, once it passes my house it's around the corner and out to the watershed, then out to the river, flat the whole way. I had considered the piston pump idea, I think it's called, which works ok in flatwater to my limited knowledge
Also, the brook runs barely faster than a lazy river, barely over your foot deep... until it rains. Then it comes ups 6- 10ft and roars like a beast within a 12h + event... thru my house once in 2016, and nearly several times since, so realistically, sadly, thanks to vast swaths of relentless clearcutting upstream, my time here is quickly coming to a close. 💔
I'll still be following along though, as I desperately HOPE to find another spot with running water on site. I'm going to miss it too much to be happy 'landlocked' elsewhere.
That's rough, river doesn't seem a viable energy source, until it demolishes your house..
@@OpenSourceLowTech sad, but true. Cheers
I'm currently in Western Australia, been seeing the damage from the massive flooding out east, three 500 year rain events in a month..
Brutal. And yeah all the worse when it's at least partly due to incompetent land management upstream. Britain's also pretty bad for that.
wow looks like you opted for making all the beginner mistakes in the book, but as long as you take that as fun and persist you're bound to succeed . there are a lot of critics abound your system I could point to but I truly appreciate the idea of keeping it low cost (even if less efficient), low tech and more importantly open source !
good luck, you're almost there ;-)
I waterwheel work fine. With the flow they had 125 W should not be a problem. :-)
Been saying for years, we need to find a better way to generate hydro electricity, and to be able to do it without having to dam up rivers and waterways.
This is a good start in that direction.
The problem is scale. If they make this thing large enough then all the water would flow through it, and you end up with a natural dam. Small is fine, but bigger is less environmentally friendly.
Unfortunately, bigger also means more power, and it's cheaper to just put a bigger pipe and turbine in than it is to find another location and do an install from scratch. Also, there aren't many (any?) places left where a commercial installation makes sense in the developed world.
Staying tuned for the tutorial
Felicitaciones. Gracias por compartir. Atento al tutorial. Saludos desde Colombia, tengo una granja y me es de mucha utilidad!. Un abrazo
Real nice Mate Cheers. You could increase your output massively by adding, 3 or more Trompe pipes in series and using all that clean free compressed air, and put your turbine on the exit? I also have an idea for a self looping Trompe almost silent air compressor, to use with the Kinetic Boyancy Genorator.
That's awesome! Keen to check out your other projects as well now
It's nice to see one of your videos about the water turbine again! I was waiting for it for so long! I'm working on a similar project, would be nice to have a chat someday! :)
Sounds good, my email's on the website.
Very good, interesting channel, bumping your comments up for you buddy, love to see how this progresses
This rocks. Proof of concept, done. Any other improvements can evolve…
Thankyou for all your work NJ, USA
Great video with good explanations.
Can't wait for the wind turbine data. Great work, btw!
Dude. Thank you so much for sharing. I'm going to build a few of these for orphanages.
May I suggest using the blower head from a leaf blower? All you need is a momentary expansion below the impeller, to let the water flow. It is very durable and should do well in water, as most are made from aluminum and are balanced for very high speed.
That kind of centrifugal impeller is one of the first I tried, but turns out they don't reverse well. A couple of the 3D printed options I'll be trialling next tho do borrow from some of those principles, but (hopefully) more optimised for this kind of use.
@@OpenSourceLowTech check an old jet ski.
Love it! Great work and thanks for sharing. Looking forward to the details in the tutorial.
For the intake you need a Coanda screen.
Yeah that's currently the main problem to solve. Coandas seem to do a decent job, but I'm wanting something that doesn't require much to any earthworks if possible.
I like the easy setup. The siphon solution is easy, it is however bound to be inefficient.
I guess you would see great gains if this systen used the potential head pressure.
Can’t wait for the tutorial! Love your work 😁🙏
Wonderful video! Thanks for sharing
Great job !! Later, if we manage to make the design for 3D printing of our current powerspout turbine for 2 measurements, I will send it to you, it can be of great help to improve it for low-resource areas! Currently we achieve about 280w at 1.9m height, but improving the pipes and with a hooverboard generator we hope to reach 350w 24x7 (7-8kwh/day). We are also testing with different sizes of pipes (200-250), shapes at the outlet: cone, conch, etc.
Decent numbers, what kind of rate of flow?
I'm currently in Nepal, working with the university to more comprehensively test the various 3D printed runner and stator options. Will publish the results when I have them.
I have a 10-month creek on my property with a ~16m head on it, and I've been following for ideas of using your concept to provide power for the property. Is there a specific reason you use straight piping? I'm considering using 2.5-4cm flexible agricultural irrigation piping for my run, and running the piping into a barn that is 10m from the creek, about 6m of head below the intake. At a guess, there would be less momentum losses from the flexible piping than from the angled joints?
I'm also intensely interested in non-battery methods of power storage, such as gravity storage. Having a 20m tall barn that is empty most of the time makes that really tempting to figure out.
Maybe this very detailed playlist going through the construction of an entire hydro system from scratch would interest you, ruclips.net/p/PLEZ2hvCDKUpEvvgEy_b5C6UnYNslaYcik
You also have similar head available as he does so it's a good indication for how much power you can expect.
Flexi should work ok, but probably more friction and turbulence, tho as you say, should be better on corners.
You'll probably want to use something a lot fatter diameter tho if you want to get any decent flow, even with that head.
Gravity is surprisingly low energy density unfortunately. Like; 1 kWh is 10 tonnes elevated 37m.
It's mostly a matter of friction against the flexi-pipe wall rather than 'bends', especially on relatively long runs compared to the small dia you have in mind. You can get 'long-bends' for drainage pipes, but those are mainly to get cleaning rods around corners rather than fluid flow issues. At a 10m run, with 6m head, anything bigger than 60mm dia shouldn't make too much % difference to flow available. Doubling to 120mm would give 4xflow, and frictional losses per unit of flow would be halved. 30mm pipe would be 1/4 the 60mm flow AND you would start to see significant friction losses.
If you need to get maximum power from each unit of water, for that you need shortest/widest pipe for the available head, an efficient/matched generator, and generate power as close to the source as feasible (run power cables from that to your property/storage-batteries). You'll also gain from the extra head available.
That a clever system. A Bing search for (vortex-grit-removal) looks like something that would cost 2 or 3 feet of head and get rid of all the stones that would outright break your turbine blades and clean up a lot of sand that would wear the blades awfully fast. In the end, making molds from your plastic blades and injecting wax in the mold then making an investment casting the blades out of metal is the only thing that will stand up as a water turbine. I expect if you stay with it very long you will end up using bronze.
A centrifugal filter would likely do a decent job, but I'm still hoping for something a bit easier to build and implement.
Same for the impellers.
I expect a vertical 12 inch round pipe 2 or 3 feet tall with a horizontal inlet tangent to one side at the same level or below the vertical 3 or 4-inch outlet pipe, Tuning the height of the outlet pipe and the diameter of the trap should trade head loss for grit removal. The depth of the trap is a place to collect sans and rocks.
I expect you will find turbines engineered for the water flow you male enough more power you can't afford not to make them.
Thanks for the video very informative
like a rifle bore, create a spiral affect along the entire pipe. pick more of a vortex screw/ blade so it could be printed thicker. may limit shattering. possible to lose that precious RPM, but less down time can truly mean 24-7-365 power production. Looks good in a spreadsheet.
Check the most recent video in Nepal for more or less that, tho rifling is an interesting idea..
In addition to getting a turbo impellor off of a diesel truck, you might also be able to use the heavy duty alternator as a generator head
Don't be surprised if the h2o spins in the opposite direction than expected. I have found that vortexing vains can have a counterintuitive effect . It should spin one way, but it spins the other way instead.
Fluid dynamics is voodoo.
We need the plans brotha, asap lol I'd definitely pay the money for it I've been following your stuff for awhile and I've been wanting those construction plans
I'll be doing a quick build video soon as I'm back in Scotland, full tutorial to follow once it's optimised etc.
Wow fantastic! I wonder if a boat propeller could be used with larger pipes (maybe a permanent dam like fixture) and an alternator from the same boat in order to produce a larger power output with more durable parts.
The design should be fairly arbitrarily scalable and yeah a boat prop or similar would probably do a fairly decent job.
Haven't worked with boat alternators, but they seem to resemble car alts, which aren't permanent magnet and so not ideal.
For larger versions something like a treadmill motor might work, they do middling volts per rev but the turbine spins pretty fast.
Much appreciated! Keep up the good work man.
Looking forward to seeing the tutorial 👍
New subscriber here.. From Philippines
In order to make calculations to adapt the design to other enviroments, it's needed to know: flow rate and head height. CHEERS!!
I've not had a chance to accurately measure this location yet, but it's about 30 l/s and 4-5m.
@@OpenSourceLowTech thank you for your response!
And you get about 1200W/h at 36V right??
This one's currently doing about 120W / ~3kWh/day @ 40VDC(r) x 3A.
But I'm hoping with optimisation that will increase some.
Great work guys 👍
Kris Harbor in wales is building turbines. You may want collaborate with him!
He doesn’t have the head water you do but your unique ideas may resonate!
Good luck
Yeah I've been watching his videos a while now and was going to visit some mates in Wales this summer, might see if he's available.
His turbine is a Turgo, which is for higher heads than mine (think he's got about 15-16m or similar, mine is meant for 2-5).
But a lot of the principles are similar.
It’s about experimenting. We see thing in our minds eye! If we can find common knowledge we all gain.
Kris is trying his best. You are too! Water is powerful stuff!
Dig deep and explore the possibilities!
At about 13:30 this gentleman throws a twist.
HTTPS://ruclips.net/video/QSnHShly5R0/видео.html
I don't have money to donate for your great cost but I am not skipping any advertisements in your channel hehe
That's plenty, cheers.
Try getting a jet ski impeller in place of the fans just remember to mount it backwards.
Yeah bit tricky to get in just the right size, but definitely strong and efficient enough.
Absolutely great low impact
Great follow up. I bet there's a 3D printed design out there, or someone prepared to do it...
That'll be the next day I'm back.
There are some /great/ designs, but unfortunately 3D prints are only ~20% as strong as a proper injection-molded item of the same material. There's some neat ways to post-process a 3D print to get it up near 100% as strong (packed with powdered salt crucible, reheated to annealing point to remelt/solidify layers), but it's some additional work.
Look up Hatco 02.12.088.01 Fan Blade,Metal,3",Rh . Not sure what material this fan blade is made of but it appears to be aluminium or stainless. Figured I'd share to see if it could meet your needs. This fan blade appears to be approximately the same size as an 80mm computer fan from what I'm reading. I also found an identical fan in a 5" diameter that says it's made from aluminium. Part: Baxter 01-1000V8-00117 Fan Blade, 5" Diameter. These appear to be refrigeration / condenser fan blades. Look forward to seeing your progress! Good luck!
Interesting. I tried a steeper pitch fan on the Berlin build, it did about 20% less power than the standard PC fans, but your suggestion did lead me to this:
www.partstown.com/silver-king/svk99196#id=spec
which seems kind of maybe ideal. Slightly pricier.
@@OpenSourceLowTech still appears to be plastic so hopefully it doesn’t break. I’d go aluminum if plastic is already giving you problems personally
It's hard to tell. The weight is listed as 227g, which makes me think it's metal, tho no idea which.
@@OpenSourceLowTech you can see the casting marks and numbers on the center portion near where the shaft goes through. I’d be willing to bet it’s plastic based on what those look like
Quite possibly. I'll probably invest in a couple similar types and see how they go. Even if they are plastic, they only need to be a little stronger than the PC fans to hold up.
Great video, I was thinking about making a set of pools by levels to get the most amount of energy.
you should use spiral screw blade instead, because the angle of your water feed will easily destroy that kind of propeller type blade because all the water pressure is directly hitting your blade that counters it, screw blade will smoothly allow the flow of water
Will test.
If you put another sliver of pipe say two inches long in front of the fan blade next size smaller that protect it against stones and increases of efficiency, also put a cone ideally or you could use a straight piece of pipe blocked off 3 " in the front of the fan the diameter of the Hub and the same on the back end that will increase its efficiency even further giving you're a better Venturi without turbulence
Please let us know about type of output circuit as well, and what else needs to be attached to get smooth electric power with your turbine. I hope what i have asked make sense.
The hoverboard wheels put out three phase AC, so that'll either go direct into a charge controller if it takes it, or more likely through a bridge rectifier first to convert to DC.
The voltage is super stable, as the water speed is pretty much fixed. It's way easier to work with than a wind turbine, kind of more like solar, but 24/7.
Thank you so much.
May be worth looking at a bubble curtain to screen off leaves etc - works with plastic may not work with leaves
Link?
@@OpenSourceLowTech ruclips.net/video/MMRusLzTOwk/видео.html
Great vid Daniel, I love this sort of stuff, a what a great water flow u have. I do have a suggestion, and that is too consider an auger tube flight arrangement in single, double & maybe even triple flighting. The benefits With your near vertical drop are: 1) you will have less likelihood of block ups from rocks sticks etc. 2) by varying length, pitch and amount of flights added to the Auger type impeller , you will get different results, ie: speed, torque, etc. you could have an auger from 1 -20 foot long here, couldn’t you? Length gives torque, number of flight per shaft give you speed variations, ie: more flights, the slower the speed & torque probly goes up too, 1 flight will increase speed and reduce drag/friction which is another consideration here of what will work best for your situation and hopes for higher outputs. 3) dont make the auger fight too tight in tube, keep a bit of gap, it will still work fine and will have plenty of torque to help chew up ant bits of sticks n stuff that go through including rocks, to some degree.
A farmer in the grain industry here in Queensland, Australia, once told me he tried to put a 12” petrol auger about 35’ long into a dam once to clean fertiliser out of it, and he said it nearly choked and blew off the end angle for grain to drop into bins/silo’s/ trucks, etc. He said he had to crack the throttle back so quick once it picked up the dam water, before it hit the end, and it pumped a huge volume of water like this. I believe this maybe a better answer here for you, with numerous benefits from this type of turbine arrangement, and while having some sort of bottom bearing support would be nice, I dont think this is completely necessary, but is simple to do anyhow, just a 3 prong/brace arrangement twisted sideways so not to restrict water flow, and support a bearing for centre spigot of Auger flight. Bearing could be a piece of drilled Nylon material.
With what you have done, which looks awesome by the way, I am sure without much more materials and labour costs, you would find you could have a much more reliable and powerful turbine capable of probable so much more power with that sort of water flow.
I am also a big proponent of using large supercapacitors for various output upgrades as another commenter has suggested to use capacitors. There are a number of different ways that capacitors can be used in a solar/ hydro system to obtain great benefits. What u have here is gold, great job guys! I am looking forward to seeing how this all progresses, thanks for sharing this great project info. I would love to have this water capability in my back yard.
I'll be trying several printed impellers, including a couple screw types. Will see how they go.
I think something that long tho you'd lose a lot to friction with the water.
you might try a conical design like a lily impeller or one of those football shaped ones, rather than a standard fan blade. I'm not sure on off the self costs, but they're not too hard to make out of various materials, as I understand it. Seems like it would be more durable in this application though. just a thought.
I've got two lilies 3D printed ready to test when I'm back in a couple weeks. Interested to see how they do.
Since you have the head pressure, why didn’t you try an easier route of using a Pelton wheel and a couple of jet nozzles your generator seems to be more in line with a river flow with little head pressure
Need to source some small metal props. Like for small trolling motors or something.
if you're going to impart a spin on the water, then i think there might be a couple ways to get more torque out of the turbine. Shouldn't that allow you to get more power?
Fluid dynamics is essentially voodoo, so the only way to know is try it and see what happens, but I'm hoping at least a little.
@@OpenSourceLowTech There is a huge gap between my knowledge and my ideas, so this it may sound dumb. If you trail some fins from the blade hub up the pipe, you should get a lot more torque. If you have more torque then you can use stronger magnets right? you'd probably have to do a lot of designing in 3d printing to get the ration of the fan blades and the "tentacles" to not create interference for each other. If I had any of the skills or equipment needed to attempt it, I would. I don't know what I don't know, but I think I'm on to something
I tried a stator turbine type approach in Berlin, but it ended up doing about 20% less power than with nothing. I'll be trialling some more exotic 3D printed runner shapes, will see how they do.
As it is I'm fairly happy with the rpms/volts to torque/amps ratio, I'm pretty much just looking to squeeze out any extra efficiency and watts I can get.
Just moved to a cottage in Cornwall with a stream looking at a hydro system. May seem a stupid question but how do you work out what the drop is , it looks like about 3M, I am guessing that its border line for a hydro system.
It doesn’t need to power the house , even if it trickle charges the battery we are intending to install , every little helps! Any advice greatly appreciated appreciated
I know you answered this multiple times, about 1 motor + multiple blade design.
BUT, maybe it will Slow the blade spin speed down for Durability, and hopefully the extra torque can make up for the difference in power.
This is probably not what you are after, ie simple small design, but for the readers out a large water wheel may be an option for simple Durable applications.
Overshot Waterwheel Design, they are very nugget, no need to worry about debris. more complex / material large wheel design, but low / easy maintenance.
Pitchback Water Wheel has better efficiency, same wheel design but needs a catchment channel bottom area.
Wow looks really useful
Excelente muchas gracias!!
Try an Archdiocese Screw type.
I was wondering about using the power of siphon to pull water through a dyanmo at the top, instead of the bottom.
Low budget, low power dyanmo that screws onto the hose at the top of the 300ft of siphoning hose.
Having a pool at the top and siphoning the water should eliminate your clogging issues.
Debris either sinks or floats so putting your inflow pipe 250mm below water level should solve the problem, also the pool would provides a constant water level no matter stream flow rate.
There's quite a bit of suction on these, so pretty much anything anywhere near the inlet is going to get brought through.
Still thinking about inlet filter options.
@@OpenSourceLowTech Flare out the end reducing the PSI, also point intake down stream
@@OpenSourceLowTech Idea: Take a sheet of Pvc and make it into a cone and attach it to a coupling OR steal (better used with smaller pipe but I'd give it a try)
xwreflective.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Traffic-cone.jpg
Love the project and work, power generation for $50 is a no brainer, I have an RV on an off grid plot of land and want to keep the batteries charged (without using fossil fuels, what would you hook up to this generator, to turn it into a battery charger ?
It should more or less plug straight in to any charge controller or equivalent which is happy with the max volts and amps. You may need to put it through a three phase bridge rectifier first, depending on whether the box wants AC or DC.
How come the vortex effect to enhance efficiency was not taken into account from the get-go?
Alphacool makes metal CPU fans you might be able to use. They'd probably last the longest. If anyone is building these at home, you should make a bypass valve and pipe for the turbine. Maybe even have a backup turbine with a 3 way system if you are depending on the energy generation.
Interesting, I'll keep an eye out for them.
The heatshrink / bottle plastic reinforcement method does make the plastic ones pretty much indestructible tho.
Bypass?
@@OpenSourceLowTech A bypass can allow you to control how much flow your turbines get if it's too much as well as make it possible to remove all flow if you need to work on it in like 4 feet of snow. Last town I lived in had that setup with 2 turbines and a bypass.
Yeah. Would depend on the specifics of the water supply etc. Some kind of basic gate valve or the like would do similar.
A Japanese school teacher is doing something similar but he uses a corkscrew a corkscrew is stronger than that propeller that you got it will be less likely to break maybe it's something to think about
Trickier to fabricate but I'll be trying a couple 3D printed options.
Got a link for the Japanese project?
Hi, enjoying your videos and hopefully helping pay the rent. Cheers!
i commented on your similar video but ill repast it here ..... just stumbled across this channel and havn't watched more yet ,have you considered using a pulley system in place of the motor to lift weights or even water to a perscribed height as a means of storage of potential power which can be then lowered using pulleys and gravity to power a generator as required , it would mean far less wear and tear on motors and an easier way of power storage than batteries and far more available and reliable in any situation
Great stuff. I can’t help but wonder why you didn’t opt for a more powerful turbine since you have such an abundance of water and flow. I guess it’s down to cost; bigger turbine means bigger electricity management systems, etc? Maybe you only need a little electricity. I think a steady 130 watts is ample if you can store it.
This scale kind of makes the most sense given general off the shelf availability of the materials and components.
Aiming tho to have it be fairly easy to make smaller or bigger as needed.
Отлично сделано, успехов вам
what about using the airflow to turn the turbine, that way you won't have to worry about contamination, you have plenty of drop to create suction
Maybe try this :
make the fan from pvc pipe that u cut earlier , make it flat , cut some slots , heat it up and bend (a lot ...make cuts as thin as possible (angle grinder disc etc) because u have to narrow blades so they dont have enough torque to spin the motor (u can try the Centrifugal type turbine)
make the shaft from stainless steel rod (u can grind some tooth at the end and JB Weld etc the fan (turbine)maybe take some screw , drill it through , and glue it to the rod so u will get something to mount the turbine to and change it if needed
use the ceramic bearings that u put in small pvc pipe etc where u add some plastic spacer (super tight) or rubber seal where most of the water hit it (intake) mounted inside using 3 strips of plastic etc..
then ad second bearing at the end before connecting the motor ,,, dont connect the motor to the shaft just like that .... use clutch like in cnc motors
...super simple to make , on the motor u mount the spacer etc with 2 or 3 pins and on the shaft with 2-3 slots then even if its not perfectly mounted on the motor it will still run perfectly straight because the bearing (dont need to be ceramic) glued to the cap hold it straight
like that u can make rly good turbine
ps
there is a chance that inside the motor is 2x smaller magnets and coils ...some cheaper motors have less copper inside
if u find perfect angle of the turbine (fan) it should output more power
Have you looked into Viktor Schauberger's designs?
Yeah, two of the 3D printed runners I'll be trialling when I get back are logarithmic spiral lily types. Looking forward to seeing how they do.
@@OpenSourceLowTech I'd be irresistibly tempted to rig a straight drop. Every bend imposes turbulence that impedes flow.
Yeah, but real world topology often has other ideas. We've got the draft straight at least, and minimised corners in the input as much as possible.
I'm aiming for something that works well enough in actual use, rather than needs to be optimal or nothing.
since you got a long outlet, why don't you use a screw type of blade, all the way to the exit, so you can extract more potential force due to the mass of water queuing in the screw blade?
I've 3D printed a couple types of short screw runners, will see how the go. A longer one tho would be fairly involved to fabricate and mount, and would increase friction. Also it would presumably trade off revs for torque, and I'd rather run this higher voltage lower amps.
Have you thought about putting something in the pipe to make the water spin in the direction of the turbine?
Yep, will be testing it soon.
Excellent
Maybe plastic is the wrong solution? Possibly printing in another substrate may help correct the conundrum
Эта турбина с открытым исходным кодом может быть построена примерно за половину стоимости солнечной панели мощностью 120 Вт и будет производить примерно в десять раз больше энергии в день. Его можно подключить к любому подходящему водному пути без необходимости проведения земляных работ, и в нем используются только стандартные готовые и переработанные материалы, а также основные ручные инструменты.
2Обновлять; оптимизация и окончательная доработка конструкции турбины должны быть отложены до конца лета, пока мы делаем некоторые обновления на испытательном полигоне, но тем временем я собираюсь просто начать обучение по сборке и, возможно, вторая часть с оптимизацией. Так что есть что построить людям, которые ждали некоторое время..
So more generators steal momentum then can you add a tri pipe/gen supply but increase out flow pipe diameter. The cost would go up but triple the power output. Just trying to think it through. Incredible by the way what you are doing!!
More diameter would mean more power, up to the point that you exceed the water supply, but unless it's seriously huge you're still unlikely to max out the alternator, so still makes sense to just use the one.
I'm also considering a manifold type outlet for very low head (ie ~1m) but high flow situations to just blast as much volume through the system as possible to compensate for the lack of gravitational potential.
Bump Bump 🙋🏽♂️
You should check out "the fan showdown" on youtube. People 3d printing computer fans and compete what works best. Might be some good designs in there for you?
Yeah quite possibly.
As I saw it, the turbine was attached at the TOP of a long vertical down-pipe. I would have thought the bottom, to use that extra 3 metres of head. No?
With a high drop with debris why not put a few water wheels in to generate power . you could stack them
Nice build, thanks for sharing! It looks to me like $50 is too little to do a good job. I'd like to see the $500-1000 versions with heavier turbines and a better screen option.
The one in my head would be more like a good pump used as a turbine instead of a fan. It needs to be heavier, also less corners on the pipe, the screen is tricky, perhaps the right pump choice with bigger stronger blades would help to allow more solids through. Then I would also consider a diverter for irrigation once batteries are charged... So much potential. I live in Canada and our hydro potential is through the roof. Unpowered dams with relatively low head but large flow abound near me. I'd like to see us tap into that potential in a good way. Solar is ok here but hydro is king here for a reason. Bountiful base load power
The impeller I'll be improving on with 3D printed options, for those with access to a printer, the screen as well but that's going to be a matter of some kind of cleverness I haven't quite thought of yet...
The place is very good. Therefore, I think here it is necessary to approach more seriously and fundamentally. To build an engineering-correct concreted section with well-thought-out technical channels here in this place, to build a covered room on a light frame and then bring water into the concrete channels. That is, to raise the idea to a decent engineering level.
try a pelton type of blade system and of you can make an aluminum blade prototype
Peltons and Turgos are good and effective, but only really at heads higher than 15-20m.
Runner can be metal, including cast aluminium, if you're wanting to make one.
I often have to drain large volumes of water/fluid using siphons in 40-120mm dia. I never have to get 'wet' to start them. Connect a floppy tube to the outlet (bike/car/truck inner-tube) about 4-5 times the length of the dia, so that it 'collapses' flat under no/low pressure, drop that end in a bucket of water or drop it in a drain, so the 'open' end is submerged. Connect a 'T' pipe, small-bore pipe, somewhere near the highest point of the siphon, (arrange a valve on it so air does not suck back in) drop the 'suction' end of the main siphon in the fluid to be removed. Suck some air out of the small 'T' junction/valve, with a hose and hand pump. Eventually the fluid level reaches the tipping point and some flows down the outlet pipe; soon this flow entrains more air out through the outlet/rubber 'inner-tube' and the whole dynamic increases air removal, at this point you can stop sucking air out of the small 't', and the siphon rapidly reaches full flow. if you arrange the end bucket properly it blows off from the inner-tube (If the innertube is initially submerged in a drain/ditch no bucket is required).
If you have several siphons (i.e. need to remove LOTS of fluid) you only have to start the first one (e.g. 40mm dia) once it is running you can connect it's suck/start pipe to the next/larger siphon and it will suck/start that one: repeat for each siphon.
Leaving the innertubes connected does not restrict flow AND it prevents air back-flowing if flow rate is low.
That's sorta kinda what I had going in Berlin (check the Part 2 video), except pumping water in and with a lever flap valve instead of the tube, tho that is an interesting idea I hadn't thought of.
In real world use tho I'd see this as being a straight down siphon, as opposed to the up-over-and down types I had to use on the first two due to coming over walls which wouldn't ideally be there.
@@OpenSourceLowTech As long as the tube isn't too long (or large/heavy) you can also use the 'inner-tubed' type (maybe flap valve too) to auto start the siphon by 'pumping' the inlet up and down in the source fluid. Then you don't need the 'T' suction/pump method. I have seen disc valves used on the inlet for the same 'pump start' process and that works on long tubes (small/house-hold aquarium siphons sometimes use these).
For larger dia 120-200mm and long tubes I still use the 'T' off method, maybe 'pump' starting the 40mm primer for the initial suck/start provider. It's lazy, needs no power or manual pump, but very effective.
There are dozens of natural and easy ways of starting siphons.
I used to work at a youth club and during summer schemes I'd demo these methods to the various groups, it always surprised me how many of the parents were clueless/fascinated by the demos, nearly all only knew of the 'suck the end of the pipe' method, which I cannot recommend with some of the stuff I've had to drain; although some of the parents had mouths and lungs big enough if you get my drift.
My second question is electricity can also be generated right? If yes then thanks for this 2combination