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Jamie, when do you think you will re visit the Hydro electric project?.. i look forward to that one in particular

Here is a video of a very simple hydro electric project. It isn't going to power a lot, but it is a good example of doing things simple first and might suit the limited need shown here.

I was thinking more of a swiss family robinson one.

Jaimie already has water running down pipe. My suggestion is to make a wheel with buckets. Have water run into the buckets. Make the wheel turn a generator (probably need to be geared), then have a catch on the other side for when the water spills out so the pipe with water in it can continue.

PIC!



It'd have to be pretty tall. But jaimie does live on a mountain, so I'm sure he could pipe water from some very tall place. Oh and it'll be even harder to turn if it's geared to turn the generator or alternator faster since the whole thing probably won't turn that quickly.

Here are a couple of homebrew, small scale water wheel projects. One just uses an old squirrel cage blower. It doesn't generate to much power, but keeps batteries charged in a woodland shack. There is more info on the site: http://otherpower.com/otherpower_hydro.html



There are a lot of factors in determining how you're going to maximize the flow you have access to. One major thing is to keep maintenance to a minimum. Water is tough on woods, metals, bearings, and electric parts in general. Corrado, you're right that the generator will be hard to turn. You'll have to do some calculating, it might be worth gearing it down, using a smaller generator, etc. Generally using a single wheel is more efficient than a belt of some kind, but if you have the supplies, go for it.

Oh..... I'd really REALLY like to get the water power going. I've been messing with the pond a little when a have a few minutes to spare. ...of course, I'll need more than a few minutes. I was thinking something along the lines of the spoon thing. ....with a higher power generator.

This was supposed to be a project I was going to work on around now. .....then this banana building fell over, and some guys in England got all serious about making some robots.... and now I'm making another road... and somewhere in here, I'm trying to fit in some sleep.

The hydro power is close to the top of my priority list. Oh man... and there's this giant robot to finish. sheesh....

Another road? Man, you are a glutten for punishment. You will either be one of the healthiest people around or dead. Whichever comes first.

As for the water power, I wonder if some kind of enclosed turbine like thing might work better. There are probably some other videos out there. The one above was just the first and simplest one I that I had seen that came to mind. I am sure you will have to add some awesomeness to it. My usual philosophy is to try to do the simplest thing that will work first and then add fancy later.

Seemed like you were heading in a good direction with the plumbing and the water filtering, though. Something like a Tesla turbine might be possible? That's where you have a bunch of closely-spaced disks and it actually works by friction with the water flowing through.

The one thing in the video that didn't add up for me was measuring the home-built generator with a meter. The voltage was measured unloaded (no current being drawn), while the current was being measured into a dead short without measuring the voltage.

I am building a tesla turbine at school right now and I was going to suggest it. The main hard thing for me is getting the disks but Jaimie has a laser cutter and I dont! They seem very simple and I know he could do it with what he has! One thing is I am making the main housing by casting aluminium (something he could set up pretty easily) and then milling it. I am also turning a nozzle to make it work way better but jaimie could do it another way. I am planning on using steam to power mine so he might not even have to use things that wont melt like I do.

How a tesla turbine works:
You need a liquid (gas that acts like a liquid counts) at high speed and pressure, which goes into into the nozzle of the turbine. The nozzle should taper in then out to give it more pressure. The nozzle shoots out the liquid parallel to the disks which have a small gap between them (normally about 6 or 8 disks I think) and it shoots out into the end of one of the disks, like if you have a turbine with blades. The liquid spirals around the disks into the middle then you need exhaust holes around the axle for the liquid to go through. At one end of the turbine you have the same exhaust holes as on the disks but facing out, that is where all the liquid comes out after going through and at the other side of the turbine you have and axle sticking out! I hope that helped but you should defiantly look this up!

This is my first post, Im the 16 year old boy from new zealand. I have talked to you a few times on facebook and sent messages and stuff. I am making a tesla turbine as part of a water powered airplane engine!

Here is another video of the simple example of water power I linked earlier. It is about as cheap as you can get and doesn't even use a battery to store the energy. I would call a battery a necessity because it seems terrible to waste the power, but this is a good first start and I find it interesting that it also uses spoons and says they are more efficient that what he was previously using.

I do think there is a huge benefit in implementing the simplest thing that will work first and then improving it later.

I like the above thing. Seems pretty cool.

But why does nobody build their own dam? It can't be that hard.

Divert stream.
Build dam with concrete (or even a bunch of logs, they'd disintegrate over time though)
Leave a small passageway for water to escape through dam.
Put turbine in passageway.
Undivert stream.

Even a foot or two deep pool would be plenty to drive a turbine. I'd say the passageway shape would be the most important part though.