Posted by gomango on March 19, 2008, 3:08 pm
On Mar 19, 10:12 am, Anthony Matonak
> gomango wrote:
> > ... The house is on a hill, and the creek is just about level all
> > the way threw the place at the bottom of that hill, so I'm going to
> > need to do this without the high pressure. That's why I was figuring
> > on using a standard paddle wheel about 5' tall and about 4' across. I
> > figured that would be more than enough power with the volume that runs
> > threw in the winter and with the proper gearing I could get it up to
> > about 1200 rpm to get things turning on the business end. I will
> > need to figure out how to keep the paddle adjusted to the level of the
> > water. It's pretty dynamic in this small stream.
> It sounds like what you need is an undershot water wheel mounted
> on a raft.
> Anthony
yeah... thats what I was thinking. Wide and tall so it has lots of
torque to convert to RPM's
Posted by z on March 19, 2008, 3:23 pm
4d306fee6aae@s19g2000prg.googlegroups.com:
> On Mar 19, 10:12 am, Anthony Matonak
>> gomango wrote:
>> > ... The house is on a hill, and the creek is just about level all
>> > the way threw the place at the bottom of that hill, so I'm going to
>> > need to do this without the high pressure. That's why I was
figuring
>> > on using a standard paddle wheel about 5' tall and about 4' across.
I
>
>> > figured that would be more than enough power with the volume that
runs
>> > threw in the winter and with the proper gearing I could get it up to
>> > about 1200 rpm to get things turning on the business end. I will
>> > need to figure out how to keep the paddle adjusted to the level of
the
>> > water. It's pretty dynamic in this small stream.
>>
>> It sounds like what you need is an undershot water wheel mounted
>> on a raft.
>>
>> Anthony
>
> yeah... thats what I was thinking. Wide and tall so it has lots of
> torque to convert to RPM's
>
I have a pretty big creek on my place and a cable foot bridge going over
it. I had a similar idea of building some kind of larger water wheel on
a couple of surf boards hooked to a cable centered in the river, or
something like that. The creek can rise 20 feet in a big storm though..
so id' have to be very very secure or it'd end up down stream and
destroyed.
I've seen other setups where they build a little dam with a spillway that
feeds a wheel.. this keeps the flow constant and when the water gets
higher it just flows out an overflow kind of thing.
I know what you mean about the jargon ... when I started this project I
had done a LOT of reading but was a hydro virgin bigtime. I made quite a
few mistakes .. nothing too serious, but just time wasters and dumb
things.
But when it comes to re-wiring the generator on the EU2000 .. thats all
vodoo magic to me. Sounds cool though -- wish i'd taken some electrical
enineering in school damn it. I have one with a dead engine too.. one of
these days maybe :)
let us know how it goes man!
-zachary
Posted by Ulysses on March 20, 2008, 12:29 pm
> 4d306fee6aae@s19g2000prg.googlegroups.com:
> > On Mar 19, 10:12 am, Anthony Matonak
> >> gomango wrote:
> >> > ... The house is on a hill, and the creek is just about level all
> >> > the way threw the place at the bottom of that hill, so I'm going to
> >> > need to do this without the high pressure. That's why I was
> figuring
> >> > on using a standard paddle wheel about 5' tall and about 4' across.
> I
> >
> >> > figured that would be more than enough power with the volume that
> runs
> >> > threw in the winter and with the proper gearing I could get it up to
> >> > about 1200 rpm to get things turning on the business end. I will
> >> > need to figure out how to keep the paddle adjusted to the level of
> the
> >> > water. It's pretty dynamic in this small stream.
> >>
> >> It sounds like what you need is an undershot water wheel mounted
> >> on a raft.
> >>
> >> Anthony
> >
> > yeah... thats what I was thinking. Wide and tall so it has lots of
> > torque to convert to RPM's
> >
> I have a pretty big creek on my place and a cable foot bridge going over
> it. I had a similar idea of building some kind of larger water wheel on
> a couple of surf boards hooked to a cable centered in the river, or
> something like that. The creek can rise 20 feet in a big storm though..
> so id' have to be very very secure or it'd end up down stream and
> destroyed.
> I've seen other setups where they build a little dam with a spillway that
> feeds a wheel.. this keeps the flow constant and when the water gets
> higher it just flows out an overflow kind of thing.
> I know what you mean about the jargon ... when I started this project I
> had done a LOT of reading but was a hydro virgin bigtime. I made quite a
> few mistakes .. nothing too serious, but just time wasters and dumb
> things.
> But when it comes to re-wiring the generator on the EU2000 .. thats all
> vodoo magic to me. Sounds cool though -- wish i'd taken some electrical
> enineering in school damn it. I have one with a dead engine too.. one of
> these days maybe :)
It can't be THAT hard. After all, I did it ;-)
I just stare at wiring diagrams and read old posts from Neon John and others
and sooner or later it makes sense. Usually.
I did my trial run with my converted eu2000 last night and got my battery
bank fully charged via my MX60 charge controller. It was charging at a
nice, constant 26.4 amps then suddenly started charging at 20 amps. Later
on it started "sweeping" and I thought I told it not to. It's gonna take me
a while to get to know the MX60. It's not like what I'm used to. Now that
I'm past (hopefully) all of the gear ratios and mechanical assembly stuff
and belt tensioners and it runs without falling apart it's time to get some
proper bridge rectifiers and heat sinks and such. I built the rectifer from
"junk box" stuff and one of the diodes is kinda small...
> let us know how it goes man!
> -zachary
Posted by Gordon on March 18, 2008, 9:28 pm
96f6f4acf005@e6g2000prf.googlegroups.com:
> I really cant move the batteries closer due to the fact that the power
> shed is already designed and set up for solar and wind where it
> currently is. Im only looking for 10 amps charging. I figure that 10
> amps over a 24 hour period would be more than enough to keep up with
> winter demands without installing aditional solar. My adversion to
> running wires was the voltage drop over that distance. I am pretty
> new to all this so if Im wrong, please let me know.
Fair enough.
But you can predict the voltage drops and design your wire
run to minimise the drop or at least make it acceptable.
Voltage drop is based on the resistance of the wire and the
current flowing through it.
Ohm's law gives: Votage(drop) = current * resistance.
Resistance will depend on wire length and gage.
There are tables available on the internet that will give
you the resistance per liner foot of any given wire gage.
So you use the tables to figure out your wire resistance
and plug it into the formula.
By observing the formula, you can see that reducing the
current will reduce the voltage drop. That's why you raise
the voltage. For a give amout of power you will get less
current flow at higher voltages.
Power is given as: Volts * Amps = Watts.
So given the same power (watts) you will get half the
current by doubleing the voltage. And therefor half the
voltage loss in the wire.
Posted by gomango on March 19, 2008, 11:15 am
> 96f6f4acf...@e6g2000prf.googlegroups.com:
> > I really cant move the batteries closer due to the fact that the power
> > shed is already designed and set up for solar and wind where it
> > currently is. Im only looking for 10 amps charging. I figure that 10
> > amps over a 24 hour period would be more than enough to keep up with
> > winter demands without installing aditional solar. My adversion to
> > running wires was the voltage drop over that distance. I am pretty
> > new to all this so if Im wrong, please let me know.
> Fair enough.
> But you can predict the voltage drops and design your wire
> run to minimise the drop or at least make it acceptable.
> Voltage drop is based on the resistance of the wire and the
> current flowing through it.
> Ohm's law gives: Votage(drop) = current * resistance.
> Resistance will depend on wire length and gage.
> There are tables available on the internet that will give
> you the resistance per liner foot of any given wire gage.
> So you use the tables to figure out your wire resistance
> and plug it into the formula.
> By observing the formula, you can see that reducing the
> current will reduce the voltage drop. That's why you raise
> the voltage. For a give amout of power you will get less
> current flow at higher voltages.
> Power is given as: Volts * Amps = Watts.
> So given the same power (watts) you will get half the
> current by doubleing the voltage. And therefor half the
> voltage loss in the wire.
ok, I will bum a walking tape measure this weekend, and get an
accurate distance from the creek to the batteries and compare numbers
with the tables on the net. As for voltage... would it be a terrible
loss to run a transformer to step up the voltage for transmission? Or
would I be better off running direct off the generator, and then worry
about stepping down the voltage at the batteries? I haven't tested
the generator to see what it puts out yet, so I'm not sure what I'm
dealing with. When the shaft returns from the machine shop, I will
get some voltage readings off the leads at various speeds. I see that
in a lot of other micro hydro projects, there is always one form or
another of some sort of resistor that voltage is shunted to when the
system is running idle. Can someone direct me to good literature to
read up on this? I need to know why and how this is done. It must be
important if it's on all systems. I even saw a system with a base
board heater used as a resistor. Granted, these were mostly
alternator systems I saw.
XML site map
> > ... The house is on a hill, and the creek is just about level all
> > the way threw the place at the bottom of that hill, so I'm going to
> > need to do this without the high pressure. That's why I was figuring
> > on using a standard paddle wheel about 5' tall and about 4' across. I
> > figured that would be more than enough power with the volume that runs
> > threw in the winter and with the proper gearing I could get it up to
> > about 1200 rpm to get things turning on the business end. I will
> > need to figure out how to keep the paddle adjusted to the level of the
> > water. It's pretty dynamic in this small stream.
> It sounds like what you need is an undershot water wheel mounted
> on a raft.
> Anthony