Seth, have you considered developing your seeps... Great vids on hand drilling using galvanized couplings cut with a band saw, attached to PVC and drill..? Great vid looking forward to more!!!
By replacing the reservoir at the top with something way bigger (aka a pond), you may modulate the flow of water depending of the need of the battery charger. To say it another way, instead of storing energy into the battery, witch is costly, better to store it by retaining the water on top. Regulation of the produced power can be done by automation of your 4 valves inside the PVC box, using servo motors,.
If he would have made a pond, he would have had to apply for an E.P.A. permit quite possibly and then there would need to have a Registered Civil P.E. to do a study on what would be impacted environmentally through a computer simulation etc. That would be in the upwards of 50 to 100 thousand dollars depending on many factors respectively.
Interesting, thanks for the video. 1 comment: Consider connecting your batteries in parallel, then in series.. helps better balance the cell load. Probably not important for AGM but is for lifo.
@David James I'n not upset at all. I've basically shown you the hypocrisy within your own statements, which you either unable to see or unwilling to admit to.
Pro tip: do not just discard the material that ends up at the bottom of your wooden box without first panning it to check for gold content. Just put a removable plastic box at the bottom of what you already have and then lift it out, dump it in a tailings bag and when you have collected enough, go pan it out. Who knows, your stream might run past a gold bearing source that wears down into the water over time.
@Escape.Idiocracy I thought the same thing. Next video... "How I ditched my Awesome Mountain Hydroelectric Power and installed a self-panning gold farm!"
Have you considered a float switch in the barrel and PID controller to adjust dynamically the turbine valves? It's a fair bit more complexity but it would allow you to get the most power out of your system without losing it to the overflow
Your videos make me wish I lived closer to a stream. Some suggestions for your hydro-electric system: 1 I know you know this but, place your generator as absolutely far downhill as possible and the water collection tank as close to the source as possible for maximum drop. 2 Try to triangulate-brace the support structures under the water lines. It might help prevent some collapsing. Could the Inside End of the overflow pipe on the hydro-electric water collection tank be positioned within a couple inches of the bottom of the tank so it'll draw at least some of the sediment from the bottom and eject it? Keep up the inspiring work.
For someone who is not an electrician you've done a pretty darn good job. Im not only talking about the electrical workmanship, but, putting up the whole install. Its the whole bells and whistles from source, electrical generation (Solar,Hydro,Grid) down to distribution. Its practically a mini power Plant.. Salute to you sir. Coming from an electrical engineer.
@joeabad5908 I am very interested in learning electrical engineering. My degree is in Political science, so I have no electrical engineering experience, nor do I know anyone (still alive) who does who could advise me. I have learned basic electrical skills, like adding circuits in my home for lights, outlets, a new oven, etc. around my home, but that’s it so far. Are there any books that u would recommend where I should start learning? My interest is personal, not professional- I want to learn for my own sake. I am especially interested for the purpose of eventually building my own home and living “off the grid”. I’d truly appreciate any recommendations or advice you r willing to share! Thank you!
@Jeff Cossaboon It would depend on the tolerance requirements, which typically would be +/-3%. It also depends on how much current you want available. As you draw more current, the voltage will drop proportionally, which could be managed by increasing the size of the wire.
About a year ago, i started playing with the idea of generating power from a little creek next to our cabin up in the mountains here in Norway. After some heavy googeling i ended up here at your channel. I love the way you present your projects, and you have inspired me to go on with this idea, and now this weekend i charged our battery for the first time with power generated in the creek. Fun part is that i have created this whole system almost for free using parts other was going to toss away. I have bought a few different generators on ebay, and are going to build with both Turgo and Pelton wheels to test. First test was with a Turgo where i have no info att all on the generator, only know its an 1 phase AC type. Next on list is building a housing for the generator and setting up the electrical system. I har like 0 knowlege on this matter when the idea startet, end i have leadned a lot as the project have been moveing along. Thanks to you, there are quite a few "errors" i got to skip from watching your videos.
1:34 😯 You should sift and pan the silt, sediment and rocks from that box. Never know what kind of interesting things might turn up! 🙂 Great setup and thanks for the in depth walk through of your system.👍
To me, the problem was not so much the wire mess than the exposed connections. Just because it's in the basement doesn't mean something isn't going to end on those contacts. You even had the experience of the mouse ! Also, i hope those exposed wirenuts are supposed to be in that tee box, otherwise they might corrode away, especially if always under tension. Also, an idea to prevent problems with expansions/contractions would be to have a sloped loop held on a platform of some kind that would allow for expansion/contraction movement while still plugged in. Great video, all in one !
in winter it would help to let the water circulate in the pipes even if you're not using the turbine, flowing water does not freeze ! i've never encountered such an amount of expansion/contraction yet i've done installs in high altitude cold climates
Love your set up, I can definitely tell that you have put a lot of thought into it and I admire that it has very little impact on the surrounding environment. Definitely something to brag about even though it may need a little bit of touching up, it’s still working and that’s great, thanks so much for posting!!!!
I love this project and am about to do basically the same setup. Any chance you could put together a schematic so I can have better guide to design my system? Also, which batteries are you planning to upgrade to? Keep up the great work :)
I have a similar setup but I’m using a Harris Pelton from Kansas Wind Power and with one 5/16” nozzle at 58psi I’m getting 350watts. I would get a bit more if I replaced the bronze pelton wheel that’s been running continuously since 2008. The cups are worn smooth so some efficiency is lost. They have a new model with stainless pelton wheel that I would get if I was starting over. The unit in this video seems to be a bit missing some efficiency.
At my job they use a hot knife style system that melts the pipe and then its pushed together to weld the pipes together. may could make something similar using a torch and some clamps
Nice setup. Well made video, very informative and well explained. I've never worked with hydro power, and it was interesting to see it installed and functional. I've installed solar power systems, not my own yet but plan on doing so. As I live in SW Florida the solar would be more than enough thankfully, as there are no creeks near me. Or mountains. I will also compliment you on your "powerhouse" build, it's not bad and actually looks pretty clean for an amateur install. I am an Electrician with 35 years in the trade, and would offer a couple suggestions though, fairly simple ones that would be well worth doing. One would be to cover all exposed terminal connections. As you've already experienced, mice will get into things and love chewing on wires. I've been told that the current flow attracts them, whether from the magnetic field or because they like the taste of insulation, I don't know. For a while companies were using a vegetable oil based plastic as wire skin and there were multiple fires caused by rodents eating through the insulation. I don't believe that's used anymore, but they still chew through wires regularly. Placing traps would be a good idea. The bare terminal connections are an issue with rodents as they produce heat and they will build nests close to them. If they complete a circuit or ground out your system you'll have an issue. Second suggestion would be placing "Caution- Live Electrical Equipment" signs on your shed. From a liability standpoint it will offer protection to anyone who could possibly enter there, but more importantly it will protect you from any legal issues if someone were to get hurt. I know it's stupid, however there are plenty of stupid people in the world today. Even if someone were to go in your shed, on your property, to attempt to steal your batteries or inverter, if they were injured they could attempt to sue you. And possibly even win. It's ridiculous, but it has happened. Here in Florida there were at least 2 cases that I know of where some crackhead went into a Florida Power and Light switching station to steal copper wire. While it was energized. Did not end well for them as they were killed, however their families sued. And were given money. I'm not sure if it was a judgement to pay them or if the company settled out of court to avoid bad publicity, but the bottom line is that the placement of Caution signs was increased, as well as the number of signs required for any areas that contain energized equipment. Better safe than sorry. Good luck on your planned upgrades, I'll look for the videos.
I really enjoy your videos on your micro hydro. I think you have a lot more to optimize. However, most of them are more nice to have than need to have, since the win per option is very low. E.g. you could optimize the laminar flow into the turbine or you could make a more complex regulation of your water usage. The last will be saving water at the top and you could build in a container for storage. Also you could turn the water off when not needed. I have more ideas, just from watching your videos... Keep them coming, plz :D
THIS is what I have in mind, a decent backup battery system/solar then hydro when able, hopefully year round.. I can build me a dam that will run big generators, i have the know how and engineering so forth, actually dams are not that complicated, a lot or folks think welp I'm on all level ground no way to do it.. the romans ran water uphill all the time, 1000ft in fact, how did they do it? gravity, siphons, water always finds its own level, so if the water goes below the water level the same distance you want it to go up, the pressure will always push it up that far, so you can lift the water the same distance you let it flow underground, it's called a siphon, they used inverted siphons to make the water travel over hills and mountains.. research it.. all you have to do is catch the water coming back down, run it below water level 6ft, that downhill pressure will push it up or above water level 6ft, then you just run it through penstocks, of course the pen stock for optimal efficiency are calculated at a taper, they get narrower in diameter close they get to the turbines, this creates more power and speed, its not huge, let's say if you your 8" pipe was falling 6ft then taper it to 6.5 or 7" 20 before the turbine, there are formulas for all of this easy enough to find.. or try a pumped storage set up? so you can run water downhill on a flat surface, OR, you can just divert, then dig down 4 ft, let it fall thru penstocks then out a larger diameter pipe, that enter and exit another dam the same height, again water finds its own level so it will fill that dam back up to water level, all you did was put a turbine midway thru your reverse siphon... works.. OR you can dig out a reservoir and make the dam height a few 3 ft higher than the water level, let reservoir fill and BOOM! now you even have reserves... how most modern dams are built where there are applicable canyons to fill... otherwise they simply calculate their fall in any given 10 miles of travel and build a dam, then the drop is sudden over the dam, like they do on say the columbia river, there are no rapids on the columbia river anymore cuz they have it all damned up, so now it flows deeper and slower.. works, no need for reservoirs with a constant massive flow like the columbia, smaller rivers like say the colorado you need massive reservoirs and that system is perfect for the 7 or so dams they built on that one, however they leach far too much off for drinking and bathing along with agriculture.. anywho yea I'd sure like to create my own power for sure, divert, build a nice keen dam say a 50 footer with about 8-10 ft of drop, 2 2kw turbine generators ought to be real good, then I can give all sorts of surplus to neighbors or sell back to the power company,, yea that's about right, average home uses 3-40kw per day, using 2 kilowatt I can have one offline at any given time and still produce around 50kw per day, sell teh rest back to the power company, during spring runoffs fire up both sell em about 80kw per day.. that's about $300 a month for pocket money... :-) you can set up a system with 2kw hydro turbines for around $6k with everything but the dam, penstocks so forth.. that can be creative, wood, rocks, rocks and concrete or formed up with concrete, a 40-50 footer may cost a few thousand in concrete.. around $10k you can have one pushing serious electricity, even less if you go frugal, used parts so forth, maybe as little as $2-$4k? or start with just one generator and turbine, but build your dam to accept 2-3, so 3 penstocks.. then as the electric company starts paying you buy more generators so forth.. be sure your property is zoned and you have water rights.. me thinks you might wanna implement a sluice somewhere in your setup, might be precious in them there waters?
Thank you for putting this together, both the system and the detailed video, so important to explain the "why" and lessoned learned. Two questions: given your experience with mice and the other woodland creatures that will admire your green-energy why did you not further protect the vulnerable wiring and I absolutely hate with a vengeance the use of "Wire-nuts" to connect your generator with the to-house wiring connection, terrible. Thank you in any case. 👍 (Edit: The outdoor electrical box, this is a better idea. However for fire safety - it's a bit close to your house, fire spreads with ease. It would be wise to install an "Automatic Fire Suppression System" with a primed burn-through-pipe running above each electronic system within that cupboard. There are many to choose from online, personally I would use TWO medium priced independent systems covering the same area, as this allows for one to fail while still protecting your property. Also install smoke detectors etc.)
This is a really nice set up. Really enjoyed watching the video and is very informative and well explained. I would love to do this myself if I had the opportunity to live near a running water source like you do. The nice thing about this is you can produce power 24/7 unlike Solar. I've been electrical contractor for over 35 years and have been living off grid for the past 30+ years. So I can really appreciate the work you put into your system. One thing I would suggest as I have also experienced in my own set up is that you need to upgrade with time. That being said I would suggest you using lithium batteries or something similar as opposed to lead acid. I understand that they are expensive but the cost is well worth. Plus you won't have to deal with all the maintenance like you have to do with Lead acid type batteries.. One other thing that I would suggest is to make sure your battery cables are sized according to your battery amperage and fused according to your amperage if you haven't done so already. This is one thing that is often overlooked. Looking forward to your next update. Keep up the great work and please stay safe.⚡👍
Normally on those barbed couplings it is recommended to double-clamp. Offset the clamp heads. Doing this can handle a lot of pressure and mechanical stress. The plastic coupling or the pipe itself will then be the weak point.
Hey man, great video! Love this idea. One suggestion I have having working in the natural gas business for over 20 years working with PE pipe being able to hold 100psi. You can simply plastic weld/fuse you pipe together eliminating all fittings and supports. The weld will be stronger than the pipe itself when done correctly. Other than that, great job!
Wow! I have been following this build since the start; amazing progress and really cool to see the iterations and how you've applied all the lessons learned! Are you at the point of being able to financially justify the build? If you were to start building the system today with your current understanding, how would you start?
Because of youtube the build is 110% worth building. Non youtube I would have gone with lifepo4 batteries and there are other options than the midnite Classics for charge controller.
I've been thinking of what I could get from a system like you have. Thanks for the information. Now we just need to have a wind turbine for a competition. I suppose in winter you could capture more hydro to supplement the loss of solar. In winter my solar drops to one tenth on many cloudy days. 24 hours of a 400 watt hydro is a constant 10k a day.
Hey, I've been watching your microhydro vids the last few days, very informative and interesting.! 2 questions. How cold does it have to be before the system freezes up? With running water, that might get it through a frost I presume? Also, I wonder if it would be possible/useful to ad a flywheel to the generator somehow, to store the kinetic energy produced? Has spwncer ever tried it? Hope you see this, thanks again
Thanks for the reply.! Can't understand why this system hasn't taken off here in ireland with all the rain and hilly land and streams. Or the hydro pump for that matter.
Thank you for watching. The system can handle a light frost but sometimes our winters drop down to the single digits. Definitely has problems at that point. I'm not sure about the flywheel. The constant water flow from the mountain seems to do just fine At maintaining the spin.
Looks just like here in Daniel boone national forest ky ,hope one day to do a power project in my creek next to the house, maybe even a few different ,wind ,solar , never know lol
Very nice review of what you've accomplished so far, thank you. That wasn't a mouse that ruined the previous PMA, it was loose wiring shifting around allowing one of the coil wires to touch, abrade, and then arc to the impeller housing. That short but deep notch missing from the wire is a tell-tale of arc-ablation, rodent chews are long and shallow. It's actually a design issue for Langston to work on: tie down the coil leads to the stator core after winding the coils but before potting the stator, anchoring the pigtail leads to the housing so that movement of the pigtail doesn't impart any movement to the stator wiring, and an insulating layer between the stator wiring and the housing such as 3-5 layers of resin impregnated paper.
In the late 1960's I lived off the grid in British Columbia with a small diesel installed by a retired American engineer. He had a beautiful small hydro plant that produced about 5 kW. He used the electric power to provide heat and power to both his home and his well-equipped machine shop. He placed pipe for the system's two heat pumps in a lower pond he had made in close to his home. While I was envious of his system we never spent more than about $300.per year on our diesel. Every two weeks we shut it down for an oil change.
Have you planned out any gold from your system? The large rock that you had indicated destroying your system early on in your remarkable video, looks like quartz .
Super great video, thank you! I'm about to move to a farm with a stream that leads to a pond (off property) and was thinking hydro might be a good idea even though the farmhouse is quite a ways from the stream itself (though not as far as yours). I'm not an electrician or engineer so I'm curious why you needed to run all the piping through the forest to get to the hydro generator. Is it because of the electricity loss along the wire pipes, convenience, or something else? I'm asking because I'd love to run less piping to be less intrusive on the environment. I'd like to enjoy the stream without a ton of equipment. Lastly, do you need a permit to do this, or does it fall under a minimum kwh standard generally? I realize each state is different, but just a general response would be great. Thanks again; I subscribed and am going to look at some of your other how-tos once we get settled!
That is how you get head. The pipes let pressure build up. You can bury your pipes a few feet too. Flow * verical head decides your power so just a paddle wheel in a open river would only utilize a few ft of drop. While pipes can get hundreds of times better than that
Hi Seth, Great video on your journey. Happy to see the channel growth. You are looking well and still standing tall after all life's tribulations. Give the kids a hug and keep on keeping on brother. 😎
You might try using a "slip-fix" repair coupling at the barrel in place of that PVC you put it in case you need to take it apart. - The slip-fix might allow for the expansion and contraction without pulling the pipe out of the barrel
Really love the system! How do you feel about the output from your hydro system compared to your calculations? What are your thoughts on the cost of battery storage - is it worth the upfront investment? (How many Kwh do you have?)
@Land to House Ah thats not too bad! Many thanks for the feedback. Hmm yup LiFePO4 make a lot of sense, just such a large up front cost, if you work out the "total energy cost" over their lifetime. Fortunately I do have grid connection, and Im just using my green energy to heat up the hot water tank - which acts like a battery itself, but I keep thinking of scaling up more!
In the springtime my system does really well because it has plenty of water flowing. As the summer goes on and the rains stop the system slows down. Typically makes about 3K A-day whenever I have plenty of water. I just filmed a similar set up. a guy making 800 W continually. Starting with lithium iron phosphate batteries from the beginning is expensive but well worth.
Heres a tip. You get the same pressure in water depth, whether its 50mtr under the sea. Or 50mtr to the bottom off a tube with water in. Increase the pressure increase in energy. You could increase you efficiency with a little change in the transport.
Great job Seth, have really enjoyed ur series, u have dedicated a lot of time, money, effort, thoughts & labour to bring us these vids & appreciate ur efforts. You have built a fairly nice system there, many should appreciate. I was hoping for greater outputs, but 1-4kwh/day is certainly not to be sneezed at as supplemental power to ur PV solar. A few sever rack type batteries would be a great upgrade & makes it neater & easier to configure, I have 3 x 48v 5kw Seplos Suntorque batteries, they are ok, but do ur homework on BMS communications, etc, these get a bit too involved for the average Joe if you want to know what’s going on inside & configure better BMS settings. Another option I am currently playing with is 310A Lifepo4 Prismatic Cells coupled with a JK 200A BMS, a relatively simple DIY and robust with nice BT app, check out Andy’s Off Grid Garage Australia channel if ur interested in this type of batteries & solar tech, he is good. Cheers
I know you probably did this in stages and not all at once, but if you ever looking for a solution to simplify all of that and probably for a similar cost, you should look into the Outback radian series. It's a much better way to incorporate and inverter and grid tie /off grid capabilities
Just a thought: two pieces of tubing welded not flying-v in front of the inlet (the tip of the v point up creek) but set above the flow of the creek should divert large debris/logs/rocks as a bumper and keep them away from the inlet. Put a flap over the top to protect thing from dropping onto the inlet from above
First, I am very happy that you do this successfully. I want to help you a bit. You are losing some energy because of the current arrangement because of the sand/air bubble barrel. The tank has an overflow and open to the atmosphere, which means all the head you had above it from the manifold at the wood box till the barrel is gone. It is better to keep the parrel next to the manifold at the top, then all the water head from the exit to the turbinelocation will be effective. Btw I am a hydraulic engineer. If you like, i can do some calculations to tell you how to optimize the system in the manar of hoses or pipe diameters, etc. I like to help free of charge
This system could be very useful with an ""Old style hydrauliic mining". They simply ran water off a mountain stream into a large wide open pipe about 2 foot wide. Which was reduced several times farther down the tube for extreme high pressures to focus a heavy duty stream about 3" in diameter. Just like a firehouse. Simple and easy to do .
Thankyou for a tour of your excellent system! How are your hydro and solar combined? Can you get full power from both the hydro and solar simultaneously? Are you using the grid as "storage" or are you just supplementing your household use?
Hey Bro. thanks for the very clear and no nonsense explanation. Very nice system you have. The only thing I would change is the batteries. I would use 6 Volt Trojan batteries. You can get 225 Amp/hours or 400 Amp/hours Trojans that would last over ten years. I had 14 of those in my RV years ago at 24 Volts system. I could go one week without charging them and they were not even new batteries. I bought them used from a battery store. Reconditioned them and they worked great for years. You know you can recondition Lead Acid batteries with Epsom Salt and extend their life by about 50%. So you don't need to buy new batteries if you are are short on cash. It is better to over size the battery system so you put less load on each battery. And you should use a Series/parallel configuration to keep all the batteries better balanced on voltage. Thanks for the great info here.
Well done Seth! Your perseverance has paid off. I find videos like this very informative and interesting - my first visit to your channel. I agree with the one gentleman's comment "stay safe" please. This may be a really dumb question, but do you need to have an earth leakage should lightning strike anything? Once again, well done!
Thanks for watching! I've just installed a surge protection device on the house and my solar panels. I need to complete that for hydro and also install my wire to the grounding rod.
I agree with Joe, the electrical engineer who gave you kudos on your installtion. I have worked in the electrical distribution industry. And I took note of the incident where a mouse are through one of the phase wire coming from the turbine. The mouse met its demise by providing a ground path for the compromised phase. A ground fault detector can be constructed from a small torodial transformer through which all three phase wires will run. Normally the net magnetic field will be zero and the transformer output will be zero. The loss of a phase will result in an output from the toroidal transformer. Some experimentation may be required.
I agree,you are venting the head to the intake at the barrel. Plug the outlet pipe and seal the barrel very well, and you have the head right to the intake height. This will give more pressure at the turbine, so you can use a smaller nozzle, giving the same flow as before, but with a higher velocity, hence more power output.
There is around a 2 foot loss from the intake and barrel. This means around 6w of loss. Not much worth fighting over. The silt catchment and air removal is much more important
It's been so good watching your channel grow. You have shown all your battles and problems with all of us. Personal and as a business point of view( channel). Best thing about it is you take your time to do projects, not everyone has bottomless pockets like most channels on YT which are out of most peoples budgets. wish you nothing for the best in the future.
In the video, he says he doesn't use it in the winter, he is connected to the grid so he doesn't have interrupted power supply. I have zero experience about these systems and requirements, but being a guy, I love watching videos like this and day dream about off grid. With my zero experience, I would think that If you live in an area that freezes and want to have year round hydro, I would think your source would have to be an underground spring head instead of a running creek and you'd have to build an insulated collection box and insulated or buried pipes to the hydro generator. If this is the way, it sounds like a MASSIVE undertaking only for those with little or no other options. Looking forward to hearing from others with actual knowledge and experience about that.
Love your Video but I wanna do the same thing If You use slanted valves around your turbine With smaller diameter pipe you might get better results Kind of like a vortex situation around your turbine Thank you
Nice installation, but a view remarks. 1) Many 90 degree angles in the water flow to the nozzles that slowdown the flow. Could be replaced by 2 45 degrees parts. 2) Replace one of the nozzles by an electronically driven one so the can open or close dependent on the water level in the barrel that combines the 3 pipes to 1 and removes air.
I'm no hydro power expert, but I do see some areas where change may help. I admire the effort, but 100 watts is a shop light bulb. I would like to evaluate how that number could go up.
First, I want to say I like what I see, you did a great job putting all that together. Have you ever thought about adding a second barrel ahead of the first, this way you can use it as a catchment any debris. By adding this second barrel, it would mean you would only have to flush it once a year, say after the rainy season. Your Micro Hydro Turbine box, if it was me, I would get some PVC boards and plexiglass to make my turbine box with. Those items can be found at Lowes or Home Depot.
Electrician here, you've done a pretty impressive job! Couple of things for your safety, firstly, enclose your rectifier.. secondly, the cables you are using to connect to your domestic socket are known in the trade as a 'suicide lead' as the male plug is the source... you really should wire both of these through a permanent isolator as both the plug and socket could be considered 'live' (hot??) or a source.
@Land to House Nice choice of batteries! When I've used rectfiers like you are (in my case powering the DC bus of VFDs), I've mounted them in a vented box but on a heat sink protruding through the back for better cooling. Looking forward to the update!
Thank you. Yes the rectifier does need to be enclosed inside of a well vented Box. It can get rather warm. The grid tie limiter inverter plugs are excited by grid power. When you remove them from the grid the entire inverter shuts off immediately. Just this afternoon I pulled those plugs to install a lithium iron phosphate battery And the inverters shut off within a 1/2 second.
I just saw this video. The soil that the box collects at your stream is likely to be incredibly rich soil, very good for home gardens. I would put a basket or reservoir in there to pull the dredge out and add it to your composting (assumes your spring water is potable.)
With new server rack batteries and a few more solar panels I would think you would be able to build the capacity to be off grid completely, I guess it depends how many batteries you buy at $1,750 a pop. Even 4 of the 5.12 kWh would double your 8 AGM batteries now and last 15 plus years..
Just a curiosity, would a vacume in the box around the turbine increase efficiency, in any measurable amount? Just a thought that occurred when the turbine slowed down as the box was opened and the wind hit it. Thanks in advance great job!
You need sensors and automation on your pinstock to detect water levels / pressure to regulate how much wattage can be created without fear of draining the pipes. Are you looking into that?
This may be more sophisticated or expensive than anything you would want to try, but if you could add a couple IBC totes at your buffer/filter tanks you could hypothetically be using them as batteries. If you knew you were going to be doing a chore that's electricity intensive you could open up your reservoir for a boost when you need it. I didn't catch what your flow rates are but a couple thousand gallons of storage may figure out to a kw or two and may prove to be almost as cost effective as batteries.
I found this very interesting and educational. That said, it seems that the power output is rather meager for the materials used and time invested. I wonder how much energy is embedded in all of that plastic pipe and the other materials? You said that you don't use the system in the winter months, which to me seems to be the time when an alternative to solar power is most helpful. I'm also concerned about the long-term durability and maintainability of the system. A well designed and build solar + battery system should run for years at a time with almost no attention.
I have a question for you. to keep your pressure without using that much of elevation can you extend the tube length for creating spiral path. The water should stay under gravity for a lot longer to gain velocity for you to keep similar pressure without that much drop in elevation.
Great System. Have you considered adding motorised valves and a microcontroller to regulate the flow depending on the water pressure or barrel water level?
@Land to House you can actually do it on the bottom by the turbine not the head end. They make various DC voltage powered valves. Would be able to control it based on output voltage to prevent over speed. Currently I use a dump load for mine so I don’t overspeed when load is low.
@Land to House you could do this in a dumb way, if you got precise enough pressure measurement and don't mind losing a little bit of pressure on average but are able to max out available production. Do two or 3 barrels, different elevation, large, small, very small overflow top overflow open, lower ones sre closed until water level drop below the bucket above.. If you got enough flow to max out the entire system and still got water left over, great. If it's too little overflow, open overflow on second bucket, wait until water level dips, measure pressure change and adjust flow rate over nozzles according to new measurement, if it goes even lower, open overflow on lowest bucket, and adjust turbine house flow according to minimum water or below according to measured pressure. How much pressure drop would a system like that have to work across to be easily measured?
Just a thought - it's more efficient to transmit power over distance as DC rather than AC - how about rectifying it at the turbine and add a big capacitor to the + and - output of your 6 diodes so that you're sending power continuously as DC, at max voltage ⚡. 3# AC has peaks and troughs in its voltage over time, so not as efficient. In New Zealand we send power in a 25 kilometre long under water cable across Cook Strait as high voltage DC, for this very reason, between the big hydroelectric Dams in the Sth Island to the big cities in the North Island.
Are you sure about that? AC is used for transmission lines unless the distance is hundreds of miles. That is when DC is used. Short distances like under a mile, AC would seem the better choice.
I'm no physicist but it seems to me that the cover on your hydroturbine should be much taller to minimize negative drag inducing air-pressure (air pressure which causes the turbine to have to work harder causing far more wear on the bearings and components and making the turbine less efficient/ less cooling internally). I would argue at least a 6 to 9 inch taller box would be a lot better. A round shaped (maybe PVC, ABS, or some kind of plastic) box a specific size larger than the turbine would be best, and reduce the height necessary above the turbine. I could be wrong, but when you removed the cover these observations seemed evident to me. That or put small holes in the box (with screens) in the holes, to allow for better airflow/ air intake (ideally something that wouldn't allow water/ rain in). Some kind of air intake/ air induction seems to me to be a likely improvement (especially absent a larger/ taller/ round turbine box), which would increase efficiency, longevity, and possibly even increase electricity production. The other thing I would recommend (though you've probably already considered this), is to cover the intake box/ assembly with a housing enclosure over it. Anyway, very cool setup and far beyond my engineering skills. I am a micro-electronics / computer/ IT guy. I'm currently trying to build a large scale whole house Solar/ Inverter system. And it's a lot more challenging than I anticipated it would be/ could be to get it the way I originally intended. And it's no where near completed.
Hey Seth. Hope all is well. Have you considered fire suppression balls or fire suppression bombs for a lack of a better word. They are very nice to have and definitely gives me a peace of mind when it comes to my various farm and home automation products I design and build on my farm. They come with a bracket/ mount that you can attach right inside your electrical service box you built next to your house. They work off of extreme heat I believe and they smother the fire out fast. Great videos man. Thanks for all of the ideas you put out. Very helpful.
That cooling fan is starving for flow, drawing a vacuum against the lid, and unloading the fins, that is why it slows down when you open the lid of the turbine box... no cooling fan.
I' really surprised you had the water flow into the barrel from the top. There's a video from practical engineering and if I remember right, the city sewer system uses the same technique but the water flows into the "barrel so to speak" from the bottom area from the side rather from the top.
