Way remote power source help please! - Page 7

 ok guys, I have some real numbers after this weekend.  Thus far, I
offer the following data.

The creek is still dry, but at the point that I am going to place the
pipe inlet is 4.42 meters wide, and during normal flow, the water line
looks to have cut a path in the moss at 0.6 meters.  There is a higher
moss footprint up the bank that I can only assume is from surge waters
when the rains hit hard.  The bed of the creek is tapered to nothing
on one bank, so the cross section of the creek looks like a
triangle.

I am looking at a mere 1.33 qm of water but not sure of speed at witch
the water flows until it actually fills.

The lazer level and board tells me that we have 5.5 meters of head
available at 76 meters depending on the height of the turbine at the
other end.  The creek is not straight at all, and the pipe will have a
couple gentle bends it it to clear the bank.

The wire run is a bit more than 500'

After walking the trail, I found that the wire will need to cross a
road and one gate in a fence. I figure that this re-route will cost me
about 70', so the wire from the generator will be 570' (173.74 meter)
from the power house.

I have been reading up quite a bit on the banki turbine, but am a bit
confused about the math involved to calculate the pitch of the
blades.  Im in need of advice here guys.  Knowing what I have here, is
this a practical project?  I have 4" aluminum irrigation pipe
available to pipe the water to the turbine.  Is this enough pipe to
provide what one of these turbines require?  I found a website where a
guy was getting 1 amp at 12 volts from a 4" pipe with 3 feet of head.
His nozel design looked like it introduced quite a bit of turbulence
just before the water entered the turbine.  I think the nozel looks to
be the most important part of this turbine.

 

http://www.biblio.com/isbn/0878570888.html

  Has a good description of the Michell (Banki) turbine addressing
it's sizing, construction, and use, in small instalations like your's.
(if your's is actually viable, I'm not too sure moss levels tell you that
much about the potential of your stream.)

  A crossflow turbine (like the Banki) use a "nozzle" that is different
from the nozzle of an impulse turbine (like a Pelton used for a high
head, low flow situation), it directs the flow across the runners not
to consentrate it into a percise jet, impacting percisely into runner
buckets.  The Michell Runner design requires more water flow but
at a lessor head.  Your guy with the three foot head for an extream
example, you would expect to see turbulence feeding it from a 4"
pipe, the nozzle feed and nozzle itself needs to spread that out to
cover the width of the runners.

  The book also mentions using a large centrifugal pump as a water
turbine.
Something like this might be adapted to supply some power from
a small stream:
 
http://www.surpluscenter.com/item.asp?UID  08101000141180&item=2-1142&catname=water

  That approach might be faster and cheaper to implement, as well
as not needing to deal with nozzle and runner design issues.  You just
need an inlet/control valve, and low restriction plumbing to your
tailrace.

  Remember, you can only expect to use such a stream/source for
uncontrolled (DC) power to charge a battry bank.  It, the stream, is
more like wind generation in that regard.  You need a more consistant,
stable supply of water and flow rate to make it practical to control the
flow through your turbine enough to generate regulated AC power.
If you were impounding some of the water, that would be a different
story.  (One with many other issues, in most locations.)

Luck;
    Ken
 (with the broaken spellchecker)

 
.

It may be a bit late in your case but I wanted to mention that I had good
results with my eu2000 by attaching an aluminum pulley with a 3/4 bore
directly onto the flywheel/rotor using the two 10mm screws that were already
present (from the rope puller).  The 3/4 bore fits nicely over the nut that
holds on the flywheel and centers itself perfectly with just a gentle tap
from a small hammer.  This might not work, of course, if powered by a
gasoline engine of more than a few horsepower or at high speeds.

 
Too late.  I already started building a new rig to carry it all.  I
uploaded it to a gallery on the net for you all to see.  Take a look
and tell me if im heading in the right direction.

http://backhomebuilder.com/gallery2/main.php

The plastic was the last thing I managed to mount last weekend before
it started to get to cold, but Im going to give it a try again this
weekend.  After that I plan on hooking up a drill and testing the
generator using various speeds to see what the output is.  Im not sure
how Im going to get the drill attached to a 3/4" shaft yet, but will
figure something out.

Thanks all for replies.  I will need help with the rectifier when the
time comes, and also a circuit to shunt the voltage to a load bank
when the battery is fully charged. I think I can handle the
fabrication of the turbine and the nozel.  I have read a lot of
documentation on it in the past few weeks, and  have settled on a
design.   I will post pictures of it on the site linked above as its
built.

Dave

 
This is a similar pillow block and shaft assembly I made for my
sawmill;
http://picasaweb.google.com/KB1DAL/HomeMadeMachines#5257348334136663058

The screws on the ends of the pillow blocks are to align this shaft
parallel to the one it drives and keep the pillow blocks from shifting
if there is a shock to the drive train. They have tapped holes because
I made them on a milling machine but you could drill clearance holes
and put a nut on both sides.

The 13-spline sprocket mount on the shaft was difficult to cut
accurately even with a machine shop. I had to grind a cutter bit to
the width and side angle of the sprocket's splines and use it to mill
out the grooves. I cut them a few thousandths oversize and pressed the
sprocket on to get a solid fit.

Jim Wilkins