Conference 7.286::home_work

I know there's some stuff about this in this file somewhere, but I can't find 
it in the directory.  You may also want to check the WOODWORKING_AND_TOOLS 
notesfile - it's had some discussions on generators also, but I don't remember 
if they specifically addressed the water turbine issue.  Check note 5.34 in 
that file for the directory on MOTORS_AND_GENERATORS.

Please keep us posted on how this works out.  I've always wanted to have a 
place with the potential for water power.

Paul

      Sounds very interesting.  I'd like to know what you find out too.
    Another place you might want to ask this is OVDVAX::ELECTRO_HOBBY.
    I suspect that if the generator you want exists, someone in that
    conference might find it in one of their catalogs.
    
    KP7 to select that conference.
    
    -Jim

    WoW, what a gold mine. You get to tell the utilities to buzz off.
    Sounds like you have quite a potential for water power. I would
    start checking into some of the books printed by the Goverment,
    I know there is a few on alternat power sourses. Try checking the
    local library. Also call some of the manufactuers of generators.
    
    
    Jim

    You might end up with a problem if you dam the stream depending
    on where it goes. Ecology, wetlands and all that good stuff. I guess
    it depends on how much effect you'll have and where you are (in
    the Socialist State of Mass. you need a permit to sneeze).
    
    Eric

>    I am looking for a source of a water driven turbine - something
>    that might put out a few hundred watts or more. 
Check out sources of an item called Pelton Wheel.  These are high pressure
low flow turbine units (just the turbine).

>    Also, does anyone
>    know offhand how much energy is available from a 1" pipe under about
>    80 lbs of pressure 
Insufficient data, required and not given is the rate of flow.  I trust 80
lbs pressure is at 0 flow? => 0 energy.  One inch line has a lot of drag,
how long is line? how much head in line?

>    and what kind of conversion efficiency I could
>    expect from such a water driven turbine, assuming I could find someone
>    who makes one?
Turbine effieciency is not a large part of the effiecency equation when the
feed is one inch.    

Bruce

    A source for information about manufacturers of turbines, et al
    is the Thomas Register, a many-volume (like maybe 20 or so) set
    of bright green books in many public libraries and DEC site purchasing
    departments.  They usually include actual pages from manufacturers'
    catalogs with the same information the catalog shows.  There's an
    index by key word, and separate volumes of company information,
    including phones.  (They cover most US manufacturing of any kind
    of product.)
    
    Your project sounds neat!  Hope you can make it work out!
    
    Sherry

    
    This may help a little...  I took a quick look in an fluids handbook.
    The theoretical energy available is:
    
    			P=(HQw)/550
    
    where;	P is in horsepower  (note 1 horsepower=.746Kw)
    		H is net effective head in feet
    		Q is flow rate in cubic feet per second
    		w is weight of water (62.3 lbs per cubic foot)
    
    
    This does not include turbine efficiency.  Just multiply theoretical
    P times efficiency for actual power.  Q takes a little calculation
    or could be measured fairly easily.  I did take a second to calculate
    head in feet.  Its been awhile and I may have screwed up, but I
    came up with 185 foot drop!???  (used your 80 PSI).  This seems
    high, unless your property is on the side of a cliff.
    
    Good luck
    
    
    Craig
    
         

    The mother earth news had an article within the last year or two
    about water power which gave some real good info and even a few
    diagrams.
    
    -j
    

    After some small amount of research on the phone I basically decided
    that the expense was not worth the effort....just about that time
    I finally found myself up in the woods and visited a log cabin which
    is actually one of my neighbors.
    
    We started talking and about 6 hours later we got onto the subject
    of power.  He runs into his cabin and comes out with a home made
    turbine.  Tells me he builds them himself and sells them for cash
    as needed etc....
    
    Sure.  So he takes me about 500 feet down to the brook and shows
    me this thing in operation.  You may not believe this but I saw
    it all (and we were drinking coffee, not beer).
    
    The unit is a box made of 16 gauge steel which houses a squirrl
    cage device (probably came off a PDP-1).  The top of the unit has
    a 4 inch pipe input and there is a metering valve on the 4" inlet
    which puts out a solid thin but wide stream of water onto the cage.
    
    The cage turns and the outflow runs out another 4" pipe (large size
    output is used to prevent back pressure, large inlet is used to
    make the size of the components easy to work with, maintain, and
    to match the 4" width of the squirrl cage.
    
    Anyway, this thing turns a 23 Watt,  yes, 23 watt! DC generator.
    The output of the 23 watt DC generator is fed over a transmission
    line made from #6 aluminum wire with steel core up to the house,
    about 500 feet away.
    
    This is used to charge a 12 volt battery.  The house is wired for
    12 volts using RV 12 Volt bulbs and he has one 400 W inverter for
    electric appliances.  Everything in the house runs on 12 Volts,
    including radio, tv, CB etc....
    
    He says it supplies enough energy 90% of the time for whatever he
    needs to do.  Only trouble is in the winter when he needs light
    for longer periods and sometimes he has to watch TV in the dark.
    
    Oh, one more thing, going out the side of the cabin in the other
    direction was another 12 V line.  That goes about 200 feet to his
    well, where he has an RV diaphram pump which is how he gets his
    water.
    
    Unbelieveable.!!
    
    How much water - judging from the outflow about a garden hose (5/8")
    flow, very little head - looked to be no more than 20 feet.
    
    He said sometimes he wishes he had a little more power, but the
    real advantage is he doesn't get the monthly mail - ie bill.
    
    /Len
    

    
    Re: .10
    
    	Can you recheck the numbers?  You said:
    
    >Anyway, this thing turns a 23 Watt,  yes, 23 watt! DC generator.
    >The output of the 23 watt DC generator is fed...
    
    	- and -
    
    >He says it supplies enough energy 90% of the time for whatever he
    >needs to do.
    
    	I hate to potentially burst your bubble, but 23 watts of power,
    even generated 24 hours a day and only used periodically, is next
    to nothing.  I can fully understand his statement about the "only
    trouble is in the winter when he needs light for longer periods
    and sometimes he has to watch TV in the dark."  A single 60 watt
    bulb on for 3 hours in the evening will use 1/3rd of the *total*
    daily production capacity, and this doesn't discount any transmission
    and storage losses.  How much power does his TV require?
    
    	Sounds to me that he is basically saying "it supplies all my
    needs until I need to use electricity".  If his lifestyle doesn't
    require much electricity (i.e. go to bed when it gets dark, ice
    chest instead of a refridgerator, etc., etc.) then yes, 23 watts/hour
    might work for him.  Personally, I would look for more generating
    capacity...  How much more?  Take a look at your old electricity
    bills to see how many kilowatts per month your lifestyle requires.
    Divide that by 720 and that will tell you approximately what your
    generating requirements must be per hour.  I really suspect it will
    be higher than 23 watts per hour!
    
    							-craig

    Well, 23 watts is right, and some part of that is used in transmission
    loss.
    
    Remember, these are backwoods folk.  Basically electricity is a
    luxery - there are no 100 watt stereos or personal computers and
    certainly no VAXEN.
    
    The TV is your basic BW model, probably running about 12 Watts -
    ie it could be run off of D cells.
    
    The bulbs are all RV type 12 Volt bulbs - I think they have 3 in
    the house (which is basically a cabin with only seperate bedroom
    and somewhat seperate bathroom).  They had 1 60 watter, others seemed
    less.
    
    The inverter was 400 Watt variety - typically used to open cans
    and for the mixer.
    
    Everything else at the house ran from propane.
    
    Unlike most flatlanders, they retire early, generally shortly after
    dark, and rise with the sun.  That makes their day run from about
    5:30 am to 9:30/10:00 this time of year - most of it without
    electricity except for the radio and the TV etc...
    
    If you care to find out more contact Tom Ruggles at 802-467-8825.
    I'm sure he'd be glad to talk your ear off about how it works etc.
    
    As for the KW's used monthly etc., I understand what you mean -
    I waste more electricity from kids leaving the light in the hall
    closet on in one month than he uses in a year.  But he's happy with
    what he has - and he gets no monthly bill.
    
    /Len

    There was a little write-up in the Sunday Worcester Telegram & Gazette
    on Home Windmills.
    
    In the article they mention a 20 lb portable unit is great for your
    home and even taking with you camping.
    
    I plan to risk the $1.50 and send for more information on monthly wind 
    charts since this will be a deciding factor on whetheror not I pursue
    this further.
    
    Has anyone out there in noters land bought and currently use a
    residential windmill?  Any pointers to other conferences (I did a
    dir/title=windmill here)  Any advice or words of wisdom, caution or
    reccomendations?
    
    Joyce

    
    In the windsurfing notes file there is a pointer to an on-line NOAA
    source for wind charts that you can display on a workstation. There's
    also a pointer to several wind hotlines that give more dynamic data. 
    Someone usually posts this information to the notesfile on a daily
    basis in the spring.
    
    These have little information on what wind you will actually get at a
    particular locale.  If I take a wind reading outside my house, there's
    no guarantee that I will get that wind level reading from NOAA.  The
    only way to get a mean for a locale is to record it for several months.
    
    Regrds,
           
    Colin
    

    
    
    If I remember right, the last artical on Windmill Power
    said something to the extent that what you got out of it
    didnt amount to what you put into it...$$$$$  Makes a good
    water pump at times.....  Unless you place it right next
    to RT128.  Wind gusts up to 90mph at rush hour!!!
    
    JD

    In another note in this conference, I discussed my plan for
    off-the-grid life.  I plan to install a windmill (a 600W unit, which
    costs $925).  Unfortunately, being in the mountains where I am, there
    is no government wind data for my site, so I'm just going to throw the
    grand at the problem in hopes that the wind will supplement the solar
    on cloudy/stormy days.
    
    The solar will definitely be the primary power source.  If I get
    anything out of the windmill, I'll be real happy!
    
    Mage

Re: .0

Joyce,

I don't get the Worcester papers so I missed the article. 
However, I have been trying to get information on windmills for 
the last 8-9 months. My only source for information was the 
Framingham  library and that was information 10 years old. I don't 
believe there are any books currently published on the topic except 
for a couple of reprints on windmills of books first published at 
the turn of the century.

I was specifically trying to get information on the 3 important 
things that comprise a system. The three things are:

		* generator

		* blade or propeller

		* blade speed control (high wind protection)

Without going into a lot of details, I struck out on the three 
things of interest. There are complete systems commercially 
available, but there isn't much around on the components. I 
intend to continue to pursue the topic because I prefer to build my 
own. Please let me know if your successful in finding any subject 
related pointers. Windmills were a hot topic when alternate 
energy sources were given tax credits in the 70's & early 80's. 
I think some type of credit may have been restored by Congress 
last year.

Joe

    
    The Centre for Alternative Technology in Trwansfynnydd, Wales has been
    running for 15 years now (and handling 50,000 visitors per year).  They
    run the place with wind, water, solar and other renewable energy
    sources - and even make a profit selling the technology.  I'll dig up
    their address and you can write to them for info.
    
    The other thing to add to your list is power regulation electronics.
    Even when turbine speed can be governed mechanically, there usually
    has to be some way to control output levels.
    
    I saw some publications only a few years ago that talked about using
    windmill farms for electrolysis - producing hydrogen from water and
    such. The idea was that these could be mechanically simpler as the
    speed/power output fluctuations would not matter.  Still pretty
    expensive however - but extremely "clean".
    
    Regards,
    
    Colin

For any central Mass (or beyond) wind mill enthusiasts, Princeton Mass
has a dozen or so windmills set up in a field south west? of Wachusett
Montain. You might want to contact the town's municipal light dept for
more info and maybe even a tour. 

I don't believe the windmills were as succesful as they had hoped but
that should still be valuable info if the light department will share
it with you. 

Charly

    RE: .3 Where are your notes?  I'd like to read more information on what
    you found out.
    
    RE: .4 Joe, I have the article here - would you like a copy of it?
    
    I'm not counting on all my energy needs being met by the windmill but
    I'd love to at least chip away at it, and do my part to get away from
    fossil fuels.
    
    Joyce

    Please peruse 4600.*.  While my discussion barely touches on wind
    power, it does go into enormous detail on all the pieces of the
    alternate energy system.
    
    From what I've read, the generator on a commercially-available home
    wind turbine is simply a heavy-duty 12V or 24V DC alternator.  Usually
    from GM (you know, the guys who build all those big cars/trucks).
    
    Oh, unless you are willing to buy into this wind-power thing in a big
    way, don't count on "supplementing" your power usage, because the
    regulator/inverter you will need to synch with city power (so you can
    sell back what you don't need, but still draw what you need for peaks)
    is *very* expensive.
    
    If you planned to wire your lighting and other low-draw things with DC,
    and have a battery-bank to smooth out the low-wind times, then you
    might escape cheaply, especially if your dish-washer still draws from
    the city, etc.
    
    Feel free to contact me off-line if you need help ... Mage

    I received a federal wind power paper about 5 years ago. It had alot
    of info....wind studies by area/curves of power vs windspeed/generator
    companies/etc. It was about 3/4 inch thick. I also read an article
    in the current Mother Earth News...nice section on windpower.
    
    Simple answer.....if you live on the coast or on a mountain, its
    possible to have wind power for you. Also, the first thing to do,
    is make some wind speed measurements at your location.
    
    The number for the federal agency for windpower was: (303) 231-1000.
    If it has been changed, let me know.
    
    Marc H.

    RE. .8  will read up on note 4600
    
    RE. .9 your phone numebr is still good - I got voicemail but left a
    message - thansk for the info.
    
    Joyce