Hi All
Mike.
Thanks for the offer of posting parts out, I'll let you know..........
Glort.
This had sort of gone around in a circle, or maybe a spiral, I'm liking the 24 volt alternator option, a lot.
It appeals to my idea of simplicity, connecting straight to the battery and controlling it's own output, which is where I started.
With the output from a 24 v alternator I'd be prepared to run the whole place on a single battery bank knowing that the 'catch up time would be vastly reduced.
Bruce.
I read all your posts, in the hope I might learn something, all I ever get is reassurance that I know sod all about electronics, this time you've come up with something I can understand!
Whilst I don't think I could manage a set up as clever as the one you've just described, I like the idea of house heating with the surplus power.
I envisage a back boiler on the wood stove looping round through a hot water tank, radiators upstairs and finally through underfloor heating downstairs, putting a second set of underfloor heating pipes in before concreting the slab will be easy and peanuts.
In Kazakhstan I saw a system with a 3Kw water heating element in a 3" pipe running a thermo siphon system in a small building, electricity was cheap. If I had power to spare at night diverting it to a similar set up with it's own dedicated pump would be fantastic and bloody easy for the electrically challenged!.
So, the next question, I started to try and find out what size of Pelton wheel I'd need to drive said 24v alternator, found a site with various calculations and then glazed over when I got to the word 'abscissa'
Given the 40 meter head and a 3" (or 75mm) plpe, would anyone like to hazard a guess what size wheel would be best?
I don't need the answer to 6 decimal places, somewhere close on a cigarette packet will do!
Cheers
Stef