/diy/ - Do It Yourself

[Anonymous No.370381]

So there is this little creek by my place and there are a lot of spots in it that have a pretty strong 1-foot drop waterfall.

Is there anyway I can harness this power for ANYTHING? Preferably storing the energy some where somewhere. I have a lot of small motors maybe to make a generator, but I don't even know how to begin.

Any help is appreciated.

[Anonymous No.370382]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_wheel

[Anonymous No.370386]

>>370382
Yeah well basically that, but I don't know how the hell to do it and what to do

[Pinzfag. No.370405]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQYDHiMa_bY

[Anonymous No.370429]

Put a paddle wheel underneath the waterfall. What's not to understand?

As for the power you can generate from it, you might be able to run an LED flashlight for 30 minutes or something.

[Anonymous No.370432]

Cool freshwater source for moonshin'n

[Anonymous No.370464]

You can always go the easy-ish way, get a windmill water pump, hook up the windmill to a waterwheel, attach the pump to the water and pump water up to a large cavity/pond to store potential energy. Then just get a turbine or such, hook it up to a small battery bank or such. Instant fast charger/ waterpool in an less than obvious place, hidden swimming hole.

[Anonymous No.370466]

>>370464
Jesus, just get a wind turbine and fuck the rest.

[Pinzfag. No.370471]

>>370464
>what is ram pump.

[Anonymous No.370472]

>>370381
A wide water wheel hooked to a gear/pulley system to give more RPMs and torque to a small generator will work enough to charge a battery array. You'll need the standard stuff to help do it. Water wheel, generator, bridge rectifier, charge controller, and battery array.

The trick is to match the gear ratio to the motor and size of the water wheel for the volts you need to get out of the generator for your battery array. Beyond that the amount of water you have will determine how many volts you'll get.

There's more to it than that, but that will get you started in the right direction at least.

[Anonymous No.370579]

>>370472
The gear ratio needed to drive a generator can be ridiculous! Wide water wheels are best for pumping and other low-RPM mechanical tasks.

Most micro-hydro generators use a Pelton wheel, which spins very fast. A Pelton wheel is effectively a bunch of spoons. Water is squirted directly into them using a nozzle. At least 20 PSI is needed to efficiently generate electricity.

[Big Profits Small Spaces No.371529]

If you had the budget OP you could use a series of small water wheels to power pumps which would pump water up hill into a cistern. Then when you really needed some heavy duty power you open the cistern up and it powers your heavy duty water wheel.

As always though you might run afoul of local laws especially the fisheries department.

An alternative is something the Amish use to store compressed air to power their tools. Not sure on the schematics myself.

[Anonymous No.371542]

>>370579
>The gear ratio needed to drive a generator can be ridiculous!

It isn't ridiculous, but it does need to be large. I've done this sort of thing before for VAWTs and all you need is good torque and a good ratio. You need 3 gears/pulleys. A tiny one, a large one, and a idler. The idler helps keep the belt or chain around more of the tiny gear/pulley to keep it from slipping.

A Pelton wheel won't work in the OP's application because the head is way too low. A torque-based system, using big paddles or large buckets on the wheel so that is uses weight to move the system is what is needed when the head is so low.

[Anonymous No.371550]

I'd suggest using a cross-flow turbine. The amount of power you'd get is really limited though. Perhaps charging a couple of batteries in parallell-serial to give you a semi-reliable 24/48 VDC off-grid power supply.