@@beyondtheworkbench it's always a bit nerve-wracking. We've got eight children ourselves. It's amazing what women can handle to bring life. Don't blink.... Those babies will be all grown up. Enjoy every minute!
@@beyondtheworkbench having 3 is the most difficult, but beyond 3 the older ones start helping with the littler ones. Having kids is definitely both rewarding and challenging.
Re the silt issue - dirty water. Where your inlet is, the water headed down the pipe is in a turbulent area hence you get the silt being picked up. If you dig a large pit on the side of the stream, like a capital "D" so that the main flow goes past the hole. Capture the water on the side away from the flow - it shouldn't have such a large amount of silt. Worst case its just some digging.
Great work. We've got about 75 l/s flow down an old mill race here in West Wales-but only about 4m head (almost the opposite scenario). Looked into microhydro when we first got here 6 years ago but the Powerspout low-head stuff seemed very expensive and there are only about 2 ppl in the UK who seem to know how to install it. Decided to focus our time and money on other projects (renovations etc) then the cost of power rocketed, and I'm wishing we'd tried the micro hydro first... Congratulations!
Have you considered using a lower klass pipe at the top and step it up as the pressure increases, that way you can savevon cost and if you wish have a higher spec at the last bit without havin to pay forcit for the whole length. One larger diamitre pipe i believe would also be more afordable and could decreasecthe friction issue. It will be a bit tricky to balance the draw from the intakes.
I had considered it but when I started on this project I wasnt even sure it was going to work at all so just got something that I thought would work and gave it a go. Mk2 will likely have some changes though
Whilst a lot of people are offering suggestions for theoretical improvements, the bottom line is that you are consistently generating more power than you need. Your problem is reducing the required maintenance, not increasing the power generation. I am not saying that the improvements won't work, just questioning if they are necessary. Having said that, assuming that you installed you penstock to gather silt which should reduce you main problem. Could the penstock also act as your manifold by just running two pipes of equal length from that to the turbine? You could possibly reuse the existing pipe and reassess you ongonig needs from there. Finally, I am pleased that you are prioritising minimising the environmental impact and frugality over unnecessary power generation.
I hadn't thought of that as an option although it sounds like an obvious next step. I think I was jumping ahead and that way I can reuse the pipe I already have
@@beyondtheworkbenchgreat idea cos if you can slow the flow down the silt will drop of of the water and sink to the bottom of the penstock. Silt drops at about @.6m per second. So I would make the penstock tall the take your turbine feed taller then the bottom of the penstock.
NZD. About twice the pound. If V2 has a run that is using 90mm for the turbine feed but the 90mm is feed by a penstock that is feed by 2 X 40mm pipes, the 90mm feed is gonna drain the output from the penstock all the time cos 40mm X 2 does not add up to 90mm pipe. ie OF INTEREST: Doubling a pipe's internal diameter increases the volume x4 and if the same head pressure is maintained, the flow rate increases roughly x6. If 40mm pipe has a volume of 69L in a minute @.8m per second. That's about 138L per minute for 2 X 40mm. For a 80mm feed pipe, that's about 276L per minute @ .8m per second. As you can see 276L - 139L = 139L short, so there would not enough water to fill an 80mm pipe using your 2 X 40mm penstock feeds. You will need to do one of these things. Reduce turbine feed pipe to about 60mm or increase penstock feed pipes to about 60mm to work with the 90mm turbine feed pipe. I hope you get the point. I am no expert but pipe diameter (penstock feed pipes must be able to feed penstock full time) else the turbine feed will not be able to run turbine continually.
Yea I had considered that but thought I would get to that when I start the project. I might end up running 4 of the same diameter as I will have that pipe spare at that point. Thanks for the reminder though sometimes I have the idea in the moment and when it comes to doing the job I have forgotten
Could you go over all the things in your home that use power? I'm trying to figure out how much stuff you can run at all times with this kind of a set up. For example, can I run a fridge, a computer, stove, however many lights, etc. How much power do you use, vs how much is coming in and stored?
It's a full household worth of power plus some extra. -We have a proper washing machine but don't use the dryer (we could with this amount of power though) and use it every other day for a full 2 hour wash. -A big free standing fridge freezer and an under the worktop fridge freezer on all the time. -We use a laptop constantly so the charging for that (its a lot less than if you had a high power PC for Architectural work or something like that) -3 350watt electric heaters a dehumidifier which go on for a few hours every day with some on all night -The rest are just normal led lights and we don't think about turning them off more than you might normally. -We boil the kettle 6 times a day and use a toaster -We don't have a microwave and our cooker is a gas one.
I think what you are talking about with the manifold is the torque... But you are working with power and you have to understand Watts, Volts, and Amps. Power and water are similar. Volts is basically pressure. You can have a very small pipe but a lot of pressure, that's sort of like a static shock. Amps is the diameter of a pipe, so its the volume. You could have a 1 meter pipe and you could have a lot of flow or very little flow. And to get watts you multiply Volt x Amps = watts. What you want to do is match the flow of the water in both volts and amps to the generator. I think your right to make a holding tank at the top of the hill, a large pipe should come down and feed 1 generator, but the flow should match that generator. And when you need more power, another valve should open up to another generator. The water at the top of the hill is potential energy, the faster you drain it is the kinetic energy you are converting to electricity. And you probably need a bypass waterline for when you are not drawing water, which could be the natural streams. And i think if you get some water for a few hours everyday, you wont kill the nature.
A manifold with car exhaust also has to do with pressure waves being able to help suck exhaust out of the next cylinder, lessening pumping losses in the cylinder. That's not something you need with hydro. You idea of piping straight to the nozzles is sound. Every sharp bend and diameter change causes pressure loss. Not so important in a high flow low head situation, but very impactful to a high pressure low flow situation like yours. A manifold is useful to distribute flow to additional nozzles but you have no need for that.
Using manifold to have 2 pipes to hit your turbine blades would probably lessen the pressure from your large single pipe. Single jet nozzle would make your pressure very powerful because of the direct flow of water through your big pipe. My take: use single jet nozzle to fire very strong pressure to your turbine blades to achieve max speed of your turbine.
@@beyondtheworkbench Ammmm, you do realise "penstock" is your supply right LOL. fancy words mean nothing. just get the resourvour your taking from more BIGLY! as trump would say.
Hi there, i am curious, do you own the stream and the land it runs through? Not trying to be controversial in any way. Seems to me that you should be powering a miniral water production and or a micro distillery!! £££££
Yea we own the stream we are collecting it from and the river it goes to (and the land). The water tastes amazing and it runs through lots of quartz so I am convinced it is very good for you. We do get our drinking water from it as well.
you talking about a septic like system to separate solids and liquids, you can do it with a rain barrel with a vertical divider in the middle with a gap in the middle, water goes in one side of the divider, soil settles, only water rises, exits out the other side of the divider, you would put it as close to source as possible. you can put a drain on the bottom of the barrel to clean out the soil when needed.
excellent idea. Hadn't thought of septic tank systems but they have to deal with lots of 'matter' to filter so they should do a great job with our water
@@beyondtheworkbench yep, and since you don't have to deal with gasses etc, a barrel that will allow the soil to settle before letting the water out should work , even a trash can could work if the walls are good enough to hold the amount of water
Any frost issues with that exposed pipe? Come the summer I imagine those burns will dry up so you will run off PV? Surprised SEPA have not stipulated what the hands off flow should be?
Yes they froze over the winter but that was because I had it turned off until we had the inverter connected. If it's flowing we have got away without it freezing so far. And yes they will likely dry up and we will be using the pv
Sigh. I have no idea why my previous comment was deleted by YT... In short, you can smooth 3D prints by using acétøne (maybe it doesn't like that word). Kris Harbour's channel has full details on how to make the Coanda screen successfully using 3D printing methods (basically, smaller segments bolted together). There are online services where you can send your prints and they'll deliver it to you. Perhaps contact Kris for his files to get a known good design.
Thanks I went to reply to it and couldn't find the comment. I have been following Kris for ages and have seen all his videos. He swapped out his 3d printed ones pretty quickly didn't he? do you know why?
@@beyondtheworkbench No, he was using the 3D printed ones for ages. I think they used it for a customer installation too. You might be getting confused with the initial mesh approach which was not a coanda (which he then changed to the 3D printed). Seems that it works really well. I reckon with the smoothing technique mentioned previously on the printed parts, it'll work even better.
Looking at that stream, you could have the intake higher up, which will give you more power and/or reduce the water flow requirement. Possibly use higher pressure pipe only at the bottom.
I would but its right on the boarder of our land. The streams flow also drops off a lot the higher you go which is handy for us as we have the best bit. If we had the rest of the hill I would run it right to the top as there is a small lake up there!
WELL DONE 👏 ✔️ 👍 All the very best . My husband is following you. We also live in Scotland and we are learning from you. Congratulations 🎊 keep your good work 👏 🙌
@@beyondtheworkbenchthere's a UA-cam channel called _Kris Harbour Natural Building_ that's also done a micro-hydro setup which you'll probably find interesting. (He made his own Coandă screen).
I would Go for a DIY "Plastic Archimedes Screw" can get 10KW - 10,000W 240V AC 1 phase & 3 phase 3x 1 Phases 240V Find the "Plastic Archimedes Screw" Video by Richard Bourne-Arton even The can do low Water head 1 ~2 meters and if you want more Wattage just make them longer
If you are willing to go through the problems with making the screen enclosure, I'll be happy to print the coanda filters for you. Same as in this video: ua-cam.com/video/adWPvcbGB5Q/v-deo.html
Love the video, very interesting and educational to a novice like myself 😯 Keep up the great work and a massive CONGRATS on your new edition. Well done pal.. 👍
C’est une très belle installation, je suis moi-même en autonomie totale mais qu’avec des panneaux solaires batterie régulateur, convertisseur, chargeur et groupe électrogène à essence. J’ai pas vu ce que tu as comme batterie de stockage. Je suis intéressé de voir. En tout cas bravo👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👍🏻🙏🏻🫶🏻
Great system. why don't you run a 2nd hydro and a 2 eco flow ,And link up the eco flow together.3kw will heat up a hot water immersion which cost £1.75 a hour saving and at 2 hours a day is £105 @ month £5000 @ 5 yrs
This is great, have you thought about using a vortex filter? I had a commercial version on a pool to remove fine sediment before it reached my filter. . There are some smaller commercial versions, called spin down filters that have an automatic self cleaning function (not cheap). You can google vortex filters or spin down filters. There is a company called onieda that makes a vacuum filter that attaches to the top of a bucket, it's for air but air is a fluid and so is water. The cone shaped device is clear and plastic, so not sure how it would be affected by your local weather. The vortex action is a way to filter without impeding the flow. I would cut in at the intake or as close as possible keeping pressure low.This type of filter might be what you can rig up given you already made an awesome setup, and I don't think you want a leaky pin stock in between your intakes. -MG
Quite a few people have reccomended one of those so it is definitely on my list of things to consider for the next upgrade. Thank you so much for the links thought as they will greatly speed up my googling!
Not sure about the real science but I would have thought the manifold solution would not reduce your power significantly at all. Given that the system is reliant on pressure, not flow (which you mentioned early in the vid). Water pressure relies on the potential head and remains so as long as you don't drain it faster than it can refill, I think. Or, I could be talking complete tosh. :-)
Re: your silt problem, have you looked at a hydro-cyclone filter? Works same as Dyson vacuum cleaners, just with water. Only "problem" is that it requires a steady flow of water through it to work, and you need to clean out the trap on a regular bases. Another option is if you have a flattish area up stream create a settling pond, to slow the water down and let the solids drop out,
275 gallon IBC tote below your intakes to collect your two intakes and larger diameter pipe to your micro hydro turbine, one line less resistance to flow, it’s a learning curve
7:58 you are dropping the silt out now with a settling tank, could you put one at the top? Additionally, you could add a cyclonic trap. You can make these yourself or buy them. Rubber is probably the best surface finish to handle silt because it's abrasive.
8:49 A funnel shaped cyclone filter setup right at the very bottom of the pipe ?? If I was you I would build a concrete cyclone filter which is able to cope with the pressures involved, even though it might even be halfway up the hill...
Someone else mentioned a cyclone filter and it sounds like the best option by far as its not actually stopping the silt thus risking clogging it is just focusing it into the centre
Running two into collection chamber you will lose pressure by lowering your head. Go with two smaller collection chambers just below each collection point. You could connect them to one pipe as close as feasible downslope. I have a similar micro hydro setup with 58psi, my version 2 will increase the head to get 89psi with similar flow rate as you.
Some first thoughts about your ideas of 3d printing...kaonada? screen... Yes print lines make a difference. So simple resolution, make the print lines work in your direction, print out multiples to be joined with bolts if needs be to make as wide as you want. Secondly, the device you showed isn't all that hard to copy...and certainly cheaper than a grand. Take one old fridge unit getting dumped, freezer/washing machine etc. Remove the side panels, Drill holes in it, dremel it the holes out into smooth slots. 3D print a frame to bolt it too. You get your smooth flow over steel, plus the benefits of custom manufacture... Those nozzles...would you maybe benefit from buying a spare set, and drilling/filing out the one you have so the silt doesn't keep clogging things up? Theres probably a balance point between size of the hole getting larger and power output dropping off, but maybe a few tenths of a mm filed off would be enough to remove the silt build up...without effecting power too much. Also you said you had too much power some days anyway, so even if you made the hole too wide it would actually balance things out better. And if you do lose too much power from this, say in winter, then you could put the replacement nozzles on and just deal with the silt build up on those days...
Great suggestion on the intake. With the nozzles there is an insert that moves away from the hole to make it bigger so drilling one larger wouldnt actually make a difference as you set the hole size with the distance of the inside section from the hole. I am thinking of redesigning the system though so hopefully we sort the silt issue out with that
@@beyondtheworkbench I've been looking up this stuff all week, found a nice one to remove sediment. Its on a multi series uk one, 1.5kw was in the title, the screen revolves around a pipe set perpendicular to and below the dams run off. The screen itself is basically another pipe with holes in around the inset pipe and it rotates around the inset pipe.
Have you look at a channel call Kris Harbour guy lives in Wales runs everything off grid with micro Hydro and now solar built his own wind turbine and designs and uninstalls systems for people
you're talking about this part and how no one sells it, but if you have a 3d printer file you have the measurements. Just find a machinist to make you one.
Great video! Thanks for sharing. I have a similar set up in my garden but my intake pipe is always getting blocked with stones and leaves. I'm wondering where you got your intake pipe cage. It's the cream coloured pipe I can see at 4:23 in the video. Maybe just the name of it would help. Thanks in advance!
Thanks, its a bit of pipe with holes in it, I made it in this video ua-cam.com/video/39ZUQ5NrPro/v-deo.html but I am not sure it would be any good with stones though. I have made another cheap intake that workes amazingly for our water though ua-cam.com/video/WX_zhG7ODtw/v-deo.html (its shown in the thumbnail of that video as well as in the video) I havent tried it for hydro but it might be worth a go as its relatively cheap. I added a standpipe after so I would do that if you were going to have a go ua-cam.com/users/shortslWN7zoUJnEo sorry for all the links
Congratulations on the latest addition Rob👌 What I really enjoy watching with your vids and is your ability to explain in lay man’s terms. This is one area that im a novice in. Keep up the great work 👍
Random thoughts... If you have a flatish area between the two intakes, could you drag (don't envy you that) an IBC tank up there? Then pipe the two intakes to one side of the tank. Then put a baffle across the tank to stop cross flow, have the outflow pipe on the other side of the IBC slightly lower with something to prevent vortexes (air). You'd probably want the inflow higher than the outflow so an overflow piped to somewhere using the old pipe maybe... Oh and obviously some form of drain or syphon to remove the collected silt. Think an IBC would be better than an barrel as you would need really slow flow to settle the silt out... It might also act as the vent. Oh and maybe cover it and paint it black to prevent algae growth... Assume you've watched Kris Harbour and Land to House videos on micro hydro and other ideas :-) Enjoying the video's will have to watch them all now to see whats behind them all
Thanks thats a great idea! I would have to drag it up there but then I will have to drag anything I choose to put there. Yea I have been a fan of Kris Harbours videos for years so I have seen all of them, It was his videos that introduced me to micro hydro.
If you break the pipe with a collection vessle, I believe you will be starting your head again at the collection chamber, so reduced pressure. Unless the vessle is pressure sealed. Your analogy of having two people pushung the merry-go-around. What will happen is the weaker person will be running around, but not actually pushing. The same will happen with a weaker water jet, if the water speed in one jet is lower, then it will be spraying along with the turbine and not actually pushing it. You could throttle the two feeds separatly to match the speeds, but that might mean you are wasting some potential in one system. Going via a manifold, you are able to balance the two jets based on a single pressure feed. I'm not sure on the delivery efficiency of two feeds into a manifold. (Will await others with better fluid dynamic knowledge than me to comment on that.)
Thanks that makes sense. I did wonder how the pressure would balance in a manifold fed with two pipes so I will have to see how it ends up working when I get to it
@@beyondtheworkbenchturbulence is the problem & it's mostly resolved by using 'Y' joints rather than 'T' joints. Look at videos of _Tesla valves_ to get a feel for it.
Why would you, a conscientious homesteader, ever want to use lithium battery cars??? I'm learning so much from your hands-on micro Hydro wisdom, but was jolted by your reversal of care for our Mother when you mentioned the rape of our Earth and her child labor energy, when you said you may use your excess to run a battery car. Do you have any neighbors you can share with? You do know that lithium battery's create the same issue with depleted uranium in nuclear plants. The uranium takes 2000 years to dissipate so there is no safe waste storage. The same is true for lithium batteries.
We have since sold the Ford and bought a cheap petrol run-around as it felt like a better decision. I have thought about the best option for running a car as I have been into cars all my life. What do you think the best option is? Financially it seems like a bad idea buying an electric car as they depreciate so heavily and as you mentioned the batteries are very bad for the environment. One car has 70-150 times the battery capacity we need to run our whole house! But petrol cars still need the fossil fuels to run. We have as efficient a car as we can and it's used but it feels as though there isn't yet a perfect choice if you are earth conscious.
What a sincere person you are. I am watching everything you put out there about micro hydro because I live off grid and have 2 epic creeks that I want to create my power from. The lies from the self interested, money driven "regulators" (I have many other bad words to call them but will spare you) throughout our world and their extreme ignorance concerning how our Mother Earth works, has rob those of us who realize we are part of Her ecosystem, from the freedom to live gently upon her soil. Fossil fuels ARE renewable! Cell phones are dirty energy,.Lithium batteries are dirty energy. Solar panels are dirty energy All "smart"devices are human tracking dirty energy... We are being forced into a greater cage every day and without critical thinking about EVERYTHING those creature require, we are just sheep continually being duped. That's why I pay great attention to you. You and yours are doing it with love and sharing it generously. Bless you brother. I live in the woods in the Alps of California trying so hard to live under their radar.
Indeed you can, that would certainly give a smooth finish. I would use some strong filament, print the part, sand it smooth, then lightly brush some acetone on the surface to get the finish. Less is more in terms of acetone as it could completely ruin the print.
750w is loads especially if you have batteries thats 18kwh over a day. The average houses use about 10 so your laughing add some solar and you can pretty much run anything.
I think the problem works like this. Imagine one is a massively faster jet than the other (could happen). Imagine the faster one hitting its impellers makes the wheel spin faster than the second jet. The second jet wont actually hit the impellar...but the back of another impeller needs to cross its jet as it spins which pushes against the direction of motion...if the spinning impellar speed is still faster than the slower jet this reduces efficiency without adding any power. If the speed mismatch isnt so great that this is true it is still the case that the speed (technically velocity) of the slower jet relative to the impellar is less and thus less power is transferred than could have been. Id hazard a guess that before the impellar gets up to speed two jets on opposite sides would potentially reduce the inertia in getting started - although that's not your problem and I'm not even certain there. Compare that to delivering the same energy in a single combined more powerful jet - far more efficient! At least that's my understanding.
@@beyondtheworkbench I'm also in Scotland and very jealous of your setup. We're actively thinking of buying land to do something similar although for us we'll just want it as a self sufficient retreat so don't need 50 acres (just wow though!) 10 acres would probably be a great plenty for us. Would probably manage fine with 5. We're just casually keeping an eye on what's for sale out there. Nearly pulled the trigger once on a place in the Highlands but a quick chat with the planning office ruled it out (phone call well made). Anyway congrats on the new arrival. Glad I found your channel will watch with interest! Ps suspect when your second jet is fully open the degree of mismatch in velocity is less so the above effect is more of an issue when your valve is a little open than fully open....but you may well get still more power if all the water were coming through a single higher powered jet....I think!
4:55 Do a tautline hitch (very strong to hold around round(ed) objects like another line oir a pipe) with a 1/4 inch rope (uv protected of course) around the pipe (not the coupler, it will pull off the pipe) and ancher the rope around either a tree with a nice and wide band strap and a swivel tensioner to prevent the pipe from pulling away from the filter...
Does look like you should consider some remote monitoring of your system. Perhaps a sensor on the turbine wheel counting RPM, maybe a pressure sender on each of the feeds, then with a cheap microprocessors collate that information to a dashboard, along with info from your inverter (Modbus). You could even add in some servo's to those flow wheels to automate them. Perhaps a couple of wireless cameras at the heads to keep an eye on them. Would be a cracking project to add in the smarts and monitoring to your existing system. Prob best initially as a non-invasive overlay, them progressing to some limited control later on once you are happy the data collected is reliable etc...
@@beyondtheworkbench Ha thanks. I've been into IoT minus the 'I' for several years now. With Solar, batteries and other sources of energy I needed a way to bring it all together into one dashboard and also to control it, I wanted to ensure that internet was not required for the monitoring to work, and also crucially, no internet required for alarms and other warnings etc... DIY wired/wireless Sensors and Zigbee was the approach I took. I'm very happy with it, but there is always more to do.. lol
the manifold can be made using welded stainless pipe and as such the angles can be very smooth... Also the final run from the manifold to either nozzle should be this wide and smooth curve.
Thats what I would like to achieve in the end, I also want to practice my welding for an exhaust project I have comming up. We might be chaning the turbine in the next few years depending on how this one does so I am waiting on that decision before I make anything too permenant
@@beyondtheworkbenchyou can almost certainly buy a machine-welded unit cheaper than you can make one & getting a weld consistent enough not to leak with 6 bar pressure takes a lot of practice.
two points of force acting on opposite sides of a (generator) shaft is always better then just one point of force trying to push the shaft one way causing (possibly) premature wear on the bearings...
Anything up to one more jet than spoons is worth trying, anything more than 1 jet, evenly spaced, is even on the bearings. That said, bearings that hold a lorry's wheels on for a quarter of a million miles are quite normal & they're single-contact loaded.
The input voltage after the rectifier is very low as far as the sunsynk is concerned. You can build a simple rectifying voltage multiplier using suitable diodes to double or triple the voltage.
sounds like you know your way around this kind of problem. Thank you, it might be a bit beyond my abilities at the moment but maybe I can change the voltage settings in the wind turbine section on the inverter to raise them up?
@@beyondtheworkbench I've actually just assumed the wind turbine table is constrained to the same range as the solar mppt, but that might not be the case. How low can you set the voltage on the wind turbine table? I know you showed the table in this video but I couldn't make it out on my phone.
Thats the plan once we get to the house build. The caravan only has one water inlet and I dont want to replumb the underneath to allow a hot water in. Its definitely the best way to store the excess though as you can use it rather than just heating an outbuilding.
It hasnt been too bad with the cleaning and I took it apart in this video to see what it was like inside ua-cam.com/video/84cOhOT6SSk/v-deo.html I do still have to do it manually though so in the future we might look at electric valves
@@beyondtheworkbench The benefits of getting to inspect the system every 2 days like you said is not a bad why of looking it at though, a question about battery storage you mentioned you might get a car for that how many 48v server rack batteries do you currently have
I am glad to hear someone say it as at the moment it is all about maximum output for my effort as my time is spread all over the place with all the jobs we have to get done.
@@beyondtheworkbench The reason you want the pressure balanced is because the most efficient energy gathering from the water is when the wheel is spinning at half the speed of the water. If the wheel is spinning at the water speed, then no energy is transferred, and if the wheel is stopped/slow, there isn't much time for the water to impart energy before it bounces away and less torque is generated. If the pressures from both ends nozzles aren't close, the best power will come from a compromise that wastes power from both nozzles. And it's the pressure you measure at the turbine that matters, which includes the pressure drop from increased flow. If they're within a couple percent (PSI in this case) I wouldn't worry.
To address your question about manifold... the manifold introduces resistance, same as small diameter pipes though through turbulence. However, the resistance is far below the threshold of what would affect power generation. The advatage is equal pressure per jet. The jet converts pressure to speed / force, the required flow is much less than your pipes can provide even with a manifold. The manifold does not affect pressure, this why a manifold would have no ill effect. Your merry-go-round analogy is flawed. Two people pushing would tend to speed up the MGR only if both were capable of pushing faster than the rotation speed. They don't need to be matched, but if the mismatch is too great, the weaker one would slow the MGR.
Your settling tank idea is spot on. Just place it as high uphill as possible to build maximum pressure. The bigger the better, the longer the water rests, the more silt it will shed. Bring water in at the middle, use baffles to slow it, draw from the top.
Ah thank you it is good to know the resistance caused by the manifold isnt enough to affect the output. I have found that most of the time it is ok with both jets but a small reduction in flow of one of them does tend to reduce the power a lot.
Voltage relates to the speed of the turbine, current relates to momentum on the turbine - how difficult to spin it. When you increase current from the generator, you make it harder to turn the turbine, and at some point it is so difficult that it starts to slow down (Voltage drops). There is the optimum point somewhere on this curve that you can find by making small adjustments to inverter settings and water flow. If you a curious to do it, you can tweak only one parameter to find maximum power, then switch to the next parameter only, then to next, then back to the fist. A bit if fun math: if you drain your creaks completely you'll get at most 2 * 5 kg/s * 9.81 * 75m = 7500 W. Of course it is an impossible maximum as there is residual energy of water flow and all sorts of unavoidable losses. Thank you for your videos and congrats with your baby!
This is what MPPT (Maximum Power Point Tracking) charge controllers do. They hunt for the optimal voltage / amp load for your alternator. Most such charge controllers can be wired to a load dump resistor to automatically provide load when not charging.
I was actually looking at the polaris electric ATV before we got up here. At that point though we diddnt have enough power so I got the petrol one. There are always electric dirt bikes though
Great work, can you update the link to the the turbine on ebay? seems that link is no longer valid, or even write the name/brand/model and I can search myself. I'm doing a very similar project out in the west of Ireland, solar, Hydro and Wind to be completely off grid, although seeing how much power you are getting from the hydro I'm might get rid of the wind turbine, the amount of work getting anything useful from the wind is not really worth it. It gives me great hope seeing the power you are getting, that much constant power is fantastic. I watched your water filtration, great job, I started with stream water but I was getting too much turbidity after the rain plus some sheep poo 😞I switched to rain water, much easier to control, I did switch to a charcoal filter before the UV light, that made a big difference.
Excellent it's great to see someone else working through these projects too! It's the motenergy brand of turbine and nozzle. here is their website www.motenergy.com/hydro-power-products.html and the eBay for the nozzle (I hope it works) www.ebay.co.uk/itm/203268369118?chn=ps&_ul=GB&norover=1&mkevt=1&mkrid=710-134428-41853-0&mkcid=2&mkscid=101&itemid=203268369118&targetid=1403035015187&device=c&mktype=pla&googleloc=1006886&poi=&campaignid=17218284410&mkgroupid=142217514411&rlsatarget=pla-1403035015187&abcId=9300867&merchantid=6995734&gad_source=1&gbraid=0AAAAAD_Lr1ekmeOkZz1npZ6My7EllxGPw&gclid=CjwKCAiAi6uvBhADEiwAWiyRdoHtpEw4eiXMZexcjLryWu9QgxJrF06rR_KLXVJPUmnQ_q_UG9j2oBoC8q0QAvD_BwE I can't seem to find the turbine on there any more so maybe their website might be the best place as the seller of the nozzle also used to sell the rest
@@beyondtheworkbench ...he's the master isn't he? - But you're getting there - well done. I'd have to have the generator itself in a nice dry shed with all my tools etc. in there....
Congratulations to you all Rob, on your new member of the family. I had a sneaky felling that your wife might have given birth. What a lovely life they are both going to have, growing up in beautiful surroundings, and with some amazing life skills to learn to boot🥳👍
I feel so blessed to be raising them here. We have lots of frogspawn at the moment so Casper and I are spending our days checking on them to see when they hatch
63mm rigid PVC solvent weld swimming pool / irrigation pipe, 10 bar - Plimat do very good prices for bulk. You could also have motorised valves which would mean you didn't have physically open the valves to clean the injectors, and do it remotely instead.
Unless your turbine is good for a lot more power I would NOT spend the money and the effort to change the pipe and add an intermediate tank. Your present setup give you a quasi-redundant setup! One screen can suddenly clog up, one pipe could fail, one nozzle could crack, one creek could drop flow. The only common part is the turbine and generator. I'd instead, put my money in a different place. The flow thru a pipe is what causes the dynamic head loss. The loss is a squared function! If the flow doubles the head-loss quadruples! If a Pelton wheel wants higher pressure at lower flow (check that) then work that angle with your money instead. Reducing the flow will dramatically increase the pressure. If a Pelton makes sense, switch to one and keep your existing wheel as a proven backup. That will give you fall backs on everything except the generator and turbine housing.
Thanks that's the way I am feeling about it at the moment. We will want to increase our power consumption when we have the polly tunnels and animals set up but for now we are content
You're right that the inverter settings are about it choosing the max current draw at given voltages. So its about pulling as much from the source as possible without bogging it down and it seems like you've got that completely dialed in. I think that's why you had issues with the Ecoflow powerbank being less stable, because it would just draw as much current as possible up to 15A and was likely making the generator bog.
Hey i live in california and have the same hydro as you. My system is different. In that i only have 32 psi. Through a 4 inch pvc pipe and by switching to a pelton wheel over the turgo that you have gave me around 40 % more power. I make around 220 watts. But its enough to power my off grid small cabin.
Volume flow through a pipe is proportional to the 4th power of the bore diameter, so increasing the pipe diameter will increase the water flow big time, also increasing the power and the water consumption. Your mast site will need at least a scaffold pipe to withstand a good wind. Maybe a small cairn/hut would help to protect against force 10 gales with rain and also visiting cattle wanting a back scratcher.
Just paused it quickly, Amazing what you have done your ✊ the top filters are ace they work that’s that the silt collection chamber ace idea. The merry go round thing I think if one pressure is slower than the the in my head will sort of grab on longer as in slower contact which may slow it over all. But it works amazing so don’t worry is my thoughts,also getting it from two places I reckon way better idea too just taking a touch of each brilliant idea. Watch some more in a bit thanks Sam.
One thing I hear a lot is "Bubbles are trouble". Going up the hill the inlet on the right is sat in a cauldron of bubbles, deepen the water here by a taller dam. Also if you imagine the water is like a roller coaster that gains speed going down hill but slows as it climbs up, this mean your pipework should always lie as low as possible and not run up and down over banks or trees. Great you don't drain one stream.
New Zealand currency is in dollars currently 48 p Uk for 1 nz dollar so just under 500 uk pounds for filter plus postage congrats for the birth of your second child all the beast And regards from us in nz.
750w is an amazing amount of power so well done. Chasing small things to improve your system I totally understand as I've been doing this since I first put mine in and it can become a bit of an obsession. If anything work on the intake as I have found this is the most important part and the most most likely to give problems. I get the same jet blocking your talking about and need to open the jet to clear it. mine is not silt it's fine grit/sand and I find if the jet is open at least 4 full turns then it's fine everything passes through no problem. I use a filter in the stream before the water hits the intake and this helps. Fixed jets would solve the problem but you lose the flow control which like myself you need as the stream water changes over the year. I looked at coanda screen but found it to be to expensive for what it is. Good to see it all coming together and congratulations on your new born.
Thank you very much. The nozzles seem to get a lot of hate from people but I also really like them as I can just clear them by opening them up like you said or turn it down to a slow spin if I want it running but not generating for what ever reason
My 17 year old system (1/4 mile of 3" HDPE fusion welded line, 147' of fall, 840 watts, Harris Hyrdo turbine) somehow has a partial blockage in my supply line that is driving me crazy. The Coanda screen prevents anything large getting in there, but somehow on my spring startup this year the issue came to the front. I've walked the entire line (above ground) searching for a problem, digging it out where it had been covered, all good. No leaks, all indications are it's a blockage of some kind. Thickly overgrown now with brush etc., I am only putting out 6 amps @24 VDC, should be over 30 amps, due to the small jets in place, my normal large jets this high water time of year (mountain stream) deplete the line faster than the pressure can be maintained. I need to call Rotor Rootor I guess!
@@beyondtheworkbench Since I posted that comment, it appears my flow has improved to normal! I think what happened, is because I first turned the system on again this spring (it's drained out all winter) one area of my line had a large snow drift, and that area also happened to be where the line has a dip in it. I should have waited until the drift was gone, I think I had a partial obstruction by ice, which slowed the flow and allowed sediment that normally is flushed thru, to accumulate. Letting it run full blast for 24 hrs., with the bottom open, flushed it out. My screen is directly below a culvert, at the very top of my mountain property, with no provision for sediment capture, anything I do to change that, would result in a bit less head pressure as it would be lower, so I put up with it as is. The bronze Pelton wheels lasted about 6 years each, the latest is stainless steel and is purported to be almost bulletproof! My normal large spring runoff jets going back in today!
Congratulations on the new addition to the family, you really have jumped into the deep end with all that is going on. For what it is worth i think your approach is the best way, yes there will be serveral incarnations of a number of projects, that being said less chance of wasting money but also a better understanding of how things work etc as you go along due to the fact you have quite a number of projects on the go.👍
You just walking up and down that hill brings me out in a sweat...😆 After all the teething problems..which were a certainty ... you have a good little system.
If you haven't done the tank yet, think about having the 2 pipes enter it at an angle to create a centrifugal force on the water, and mount the exit tube in the center toward the top.. It should eliminate the silt..😉 I haven't done it personally but saw a system with this design to eliminate sand.. Congrats on the system and the babe.. Great vid!👍
As a complete novice when it comes to micro hydro systems, I wonder about the two water lines coming into a single cistern. If that had a conical bottom and inlet flow induced a swirl, could that collect the fine silt at the bottom. That could be allowed to dump. Just a thought.
A penstock and a tank or pond close to the turbine that the stream fills would work I think. Then the piping from above is not needed. An outlet with a good valve would give you control over it all. This is what I think at least.
You could simply couple the two lines together with a pair of T’s and a length of tubing running between them within a few feet of the turbine to experiment with “balancing” the two sources without the investment in an arguably experimental manifold. Any imbalance would cause a flow (slowly, probably) through the connector. Pressure at the two nozzles (assuming same nozzle size) would be the same. I, too, don’t know why they need to be coupled. I think that the tunable nozzles allow you to match the operating pressure to be equal to one another and is effectively the same as coupling the two sources with a manifold or as I’ve suggested above. The end result will be equal readings on your gauges. Simplicity is your friend in hydro. Tinkering and fine-tuning is super fun, but when you’re on baby duty, you’ll be happy to have a system with as few weak points as possible. The silt problem is a head-scratcher. The only thing I can think of for your silt problem is to have traditional nozzles that don’t have the needle in the middle. I swap mine out twice a year between wet and dry season to accommodate flow conditions.
Thanks. I had considered connecting the lines together at the turning before splitting again to balance the pressure. Others have also recommended fixed nozzles which sounds like a good idea as the hole is less likely to get clogged like you say.
@@beyondtheworkbench You also alluded to the idea of a settling tank near the intake. We get our drinking water from the same source as our hydro, and for the drinking water, we have a 5-gallon bucket a few feet below the intake. We then have several water pipes coming out of that. It traps more silt-sized sediment than I thought it would.
Hi just found ur channel, have a few ideas not sure if they will help or not 1) the intakes are u able to dig them out deep enough to place a blue plastic drum there and have the pipe fittings near the bottom of it and a opening at the bottom to flush the selt out , 2) hot water is there not a setting on ur converter that will switch to different thing ie once ur batteris are full it will heat ur water up for you , 3 when u rebuild ur housing for the generator make it big enough so u can split the incoming water into two different pipes inside the housing hopefully any of those may give u an opion that u may not of fort about before hand .
thank you very much, yes I am planning to dump load to a hot water heater but the caravan we are in at the moment does not have a hot water feed (it has a gas water heater) so I will save that system for the house build. Thanks for the suggestion on the inlets I will add that to the bits I will work on for version 2
Congratulations on the birth of your second child. That's certainly exciting!
thanks! Really pleased everything went smoothly with the delivery
@@beyondtheworkbench it's always a bit nerve-wracking. We've got eight children ourselves. It's amazing what women can handle to bring life. Don't blink.... Those babies will be all grown up. Enjoy every minute!
Thanks! 8 wow I feel maxed out with 2@@Building_Bluebird
@@beyondtheworkbench having 3 is the most difficult, but beyond 3 the older ones start helping with the littler ones. Having kids is definitely both rewarding and challenging.
@@Building_Bluebirdthere's an attitude shift after 3, that helps too.
Be careful reaching across the generator top with your jacket sleeve... going to be a broken arm if it grabs your jacket!
100%, came here to say the same thing, take care
thanks, I have heard it snag once or twice on my jacket so I will keep it in mind next time. Don't want to do a video about broken fingers
@@beyondtheworkbenchrotating machinery causes horrendous injuries, cage the beast so it can't bite you!
Re the silt issue - dirty water.
Where your inlet is, the water headed down the pipe is in a turbulent area
hence you get the silt being picked up.
If you dig a large pit on the side of the stream, like a capital "D" so
that the main flow goes past the hole. Capture the water on the side away
from the flow - it shouldn't have such a large amount of silt.
Worst case its just some digging.
Maybe also line the new water pit with something and then flat stones to keep it in place.
also a very good suggestion
hat's a great idea and its free to try which is a massive bonus
Great work. We've got about 75 l/s flow down an old mill race here in West Wales-but only about 4m head (almost the opposite scenario). Looked into microhydro when we first got here 6 years ago but the Powerspout low-head stuff seemed very expensive and there are only about 2 ppl in the UK who seem to know how to install it. Decided to focus our time and money on other projects (renovations etc) then the cost of power rocketed, and I'm wishing we'd tried the micro hydro first... Congratulations!
Thanks! There is a vertex turbine I have seen which could be an option, I think we will be doing an experiment to see how one works on an install here
Have you considered using a lower klass pipe at the top and step it up as the pressure increases, that way you can savevon cost and if you wish have a higher spec at the last bit without havin to pay forcit for the whole length. One larger diamitre pipe i believe would also be more afordable and could decreasecthe friction issue. It will be a bit tricky to balance the draw from the intakes.
I had considered it but when I started on this project I wasnt even sure it was going to work at all so just got something that I thought would work and gave it a go. Mk2 will likely have some changes though
Welcome back and many congrats on your new arrival!
Thanks Peter
Whilst a lot of people are offering suggestions for theoretical improvements, the bottom line is that you are consistently generating more power than you need. Your problem is reducing the required maintenance, not increasing the power generation. I am not saying that the improvements won't work, just questioning if they are necessary.
Having said that, assuming that you installed you penstock to gather silt which should reduce you main problem. Could the penstock also act as your manifold by just running two pipes of equal length from that to the turbine? You could possibly reuse the existing pipe and reassess you ongonig needs from there.
Finally, I am pleased that you are prioritising minimising the environmental impact and frugality over unnecessary power generation.
I hadn't thought of that as an option although it sounds like an obvious next step. I think I was jumping ahead and that way I can reuse the pipe I already have
Did you need any planning permission want to do similar in Argyll
Yes, we have planning already for a house but we are working on getting it amended as we want to change the design@@derekneill
@@beyondtheworkbenchgreat idea cos if you can slow the flow down the silt will drop of of the water and sink to the bottom of the penstock. Silt drops at about @.6m per second. So I would make the penstock tall the take your turbine feed taller then the bottom of the penstock.
@@beyondtheworkbenchDon't forget to put a big valved outlet at the bottom of your penstock to dump the silt out occasionally.
Congratulations!! Welcome to the world, little one
Thank you!! 😊
NZD. About twice the pound.
If V2 has a run that is using 90mm for the turbine feed but the 90mm is feed by a penstock that is feed by 2 X 40mm pipes, the 90mm feed is gonna drain the output from the penstock all the time cos 40mm X 2 does not add up to 90mm pipe. ie OF INTEREST: Doubling a pipe's internal diameter increases the volume x4 and if the same head pressure is maintained, the flow rate increases roughly x6.
If 40mm pipe has a volume of 69L in a minute @.8m per second. That's about 138L per minute for 2 X 40mm.
For a 80mm feed pipe, that's about 276L per minute @ .8m per second. As you can see 276L - 139L = 139L short, so there would not enough water to fill an 80mm pipe using your 2 X 40mm penstock feeds.
You will need to do one of these things. Reduce turbine feed pipe to about 60mm or increase penstock feed pipes to about 60mm to work with the 90mm turbine feed pipe. I hope you get the point. I am no expert but pipe diameter (penstock feed pipes must be able to feed penstock full time) else the turbine feed will not be able to run turbine continually.
Yea I had considered that but thought I would get to that when I start the project. I might end up running 4 of the same diameter as I will have that pipe spare at that point.
Thanks for the reminder though sometimes I have the idea in the moment and when it comes to doing the job I have forgotten
Could you go over all the things in your home that use power? I'm trying to figure out how much stuff you can run at all times with this kind of a set up. For example, can I run a fridge, a computer, stove, however many lights, etc. How much power do you use, vs how much is coming in and stored?
It's a full household worth of power plus some extra.
-We have a proper washing machine but don't use the dryer (we could with this amount of power though) and use it every other day for a full 2 hour wash.
-A big free standing fridge freezer and an under the worktop fridge freezer on all the time.
-We use a laptop constantly so the charging for that (its a lot less than if you had a high power PC for Architectural work or something like that)
-3 350watt electric heaters a dehumidifier which go on for a few hours every day with some on all night
-The rest are just normal led lights and we don't think about turning them off more than you might normally.
-We boil the kettle 6 times a day and use a toaster
-We don't have a microwave and our cooker is a gas one.
I think what you are talking about with the manifold is the torque... But you are working with power and you have to understand Watts, Volts, and Amps. Power and water are similar. Volts is basically pressure. You can have a very small pipe but a lot of pressure, that's sort of like a static shock. Amps is the diameter of a pipe, so its the volume. You could have a 1 meter pipe and you could have a lot of flow or very little flow. And to get watts you multiply Volt x Amps = watts. What you want to do is match the flow of the water in both volts and amps to the generator. I think your right to make a holding tank at the top of the hill, a large pipe should come down and feed 1 generator, but the flow should match that generator. And when you need more power, another valve should open up to another generator. The water at the top of the hill is potential energy, the faster you drain it is the kinetic energy you are converting to electricity. And you probably need a bypass waterline for when you are not drawing water, which could be the natural streams. And i think if you get some water for a few hours everyday, you wont kill the nature.
Great explanation that makes sense
A manifold with car exhaust also has to do with pressure waves being able to help suck exhaust out of the next cylinder, lessening pumping losses in the cylinder. That's not something you need with hydro.
You idea of piping straight to the nozzles is sound. Every sharp bend and diameter change causes pressure loss. Not so important in a high flow low head situation, but very impactful to a high pressure low flow situation like yours. A manifold is useful to distribute flow to additional nozzles but you have no need for that.
excellent thanks for clearing that up
Using manifold to have 2 pipes to hit your turbine blades would probably lessen the pressure from your large single pipe. Single jet nozzle would make your pressure very powerful because of the direct flow of water through your big pipe.
My take: use single jet nozzle to fire very strong pressure to your turbine blades to achieve max speed of your turbine.
Thank you very much for your advice it sounds like a good plan!
bro its sucking air from the top, that lil pool of water isnt filling back fast enough.
Thanks yea Its doing it at the moment too. I am thinking about adding a penstock to ensure we have a good enough supply
@@beyondtheworkbench Ammmm, you do realise "penstock" is your supply right LOL. fancy words mean nothing. just get the resourvour your taking from more BIGLY! as trump would say.
look at kris harbour vidos
Thanks I have been watching his stuff for ages
Hi there, i am curious, do you own the stream and the land it runs through? Not trying to be controversial in any way. Seems to me that you should be powering a miniral water production and or a micro distillery!! £££££
Yea we own the stream we are collecting it from and the river it goes to (and the land). The water tastes amazing and it runs through lots of quartz so I am convinced it is very good for you. We do get our drinking water from it as well.
you talking about a septic like system to separate solids and liquids, you can do it with a rain barrel with a vertical divider in the middle with a gap in the middle, water goes in one side of the divider, soil settles, only water rises, exits out the other side of the divider, you would put it as close to source as possible. you can put a drain on the bottom of the barrel to clean out the soil when needed.
Great idea.
excellent idea. Hadn't thought of septic tank systems but they have to deal with lots of 'matter' to filter so they should do a great job with our water
@@beyondtheworkbench yep, and since you don't have to deal with gasses etc, a barrel that will allow the soil to settle before letting the water out should work , even a trash can could work if the walls are good enough to hold the amount of water
I think this sounds like the solution I will use as its perfect for the job@@rkeantube
Any frost issues with that exposed pipe? Come the summer I imagine those burns will dry up so you will run off PV? Surprised SEPA have not stipulated what the hands off flow should be?
Yes they froze over the winter but that was because I had it turned off until we had the inverter connected. If it's flowing we have got away without it freezing so far. And yes they will likely dry up and we will be using the pv
Time to build a sauna to use up that excess power!
Also... To stop the pipe slipping just use a strap or rope with a "pipe hitch" onto a stake.
great idea, I had used a rope but the pipe hitch is much better
Sigh. I have no idea why my previous comment was deleted by YT... In short, you can smooth 3D prints by using acétøne (maybe it doesn't like that word). Kris Harbour's channel has full details on how to make the Coanda screen successfully using 3D printing methods (basically, smaller segments bolted together). There are online services where you can send your prints and they'll deliver it to you. Perhaps contact Kris for his files to get a known good design.
Acetone Acetone Acetone
Thanks I went to reply to it and couldn't find the comment. I have been following Kris for ages and have seen all his videos. He swapped out his 3d printed ones pretty quickly didn't he? do you know why?
@@beyondtheworkbench No, he was using the 3D printed ones for ages. I think they used it for a customer installation too. You might be getting confused with the initial mesh approach which was not a coanda (which he then changed to the 3D printed). Seems that it works really well. I reckon with the smoothing technique mentioned previously on the printed parts, it'll work even better.
I will go and re watch them then and see how it worked for him. Thanks for the tip@@Marc-ww7cc
Looking at that stream, you could have the intake higher up, which will give you more power and/or reduce the water flow requirement. Possibly use higher pressure pipe only at the bottom.
I would but its right on the boarder of our land. The streams flow also drops off a lot the higher you go which is handy for us as we have the best bit. If we had the rest of the hill I would run it right to the top as there is a small lake up there!
WELL DONE 👏 ✔️ 👍 All the very best .
My husband is following you. We also live in Scotland and we are learning from you.
Congratulations 🎊 keep your good work 👏 🙌
Thank you very much! We love living here and the people are so resourceful
@@beyondtheworkbenchthere's a UA-cam channel called _Kris Harbour Natural Building_ that's also done a micro-hydro setup which you'll probably find interesting. (He made his own Coandă screen).
I would Go for a DIY "Plastic Archimedes Screw" can get 10KW - 10,000W 240V AC 1 phase & 3 phase 3x 1 Phases 240V
Find the "Plastic Archimedes Screw" Video by Richard Bourne-Arton
even The can do low Water head 1 ~2 meters and if you want more Wattage just make them longer
Wow thats an amazing output! I will have a look at that video thank you very much
If you are willing to go through the problems with making the screen enclosure, I'll be happy to print the coanda filters for you. Same as in this video: ua-cam.com/video/adWPvcbGB5Q/v-deo.html
Thank you very much! I wont be getting back to the hydro for a while but I will keep your kind offer in mind when I do
Love the video, very interesting and educational to a novice like myself 😯 Keep up the great work and a massive CONGRATS on your new edition. Well done pal.. 👍
Thank you very much
C’est une très belle installation, je suis moi-même en autonomie totale mais qu’avec des panneaux solaires batterie régulateur, convertisseur, chargeur et groupe électrogène à essence. J’ai pas vu ce que tu as comme batterie de stockage. Je suis intéressé de voir. En tout cas bravo👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👍🏻🙏🏻🫶🏻
Merci beaucoup nous utilisons les batteries pylontech voici le lien vers la vidéo ua-cam.com/video/Dp9HolZG724/v-deo.html
750 watts and still two running streams sound a lot better than altering or spoiling the natural beauty of your surroundings. 750watts😁😁😁
Thank you that was what I thought and it seems to have very little impact on the stream
Great system. why don't you run a 2nd hydro and a 2 eco flow ,And link up the eco flow together.3kw will heat up a hot water immersion
which cost £1.75 a hour saving and at 2 hours a day is £105 @ month £5000 @ 5 yrs
I have got plans for another power project using water so we will have another source of power comming soon.
This is great, have you thought about using a vortex filter? I had a commercial version on a pool to remove fine sediment before it reached my filter. . There are some smaller commercial versions, called spin down filters that have an automatic self cleaning function (not cheap). You can google vortex filters or spin down filters. There is a company called onieda that makes a vacuum filter that attaches to the top of a bucket, it's for air but air is a fluid and so is water. The cone shaped device is clear and plastic, so not sure how it would be affected by your local weather. The vortex action is a way to filter without impeding the flow. I would cut in at the intake or as close as possible keeping pressure low.This type of filter might be what you can rig up given you already made an awesome setup, and I don't think you want a leaky pin stock in between your intakes.
-MG
Quite a few people have reccomended one of those so it is definitely on my list of things to consider for the next upgrade. Thank you so much for the links thought as they will greatly speed up my googling!
Not sure about the real science but I would have thought the manifold solution would not reduce your power significantly at all. Given that the system is reliant on pressure, not flow (which you mentioned early in the vid). Water pressure relies on the potential head and remains so as long as you don't drain it faster than it can refill, I think. Or, I could be talking complete tosh. :-)
Yea I think you are right and others have said a manifold is the way to go so I think thats what we will do on version 2
Re: your silt problem, have you looked at a hydro-cyclone filter? Works same as Dyson vacuum cleaners, just with water. Only "problem" is that it requires a steady flow of water through it to work, and you need to clean out the trap on a regular bases. Another option is if you have a flattish area up stream create a settling pond, to slow the water down and let the solids drop out,
Thats an excellent idea! others have also mentioned the cyclone filter and it sounds like the best especially as it doesnt get clogged
275 gallon IBC tote below your intakes to collect your two intakes and larger diameter pipe to your micro hydro turbine, one line less resistance to flow, it’s a learning curve
Great idea thanks
7:58 you are dropping the silt out now with a settling tank, could you put one at the top?
Additionally, you could add a cyclonic trap. You can make these yourself or buy them. Rubber is probably the best surface finish to handle silt because it's abrasive.
I have heard from others about the cyclonic trap and it sounds like the perfect solution thank you very much!
8:49 A funnel shaped cyclone filter setup right at the very bottom of the pipe ??
If I was you I would build a concrete cyclone filter which is able to cope with the pressures involved, even though it might even be halfway up the hill...
Someone else mentioned a cyclone filter and it sounds like the best option by far as its not actually stopping the silt thus risking clogging it is just focusing it into the centre
you need to watch Kris Harbour.
Running two into collection chamber you will lose pressure by lowering your head. Go with two smaller collection chambers just below each collection point. You could connect them to one pipe as close as feasible downslope. I have a similar micro hydro setup with 58psi, my version 2 will increase the head to get 89psi with similar flow rate as you.
Thanks that was a problem I was wondering about and two collection chambers would solve that. Good luck with your version 2!
Ok instead of walking up there all the time to just the psi..can't you use the power to use electric power ones that you could adjust from the house.
I think this is an upgrade we will be looking at on version 2. It would also mean I could adjust the flow when there isnt as much water
Some first thoughts about your ideas of 3d printing...kaonada? screen...
Yes print lines make a difference. So simple resolution, make the print lines work in your direction, print out multiples to be joined with bolts if needs be to make as wide as you want.
Secondly, the device you showed isn't all that hard to copy...and certainly cheaper than a grand.
Take one old fridge unit getting dumped, freezer/washing machine etc. Remove the side panels, Drill holes in it, dremel it the holes out into smooth slots. 3D print a frame to bolt it too. You get your smooth flow over steel, plus the benefits of custom manufacture...
Those nozzles...would you maybe benefit from buying a spare set, and drilling/filing out the one you have so the silt doesn't keep clogging things up?
Theres probably a balance point between size of the hole getting larger and power output dropping off, but maybe a few tenths of a mm filed off would be enough to remove the silt build up...without effecting power too much. Also you said you had too much power some days anyway, so even if you made the hole too wide it would actually balance things out better.
And if you do lose too much power from this, say in winter, then you could put the replacement nozzles on and just deal with the silt build up on those days...
Great suggestion on the intake. With the nozzles there is an insert that moves away from the hole to make it bigger so drilling one larger wouldnt actually make a difference as you set the hole size with the distance of the inside section from the hole. I am thinking of redesigning the system though so hopefully we sort the silt issue out with that
@@beyondtheworkbench I've been looking up this stuff all week, found a nice one to remove sediment. Its on a multi series uk one, 1.5kw was in the title, the screen revolves around a pipe set perpendicular to and below the dams run off. The screen itself is basically another pipe with holes in around the inset pipe and it rotates around the inset pipe.
Have you look at a channel call Kris Harbour guy lives in Wales runs everything off grid with micro Hydro and now solar built his own wind turbine and designs and uninstalls systems for people
I have been a subscriber of his for years. I was super impressed with his wind turbine because he made it all himself
Equal pressure nozzles will balance the forces on the turbine wheel and therefore the creating the minimum friction on the bearing...
great thanks
you're talking about this part and how no one sells it, but if you have a 3d printer file you have the measurements. Just find a machinist to make you one.
Great idea and if I had the budget I would definitely look at having it made
Great video! Thanks for sharing. I have a similar set up in my garden but my intake pipe is always getting blocked with stones and leaves. I'm wondering where you got your intake pipe cage. It's the cream coloured pipe I can see at 4:23 in the video. Maybe just the name of it would help. Thanks in advance!
Thanks, its a bit of pipe with holes in it, I made it in this video ua-cam.com/video/39ZUQ5NrPro/v-deo.html but I am not sure it would be any good with stones though. I have made another cheap intake that workes amazingly for our water though ua-cam.com/video/WX_zhG7ODtw/v-deo.html (its shown in the thumbnail of that video as well as in the video) I havent tried it for hydro but it might be worth a go as its relatively cheap. I added a standpipe after so I would do that if you were going to have a go ua-cam.com/users/shortslWN7zoUJnEo sorry for all the links
Thank you so much@@beyondtheworkbench. Really appreciate your video and the response!
What pressure guages did you use please? Do they have a 3/4" male head?
I think this is the one althogh I am not sure www.pipestock.com/pressure-gauge
Congratulations on the latest addition Rob👌 What I really enjoy watching with your vids and is your ability to explain in lay man’s terms. This is one area that im a novice in. Keep up the great work 👍
Thanks! I don't fully understand it myself so I just explain it how I figured it out
Giving away knowledge instead of selling it, there is no Osborn Effect.
Thank you
Have a look at kris Harbour. He is a maker of hydro micro power . Plans to get electric all by him . He may give you some idea's
Thanks I have been following him for years and a lot of my ideas have been inspired by his work
Once you 3D print the screens, you sand them to remove the rough edge. Kris Harbour has managed to 3D print screens and they work well.
Thanks, I have heard from others that you can also soak them in acetone to remove the edges
Random thoughts... If you have a flatish area between the two intakes, could you drag (don't envy you that) an IBC tank up there? Then pipe the two intakes to one side of the tank. Then put a baffle across the tank to stop cross flow, have the outflow pipe on the other side of the IBC slightly lower with something to prevent vortexes (air).
You'd probably want the inflow higher than the outflow so an overflow piped to somewhere using the old pipe maybe...
Oh and obviously some form of drain or syphon to remove the collected silt.
Think an IBC would be better than an barrel as you would need really slow flow to settle the silt out...
It might also act as the vent. Oh and maybe cover it and paint it black to prevent algae growth...
Assume you've watched Kris Harbour and Land to House videos on micro hydro and other ideas :-)
Enjoying the video's will have to watch them all now to see whats behind them all
Thanks thats a great idea! I would have to drag it up there but then I will have to drag anything I choose to put there. Yea I have been a fan of Kris Harbours videos for years so I have seen all of them, It was his videos that introduced me to micro hydro.
Get yourself a bitcoin mining machine. You can turn it on when you need to dump power and earn some money from it.
I had a fair few of them running before I came up here so I have definitely considered it. (I mined ETH)
If you break the pipe with a collection vessle, I believe you will be starting your head again at the collection chamber, so reduced pressure. Unless the vessle is pressure sealed.
Your analogy of having two people pushung the merry-go-around. What will happen is the weaker person will be running around, but not actually pushing. The same will happen with a weaker water jet, if the water speed in one jet is lower, then it will be spraying along with the turbine and not actually pushing it.
You could throttle the two feeds separatly to match the speeds, but that might mean you are wasting some potential in one system. Going via a manifold, you are able to balance the two jets based on a single pressure feed. I'm not sure on the delivery efficiency of two feeds into a manifold. (Will await others with better fluid dynamic knowledge than me to comment on that.)
Thanks that makes sense. I did wonder how the pressure would balance in a manifold fed with two pipes so I will have to see how it ends up working when I get to it
@@beyondtheworkbenchturbulence is the problem & it's mostly resolved by using 'Y' joints rather than 'T' joints.
Look at videos of _Tesla valves_ to get a feel for it.
Battery storage would cope with your overcapacity and provide power when you need to maintain kit
We have done a video on our batteries since. It has helped a lot. ua-cam.com/video/Dp9HolZG724/v-deo.html
Why would you, a conscientious homesteader, ever want to use lithium battery cars??? I'm learning so much from your hands-on micro Hydro wisdom, but was jolted by your reversal of care for our Mother when you mentioned the rape of our Earth and her child labor energy, when you said you may use your excess to run a battery car. Do you have any neighbors you can share with? You do know that lithium battery's create the same issue with depleted uranium in nuclear plants. The uranium takes 2000 years to dissipate so there is no safe waste storage. The same is true for lithium batteries.
We have since sold the Ford and bought a cheap petrol run-around as it felt like a better decision. I have thought about the best option for running a car as I have been into cars all my life. What do you think the best option is? Financially it seems like a bad idea buying an electric car as they depreciate so heavily and as you mentioned the batteries are very bad for the environment. One car has 70-150 times the battery capacity we need to run our whole house! But petrol cars still need the fossil fuels to run. We have as efficient a car as we can and it's used but it feels as though there isn't yet a perfect choice if you are earth conscious.
What a sincere person you are. I am watching everything you put out there about micro hydro because I live off grid and have 2 epic creeks that I want to create my power from. The lies from the self interested, money driven "regulators" (I have many other bad words to call them but will spare you) throughout our world and their extreme ignorance concerning how our Mother Earth works, has rob those of us who realize we are part of Her ecosystem, from the freedom to live gently upon her soil. Fossil fuels ARE renewable! Cell phones are dirty energy,.Lithium batteries are dirty energy. Solar panels are dirty energy All "smart"devices are human tracking dirty energy... We are being forced into a greater cage every day and without critical thinking about EVERYTHING those creature require, we are just sheep continually being duped. That's why I pay great attention to you. You and yours are doing it with love and sharing it generously. Bless you brother. I live in the woods in the Alps of California trying so hard to live under their radar.
Simply sand your finished print to get the desired smoothness
That's a good idea, I had heard you can also dip it in acetone
Indeed you can, that would certainly give a smooth finish. I would use some strong filament, print the part, sand it smooth, then lightly brush some acetone on the surface to get the finish. Less is more in terms of acetone as it could completely ruin the print.
750w is loads especially if you have batteries thats 18kwh over a day. The average houses use about 10 so your laughing add some solar and you can pretty much run anything.
Thanks we are really pleased with the output now it is stable
@@beyondtheworkbench yeh I would be more than enough to run a home off grid.
I think the problem works like this.
Imagine one is a massively faster jet than the other (could happen). Imagine the faster one hitting its impellers makes the wheel spin faster than the second jet. The second jet wont actually hit the impellar...but the back of another impeller needs to cross its jet as it spins which pushes against the direction of motion...if the spinning impellar speed is still faster than the slower jet this reduces efficiency without adding any power.
If the speed mismatch isnt so great that this is true it is still the case that the speed (technically velocity) of the slower jet relative to the impellar is less and thus less power is transferred than could have been. Id hazard a guess that before the impellar gets up to speed two jets on opposite sides would potentially reduce the inertia in getting started - although that's not your problem and I'm not even certain there.
Compare that to delivering the same energy in a single combined more powerful jet - far more efficient!
At least that's my understanding.
That makes sense, when I turn the second nozzle on to start with it slows down and then speed up as I open it up
@@beyondtheworkbench I'm also in Scotland and very jealous of your setup. We're actively thinking of buying land to do something similar although for us we'll just want it as a self sufficient retreat so don't need 50 acres (just wow though!) 10 acres would probably be a great plenty for us. Would probably manage fine with 5. We're just casually keeping an eye on what's for sale out there. Nearly pulled the trigger once on a place in the Highlands but a quick chat with the planning office ruled it out (phone call well made).
Anyway congrats on the new arrival. Glad I found your channel will watch with interest!
Ps suspect when your second jet is fully open the degree of mismatch in velocity is less so the above effect is more of an issue when your valve is a little open than fully open....but you may well get still more power if all the water were coming through a single higher powered jet....I think!
4:55 Do a tautline hitch (very strong to hold around round(ed) objects like another line oir a pipe) with a 1/4 inch rope (uv protected of course) around the pipe (not the coupler, it will pull off the pipe) and ancher the rope around either a tree with a nice and wide band strap and a swivel tensioner to prevent the pipe from pulling away from the filter...
I had to google a tautline hitch but now I know. Thanks!
@@beyondtheworkbenchyou may do better solvent-welding tapes onto your pipe for anchors.
Does look like you should consider some remote monitoring of your system. Perhaps a sensor on the turbine wheel counting RPM, maybe a pressure sender on each of the feeds, then with a cheap microprocessors collate that information to a dashboard, along with info from your inverter (Modbus). You could even add in some servo's to those flow wheels to automate them. Perhaps a couple of wireless cameras at the heads to keep an eye on them. Would be a cracking project to add in the smarts and monitoring to your existing system. Prob best initially as a non-invasive overlay, them progressing to some limited control later on once you are happy the data collected is reliable etc...
Someone has also mentioned there are flow monitors which could be really useful. Sounds like you really know your stuff with remote monitoring
@@beyondtheworkbench Ha thanks. I've been into IoT minus the 'I' for several years now. With Solar, batteries and other sources of energy I needed a way to bring it all together into one dashboard and also to control it, I wanted to ensure that internet was not required for the monitoring to work, and also crucially, no internet required for alarms and other warnings etc... DIY wired/wireless Sensors and Zigbee was the approach I took. I'm very happy with it, but there is always more to do.. lol
Kris harbour done an episode called.. adding a second penstock to my hydroelectric turbine. You might want to watch it if you haven’t already.
Thanks, I have been watching him for years but I might have to revisit that one as I can't remember much of it
He answers a lot of the questions you’ve asked and I think it might save you a couple of quid
the manifold can be made using welded stainless pipe and as such the angles can be very smooth... Also the final run from the manifold to either nozzle should be this wide and smooth curve.
Thats what I would like to achieve in the end, I also want to practice my welding for an exhaust project I have comming up. We might be chaning the turbine in the next few years depending on how this one does so I am waiting on that decision before I make anything too permenant
@@beyondtheworkbenchyou can almost certainly buy a machine-welded unit cheaper than you can make one & getting a weld consistent enough not to leak with 6 bar pressure takes a lot of practice.
Excess power, sauna!!
great idea or a hot tub which sounds amazing in the cold winters
Yeh hot tub was what I was thinking because water will retain the heat longer!
two points of force acting on opposite sides of a (generator) shaft is always better then just one point of force trying to push the shaft one way causing (possibly) premature wear on the bearings...
Thanks that was what I was hoping for
Anything up to one more jet than spoons is worth trying, anything more than 1 jet, evenly spaced, is even on the bearings.
That said, bearings that hold a lorry's wheels on for a quarter of a million miles are quite normal & they're single-contact loaded.
The input voltage after the rectifier is very low as far as the sunsynk is concerned. You can build a simple rectifying voltage multiplier using suitable diodes to double or triple the voltage.
Also you do need surge protection on the DC inputs, it's cheap to do and needed for the warranty
sounds like you know your way around this kind of problem. Thank you, it might be a bit beyond my abilities at the moment but maybe I can change the voltage settings in the wind turbine section on the inverter to raise them up?
@@beyondtheworkbench I've actually just assumed the wind turbine table is constrained to the same range as the solar mppt, but that might not be the case. How low can you set the voltage on the wind turbine table? I know you showed the table in this video but I couldn't make it out on my phone.
A green house would make good use of that excess heat ..?
An excellent use! Just have to get around to building one.
Speak to Chris harbour, maybe he will make you a colander screen. All the best. Jeffrey Smart.
Thanks Jeffrey, I had seen he had done some work on those
@@beyondtheworkbenchhe is a really nice bloke, he would help in any way he can! Even if it it just some advice.
9:40 a large(r) electric water heater tank thing to soak up the extra power ??
Thats the plan once we get to the house build. The caravan only has one water inlet and I dont want to replumb the underneath to allow a hot water in. Its definitely the best way to store the excess though as you can use it rather than just heating an outbuilding.
Just add higher spec pipe for the lower higher pressure section?
Thats was something I considered. We are going to upgrade the whole line to a 90mm pipe in the future so for now its ok on the smaller one.
You could leave the whole system as it is if you could somehow automate a cleaning cycle with some geared motors to go off every day
It hasnt been too bad with the cleaning and I took it apart in this video to see what it was like inside ua-cam.com/video/84cOhOT6SSk/v-deo.html I do still have to do it manually though so in the future we might look at electric valves
@@beyondtheworkbench The benefits of getting to inspect the system every 2 days like you said is not a bad why of looking it at though, a question about battery storage you mentioned you might get a car for that how many 48v server rack batteries do you currently have
Congratulations!
As long as you have the same pressure on both pipes, I would not spend time and money on a manifold 😊
I am glad to hear someone say it as at the moment it is all about maximum output for my effort as my time is spread all over the place with all the jobs we have to get done.
@@beyondtheworkbench The reason you want the pressure balanced is because the most efficient energy gathering from the water is when the wheel is spinning at half the speed of the water. If the wheel is spinning at the water speed, then no energy is transferred, and if the wheel is stopped/slow, there isn't much time for the water to impart energy before it bounces away and less torque is generated.
If the pressures from both ends nozzles aren't close, the best power will come from a compromise that wastes power from both nozzles. And it's the pressure you measure at the turbine that matters, which includes the pressure drop from increased flow. If they're within a couple percent (PSI in this case) I wouldn't worry.
Excellent that makes sense. I wasn't aware the sweet spot was at 1/2 the water speed@@MarkRose1337
To address your question about manifold... the manifold introduces resistance, same as small diameter pipes though through turbulence.
However, the resistance is far below the threshold of what would affect power generation.
The advatage is equal pressure per jet. The jet converts pressure to speed / force, the required flow is much less than your pipes can provide even with a manifold. The manifold does not affect pressure, this why a manifold would have no ill effect.
Your merry-go-round analogy is flawed. Two people pushing would tend to speed up the MGR only if both were capable of pushing faster than the rotation speed. They don't need to be matched, but if the mismatch is too great, the weaker one would slow the MGR.
Your settling tank idea is spot on. Just place it as high uphill as possible to build maximum pressure. The bigger the better, the longer the water rests, the more silt it will shed. Bring water in at the middle, use baffles to slow it, draw from the top.
Penstock is the pipe.
Ah thank you it is good to know the resistance caused by the manifold isnt enough to affect the output. I have found that most of the time it is ok with both jets but a small reduction in flow of one of them does tend to reduce the power a lot.
@@beyondtheworkbench great job overall. Your results are amazing! Head height conquers all. You have that in spades.
Voltage relates to the speed of the turbine, current relates to momentum on the turbine - how difficult to spin it. When you increase current from the generator, you make it harder to turn the turbine, and at some point it is so difficult that it starts to slow down (Voltage drops). There is the optimum point somewhere on this curve that you can find by making small adjustments to inverter settings and water flow. If you a curious to do it, you can tweak only one parameter to find maximum power, then switch to the next parameter only, then to next, then back to the fist.
A bit if fun math: if you drain your creaks completely you'll get at most 2 * 5 kg/s * 9.81 * 75m = 7500 W. Of course it is an impossible maximum as there is residual energy of water flow and all sorts of unavoidable losses.
Thank you for your videos and congrats with your baby!
Thanks, that explains why when I increased the amps the power went up as it was increasing the load on the turbine thus generating more output
6000 W should be achievable though!
This is what MPPT (Maximum Power Point Tracking) charge controllers do. They hunt for the optimal voltage / amp load for your alternator.
Most such charge controllers can be wired to a load dump resistor to automatically provide load when not charging.
I would check the bearings on the turbine.
Thanks others have also said this so I have gone down and had a look
Why not two sediment tanks then you dont need to buy new pipe
Thats an excellent idea. I think we will look into doing that on the next upgrade
Congrats on your second child. Boy or Girl?
Thanks Mike a girl and we called her Rowan
Hi,I was just wondering if you have checked the silt to see if there's any gold there😊👍
There is tonnes of shiny gold flecks so I got all excited when we moved here but I think it is judt Pyrite
Good luck with your quest,I hope there's some gold for you in them there hills😊
@@beyondtheworkbenchseparate out the silt with a cyclone, if you get the silt outlet right it will produce concentric rings sorted by density...
laser cut the special screen in pieces on send cut send.
Excellent suggestion thanks!
How about an electric quad so you can drive up and down?
I was actually looking at the polaris electric ATV before we got up here. At that point though we diddnt have enough power so I got the petrol one. There are always electric dirt bikes though
@offgridscotland true that! Good use of the excessive power and a good tool to do these trips on the bike! Awesome 👌🏻
Great work, can you update the link to the the turbine on ebay? seems that link is no longer valid, or even write the name/brand/model and I can search myself.
I'm doing a very similar project out in the west of Ireland, solar, Hydro and Wind to be completely off grid, although seeing how much power you are getting from the hydro I'm might get rid of the wind turbine, the amount of work getting anything useful from the wind is not really worth it.
It gives me great hope seeing the power you are getting, that much constant power is fantastic.
I watched your water filtration, great job, I started with stream water but I was getting too much turbidity after the rain plus some sheep poo 😞I switched to rain water, much easier to control, I did switch to a charcoal filter before the UV light, that made a big difference.
Excellent it's great to see someone else working through these projects too! It's the motenergy brand of turbine and nozzle. here is their website www.motenergy.com/hydro-power-products.html and the eBay for the nozzle (I hope it works) www.ebay.co.uk/itm/203268369118?chn=ps&_ul=GB&norover=1&mkevt=1&mkrid=710-134428-41853-0&mkcid=2&mkscid=101&itemid=203268369118&targetid=1403035015187&device=c&mktype=pla&googleloc=1006886&poi=&campaignid=17218284410&mkgroupid=142217514411&rlsatarget=pla-1403035015187&abcId=9300867&merchantid=6995734&gad_source=1&gbraid=0AAAAAD_Lr1ekmeOkZz1npZ6My7EllxGPw&gclid=CjwKCAiAi6uvBhADEiwAWiyRdoHtpEw4eiXMZexcjLryWu9QgxJrF06rR_KLXVJPUmnQ_q_UG9j2oBoC8q0QAvD_BwE
I can't seem to find the turbine on there any more so maybe their website might be the best place as the seller of the nozzle also used to sell the rest
80 psi is 5.5 bar. You're fine!
thanks! I thought we were somewhere near the limit but I supposed there was some leeway. Good to hear 80psi is less than the max
I assume you've seen how Kris Harbour does his hydro?
Yea I have been watching his stuff for years
@@beyondtheworkbench ...he's the master isn't he? - But you're getting there - well done. I'd have to have the generator itself in a nice dry shed with all my tools etc. in there....
Congratulations to you all Rob, on your new member of the family. I had a sneaky felling that your wife might have given birth. What a lovely life they are both going to have, growing up in beautiful surroundings, and with some amazing life skills to learn to boot🥳👍
I feel so blessed to be raising them here. We have lots of frogspawn at the moment so Casper and I are spending our days checking on them to see when they hatch
63mm rigid PVC solvent weld swimming pool / irrigation pipe, 10 bar - Plimat do very good prices for bulk. You could also have motorised valves which would mean you didn't have physically open the valves to clean the injectors, and do it remotely instead.
Thanks, the motorised valves sound amazing for version 2, especially as we could tweak the flow for when the streams are a bit lower
Unless your turbine is good for a lot more power I would NOT spend the money and the effort to change the pipe and add an intermediate tank. Your present setup give you a quasi-redundant setup! One screen can suddenly clog up, one pipe could fail, one nozzle could crack, one creek could drop flow. The only common part is the turbine and generator. I'd instead, put my money in a different place. The flow thru a pipe is what causes the dynamic head loss. The loss is a squared function! If the flow doubles the head-loss quadruples! If a Pelton wheel wants higher pressure at lower flow (check that) then work that angle with your money instead. Reducing the flow will dramatically increase the pressure. If a Pelton makes sense, switch to one and keep your existing wheel as a proven backup. That will give you fall backs on everything except the generator and turbine housing.
Thanks that's the way I am feeling about it at the moment. We will want to increase our power consumption when we have the polly tunnels and animals set up but for now we are content
You're right that the inverter settings are about it choosing the max current draw at given voltages. So its about pulling as much from the source as possible without bogging it down and it seems like you've got that completely dialed in. I think that's why you had issues with the Ecoflow powerbank being less stable, because it would just draw as much current as possible up to 15A and was likely making the generator bog.
Yea I am no expert but thats what it looked like it was doing
Hey i live in california and have the same hydro as you. My system is different. In that i only have 32 psi. Through a 4 inch pvc pipe and by switching to a pelton wheel over the turgo that you have gave me around 40 % more power. I make around 220 watts. But its enough to power my off grid small cabin.
Great its good to hear that the switch made more power so I will keep your example in mind if we get on to it
Volume flow through a pipe is proportional to the 4th power of the bore diameter, so increasing the pipe diameter will increase the water flow big time, also increasing the power and the water consumption.
Your mast site will need at least a scaffold pipe to withstand a good wind. Maybe a small cairn/hut would help to protect against force 10 gales with rain and also visiting cattle wanting a back scratcher.
I diddnt know that rule thank you. And yes I had wished the pole was bigger when I ordered it
Just paused it quickly, Amazing what you have done your ✊ the top filters are ace they work that’s that the silt collection chamber ace idea.
The merry go round thing I think if one pressure is slower than the the in my head will sort of grab on longer as in slower contact which may slow it over all.
But it works amazing so don’t worry is my thoughts,also getting it from two places I reckon way better idea too just taking a touch of each brilliant idea.
Watch some more in a bit thanks Sam.
Thanks Sam I am glad you like what we have done so far!
One thing I hear a lot is "Bubbles are trouble". Going up the hill the inlet on the right is sat in a cauldron of bubbles, deepen the water here by a taller dam. Also if you imagine the water is like a roller coaster that gains speed going down hill but slows as it climbs up, this mean your pipework should always lie as low as possible and not run up and down over banks or trees. Great you don't drain one stream.
Thanks, hopefully the penstock will reduce these bubbles as it will be a fair size once we get to it
New Zealand currency is in dollars currently 48 p Uk for 1 nz dollar so just under 500 uk pounds for filter plus postage congrats for the birth of your second child all the beast And regards from us in nz.
Thanks!
750w is an amazing amount of power so well done. Chasing small things to improve your system I totally understand as I've been doing this since I first put mine in and it can become a bit of an obsession. If anything work on the intake as I have found this is the most important part and the most most likely to give problems. I get the same jet blocking your talking about and need to open the jet to clear it. mine is not silt it's fine grit/sand and I find if the jet is open at least 4 full turns then it's fine everything passes through no problem. I use a filter in the stream before the water hits the intake and this helps. Fixed jets would solve the problem but you lose the flow control which like myself you need as the stream water changes over the year.
I looked at coanda screen but found it to be to expensive for what it is.
Good to see it all coming together and congratulations on your new born.
Thank you very much. The nozzles seem to get a lot of hate from people but I also really like them as I can just clear them by opening them up like you said or turn it down to a slow spin if I want it running but not generating for what ever reason
My 17 year old system (1/4 mile of 3" HDPE fusion welded line, 147' of fall, 840 watts, Harris Hyrdo turbine) somehow has a partial blockage in my supply line that is driving me crazy. The Coanda screen prevents anything large getting in there, but somehow on my spring startup this year the issue came to the front. I've walked the entire line (above ground) searching for a problem, digging it out where it had been covered, all good. No leaks, all indications are it's a blockage of some kind. Thickly overgrown now with brush etc., I am only putting out 6 amps @24 VDC, should be over 30 amps, due to the small jets in place, my normal large jets this high water time of year (mountain stream) deplete the line faster than the pressure can be maintained. I need to call Rotor Rootor I guess!
Thats a bummer I am not looking forward to that kind of issue arrising which I am sure it will. You have such a long run as well!
@@beyondtheworkbench Since I posted that comment, it appears my flow has improved to normal! I think what happened, is because I first turned the system on again this spring (it's drained out all winter) one area of my line had a large snow drift, and that area also happened to be where the line has a dip in it. I should have waited until the drift was gone, I think I had a partial obstruction by ice, which slowed the flow and allowed sediment that normally is flushed thru, to accumulate. Letting it run full blast for 24 hrs., with the bottom open, flushed it out. My screen is directly below a culvert, at the very top of my mountain property, with no provision for sediment capture, anything I do to change that, would result in a bit less head pressure as it would be lower, so I put up with it as is. The bronze Pelton wheels lasted about 6 years each, the latest is stainless steel and is purported to be almost bulletproof! My normal large spring runoff jets going back in today!
Congratulations on the new addition to the family, you really have jumped into the deep end with all that is going on. For what it is worth i think your approach is the best way, yes there will be serveral incarnations of a number of projects, that being said less chance of wasting money but also a better understanding of how things work etc as you go along due to the fact you have quite a number of projects on the go.👍
Thanks I do feel like I have to get each thing working to a basic level and then come back to it in the future as there is loads to get together here
The first ever house powered by electricity (Cragside in Northumberland) used hydroelectric, it's definitely the way to go!
Was it really? Thats amazing
You just walking up and down that hill brings me out in a sweat...😆
After all the teething problems..which were a certainty ... you have a good little system.
Thanks Its doing really well ar the moment
Tesla PowerWall storage?
That would be amazing but I think it might be a bit more expensive than the system we have put together since ua-cam.com/video/Dp9HolZG724/v-deo.html
If you haven't done the tank yet, think about having the 2 pipes enter it at an angle to create a centrifugal force on the water, and mount the exit tube in the center toward the top.. It should eliminate the silt..😉 I haven't done it personally but saw a system with this design to eliminate sand.. Congrats on the system and the babe.. Great vid!👍
That sounds like a brilliant idea, seems like free filtration with the cyclone.
As a complete novice when it comes to micro hydro systems, I wonder about the two water lines coming into a single cistern. If that had a conical bottom and inlet flow induced a swirl, could that collect the fine silt at the bottom. That could be allowed to dump. Just a thought.
Great idea. I had someone else suggest a system like that and they called it a vertex filter so I will be looking into this
A penstock and a tank or pond close to the turbine that the stream fills would work I think. Then the piping from above is not needed. An outlet with a good valve would give you control over it all. This is what I think at least.
That seems to be the way most people are suggesting so you are right.
Forgot to add. What about something like a Ring door camera set up by your inverter to allow you to see your power output. It’d save your legs👍👍
I had someone else suggest that and it would be great especially when the river is too high to cross and I have to go the long way around
You could simply couple the two lines together with a pair of T’s and a length of tubing running between them within a few feet of the turbine to experiment with “balancing” the two sources without the investment in an arguably experimental manifold. Any imbalance would cause a flow (slowly, probably) through the connector. Pressure at the two nozzles (assuming same nozzle size) would be the same. I, too, don’t know why they need to be coupled. I think that the tunable nozzles allow you to match the operating pressure to be equal to one another and is effectively the same as coupling the two sources with a manifold or as I’ve suggested above. The end result will be equal readings on your gauges. Simplicity is your friend in hydro. Tinkering and fine-tuning is super fun, but when you’re on baby duty, you’ll be happy to have a system with as few weak points as possible. The silt problem is a head-scratcher. The only thing I can think of for your silt problem is to have traditional nozzles that don’t have the needle in the middle. I swap mine out twice a year between wet and dry season to accommodate flow conditions.
Thanks. I had considered connecting the lines together at the turning before splitting again to balance the pressure. Others have also recommended fixed nozzles which sounds like a good idea as the hole is less likely to get clogged like you say.
@@beyondtheworkbench You also alluded to the idea of a settling tank near the intake. We get our drinking water from the same source as our hydro, and for the drinking water, we have a 5-gallon bucket a few feet below the intake. We then have several water pipes coming out of that. It traps more silt-sized sediment than I thought it would.
Hi just found ur channel, have a few ideas not sure if they will help or not 1) the intakes are u able to dig them out deep enough to place a blue plastic drum there and have the pipe fittings near the bottom of it and a opening at the bottom to flush the selt out , 2) hot water is there not a setting on ur converter that will switch to different thing ie once ur batteris are full it will heat ur water up for you , 3 when u rebuild ur housing for the generator make it big enough so u can split the incoming water into two different pipes inside the housing hopefully any of those may give u an opion that u may not of fort about before hand .
thank you very much, yes I am planning to dump load to a hot water heater but the caravan we are in at the moment does not have a hot water feed (it has a gas water heater) so I will save that system for the house build. Thanks for the suggestion on the inlets I will add that to the bits I will work on for version 2