Just seeing who is out there.
A little one 50' of head 25 to 100 gpm flow about 100 to 400 watts.
I help a friend work on a 250kw.
Years ago an acquaintance wanted to assemble a water wheel powered generator to live off grid, the provincial utility company wanted a prince's ransom to run a line to the edge of his property. He determined he would be charged 1/3 of the going rate for the use of the river, B.C Hydro owns the power production rights to all flowing water in the province. He was livid, built it anyway and waited for them to figure it out. ;D
Good for him!!
We have a 1kw Chinese built unit, 60# static head from a large pond. It has been working well charging a battery bank and converting to 120 vac for several years. Terry
I have a tub wheel in the basement along with the linkages to raise and lower it. I am looking for a set of mill wheels to fit to it. If I can't find any for a reasonable price I will try casting some from cement.
I want to set it up below a beaver dam. It has about 4-5 foot of head and probably around 100 gallons per minute.
I just moved to a place, year round creek, lots of flow and about 80f ft of head. Looking at putting in a little unit myself. Any of y'all who have done this before have tips? Hope I'm not hijacking
Not sure what I did with the link... Google wind power alternator conversion or something to that effect. A company that rebuilds car alternators specifically for wind or hydro power. Pretty interesting and economical. They even sell parts so you can do it yourself. 80 feet of head is pretty awesome - 40psi or so? You should be able to produce a lot of power with that. You might want to put in a little solar (grid tie) and then you could sell the excess hydro generation back to your electric company. ;) But don't expect to get rich from them... :-\
That's for sure. When you sell excess power to the utility company you get the lowest rate they pay for wholesale power, a huge difference between that and what we pay in our monthly bill!
Yeah, a pretty lame argument, too. They say my solar is offsetting the need to produce cheap coal power (3-3.5 cents) three states away. Apples to oranges, I say. They don't have to transmit the power or have losses along the way. I say I am preventing them from having to "deliver" power to my neighbor. On the other hand, I get free power when I need it at night from my excess during the day. ;)
Well i see water in the future as a commodity. Last winter was as if the whole forest came down and I spent 3 months clearing brush with a chainsaw. Then back to glueing pipe. And putting in new dams. Going to be a long summer still.
Quote from: mometal77 on April 05, 2017, 11:08:18 AM
Just seeing who is out there.
Timely thread as I am soon to be building a cabin down by my creek and I want to power it with hydro. My creek will easily provide as much water as can be run through an 8" pipe, which according to the different charts I've found on the Internet, should be about 950 gpm. Head is about 15'.
As I understand it, Head in Feet (15) times Flow in GPM (950) divided by 10 will equal the approximate Watts available (1,425). If all of my contributing variables are correct I should be able to easily create enough power to run my modestly equipped cabin.
I haven't picked out a hydro-generator yet but there are several available on the Internet. I was hoping to be able to create AC directly from the generator and skip the controller/battery/inverter setup but I'm not sure I'm going to be able pull it off. Don't want to hijack mometal77's thread but would certainly appreciate input/guidance from anyone.
I would get a brushless generator. Do away with doing belts. You could order a kit from canyon hydro but that is a lot of money. Not sure if they include a 15kw generator but I seen a price 5 yrs ago go for 30 to 34k used on ebay out of california. You can simply find 5 or 6 inch valves on craigs or offer up or at your local salvage and have a welder and oxy set up and build your own. As for the pelton wheel canyon sells them. There is a company in china that builds titanium pelton wheels but they hard hard to contact. I have a pdf for hydro out of canada i downloaded years ago that shows great info. One word to doing this set up is ambition. You know who your friends are if they come over and help out with a shovel. A guy on you tube has a decent set up. MrHydrohead out of Colorado I do believe. https://www.youtube.com/user/MrHydrohead. They do sell plastic pelton's on ebay for super cheap. Do not forget to build a jet deflector. On my setup in have 2 nozzles. The governor is out of Thompson and Howe in Kimberly BC. Thomson and Howe Energy Systems Inc.
Mailling Address:
8107 Highway 95A
Kimberley, BC V1A 3L6
CA
Phone: (250) 427-4326
Fax: (250) 427-3577
Quote from: maple flats on April 28, 2017, 09:06:38 AM
That's for sure. When you sell excess power to the utility company you get the lowest rate they pay for wholesale power, a huge difference between that and what we pay in our monthly bill!
Here in VT you get the residential rate.
I made a water wheel years ago. When my parents died and the homestead
was sold I lost my water supply. I could probably still use the water but I don't
like going on other peoples land and the inlet feed needs constant work so I
don't run it anymore. I have other water supplies but nothing close to my home.
So it has sat not running for about 5 years now.
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/39553/Kevin_s_waterwheel_2001~1.jpg?easyrotate_cache=1500366413)
If you decide to open an amusement park, that could be dual purpose...
smiley_whacko
If you should decide to sell it, let me know, assuming it's not too heavy to move. I could look for a place for it on our farm.
I am very interested in this thread, lots of stuff posted a while back. I hope it comes back to life. A river runs past our place for 4000 feet, but there are other creeks and streams & 2 ponds.
That is awesome. Sorry have no been on been busy all summer to check this out. My 6 inch was put in many years ago runs through sold and re sold land no one knows it is there.. It has an easement though. You could try that with a water line and bury thing thing deep. I do like your idea looks like it could generate at least a few lights. My father long ago hooked up something similar made from old square buckets and hooked to an alternator powered 1 light bulb.