Author Topic: Micro power gen  (Read 11182 times)

dieselspanner

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Micro power gen
« on: August 17, 2018, 05:56:58 PM »
Hi Guys

I posted a few months back about buying an off grid barn, still not mine yet, French Bureaucracy has to be seen to be believed!

Anyway, I'm doing my research a bit at a time, so.......

Anyone had any dealings with this system, or similar?

 https://www.currentgeneration.co.nz/shop/alternativeenergy/MICRO+HYDRO.html

Cheers
Stef
Tighten 'til it strips, weld nut to chassis, peen stud, adjust with angle grinder.

mikenash

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Re: Micro power gen
« Reply #1 on: August 17, 2018, 11:49:13 PM »
G'day Stef

I'm in New Zealand, of course - but in the wrong island from these guys

But if I can do anything that's easier to do locally, I'd be happy to help

Maybe if you approached them for contact details of previous customers who might have feedback on their product I could talk to them or go look at something if it was nearby-ish

I would guess they are well-made if they are locally built as we don't tend to build crap as it's such a small country that reputation is important.  But if the components are Chinese . . .

Get back to me if you like - or email me on mnash@waterforce.co.nz if you want

Cheers, Mike

dieselspanner

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Re: Micro power gen
« Reply #2 on: August 22, 2018, 07:35:32 AM »
Hi Mike

Sorry for the slow reply, it's the last week of our summer season, as well as being busy we're knackered too, running a B&B would be a lot easier without people staying in your house!

Some detail from a 'live' site would be great, if you let me know which area you're in I'll chase up the suppliers for a few details.

Hi Glort

As to building my own, I've got my hands on a Pelton wheel, ex USA, and once the aforementioned season slows down and I've caught up on my to do list I'll have a play.

We live in a fairly steep valley so the water pressure here is pretty good, so much so that we have a reducer on the inlet, my first effort will probably be driving a 12v vehicle alternator.

As for head, there's around 40 meters vertical to the barn, and I keep the cable run short, or if I remote the plant to the bottom of the property, 40 m away I'd get nearer 50m.

Cheers
Stef
Tighten 'til it strips, weld nut to chassis, peen stud, adjust with angle grinder.

LowGear

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Re: Micro power gen
« Reply #3 on: August 22, 2018, 07:50:56 PM »
I've got a three inch pipe with 10 feet of drop.  Should I be paying closer attention to this thread?
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mikenash

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Re: Micro power gen
« Reply #5 on: August 23, 2018, 12:12:37 AM »
Hi Mike

Sorry for the slow reply, it's the last week of our summer season, as well as being busy we're knackered too, running a B&B would be a lot easier without people staying in your house!

Some detail from a 'live' site would be great, if you let me know which area you're in I'll chase up the suppliers for a few details.

Hi Glort

As to building my own, I've got my hands on a Pelton wheel, ex USA, and once the aforementioned season slows down and I've caught up on my to do list I'll have a play.

We live in a fairly steep valley so the water pressure here is pretty good, so much so that we have a reducer on the inlet, my first effort will probably be driving a 12v vehicle alternator.

As for head, there's around 40 meters vertical to the barn, and I keep the cable run short, or if I remote the plant to the bottom of the property, 40 m away I'd get nearer 50m.

Cheers
Stef

G'day Stef

I live in the Central North Island near Palmerston north and I travel routinely in an area from Wellington in the south to Hawkes Bay in the north from my base near Palmerston North. 

I travel regularly to the Bay of Plenty and that trip takes me from my home area through the Taupo/Rotorua region

I am occasionally further afield as well

As it happens I have a property with a spring up a hill and something like 25 metres of head over quite a small horizontal distance - so I emailed back-and-forth to Mike at Current Generation to see if those units could make a contribution at my property but, alas, they cannot (I have water coming down the hill in a pipeline not "free").  He says a single PowerSpout unit is around $NZ3000

If you want to have a look on Google Maps you'll see the regions where I am or where I travel - I go other places as well, but less regularly

If Mike at Current Generation had a customer or two who would be prepared to show me around their site, I'd be interested to have a look for my own interest.  If he had suggested locations, I'd soon be able to say to you "yes" I can go see or "no" I can't

They look & sound like simple, robust bits of kit.  But they wouldn't be maintenance-free.  I would guess they need wearing bits replaced from time to time and his website suggests this is easy

Those 6205 bearings he mentions suggest a 25mm shaft and I guess there will be lip seals somewhere maybe?  But those 25mm SKF Explorer bearings are at the consumer end of SKF's product range so they won't be expensive

With a 270mm and 235mm rotor on a 25mm shaft I wouldn't think bearings would last forever?  However, metric bearings & seals are "off the shelf" anywhere in the world, and you could always keep a spare shaft "in stock"

I'll be interested to have a look at one myself if there is one suitably-located

Cheers, Mike

mikenash

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Re: Micro power gen
« Reply #6 on: August 23, 2018, 12:21:35 AM »
Hi Mike

Sorry for the slow reply, it's the last week of our summer season, as well as being busy we're knackered too, running a B&B would be a lot easier without people staying in your house!

Some detail from a 'live' site would be great, if you let me know which area you're in I'll chase up the suppliers for a few details.

Hi Glort

As to building my own, I've got my hands on a Pelton wheel, ex USA, and once the aforementioned season slows down and I've caught up on my to do list I'll have a play.

We live in a fairly steep valley so the water pressure here is pretty good, so much so that we have a reducer on the inlet, my first effort will probably be driving a 12v vehicle alternator.

As for head, there's around 40 meters vertical to the barn, and I keep the cable run short, or if I remote the plant to the bottom of the property, 40 m away I'd get nearer 50m.

Cheers
Stef

Stef also check out this guy:

https://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/homed/latest/105877285/converted-washing-machine-provides-free-power-to-angry-ram-blogger?cid=facebook.post.105877285

and

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLaSf_YY7Xs

and

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Y_Na5L0qko

and

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ieFZI4-6K8

You can follow his links and videos around

His approach is low tech but the principles are there and easily understood and could be re-engineered for reliability and ease of service

Cheers, Mike

mikenash

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Re: Micro power gen
« Reply #7 on: August 23, 2018, 09:45:21 AM »
Hi Mike

Sorry for the slow reply, it's the last week of our summer season, as well as being busy we're knackered too, running a B&B would be a lot easier without people staying in your house!

Some detail from a 'live' site would be great, if you let me know which area you're in I'll chase up the suppliers for a few details.

Hi Glort

As to building my own, I've got my hands on a Pelton wheel, ex USA, and once the aforementioned season slows down and I've caught up on my to do list I'll have a play.

We live in a fairly steep valley so the water pressure here is pretty good, so much so that we have a reducer on the inlet, my first effort will probably be driving a 12v vehicle alternator.

As for head, there's around 40 meters vertical to the barn, and I keep the cable run short, or if I remote the plant to the bottom of the property, 40 m away I'd get nearer 50m.

Cheers
Stef

Stef, yes, I often think how good my work would be if not for the customers . . .

Excuse me if you have seen all this, but . . . .

Down here at the Bottom of the World we often have a different take on Intellectual Property - and thus it is with the Micro Hydro Power Spout chap . . .

See videos/links?  IMHO they are very interesting:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLzHr0Qntgo

and

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVR6UBCIRFs

and

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z61EakCymsY

and

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2EtEVdAQUY

An once you get to looking he has a heap more: ones about the shaft, and bearing replacement . . .

Cheers

mikenash

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Re: Micro power gen
« Reply #8 on: August 24, 2018, 04:37:48 AM »

Stef these are just F&P washing machine motors.  They are permanent magnet and very popular as wind and MH generators.
they would be easy for a man of your skills to set up. I have done a couple, one was a 7 phase and the other one was just a straight High voltage setup that I rectified and ran through a controller.  I have one the neighbour gave me the other week sitting up the back now.

There is lots of info on them on the net, just google F&P generator  and go from there.  You can re configure the winding's for different outputs and do a lot with them. I notice power spout sell all their parts from the housings to the motors and controllers even the pelton wheels separately so you could always just get the parts you need and do the rest yourself.  Pretty sure you wouldn't need any parts, these things would not be hard to put together and there is endless clever examples of what people have done on YT.

What sort of Flow and head do you have at the new place?   I would love to have somewhere to play around with MH.  With a constant water source it seems like the ultimate Alternative energy source to me.

Be interesting to see what you come up with for this.

If you look at these guys' website they're a bit smarter than that . . . .

They have a smart algorithm calculator, and if you enter your data into its fields - head, flow, conduit diameter, friction loss etc etc - they take those variables and match them with the one constant - nominal rotational speed - and "custom match" generated voltage etc to get the most out of what water you have . . . . or so they say

IMHO their blurb is worth a read

And the fact that they're not precious about their IP - everything's on YT - makes me feel confident they have at least serviceable quality in their gear

dieselspanner

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Re: Micro power gen
« Reply #9 on: August 24, 2018, 09:40:08 AM »
Casey,

Take a look at this......

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lv3ugqjSqfM

It depends on what you hope to achieve, but this guy has raided the 'come in handy' pile and knocked up something useful with little head and minimum cost. Gotta be a great start point.

Mike,

Thanks for that, that's whole lot of information, I'll be a while soaking it up (and all the other Youtube vids it leads one on to!)

As mentioned in previous posts, I'm not all about with power generation and even worse with electronics, however.....

I think the idea is to 'gang up' the coils in threes - and 'star' rather than 'delta'? to drop the voltage to something less dangerous and more usable. Presumably this give a corresponding increase in amp and the power output remains the same.

I'll be off down the local tip next week with a load of crap, so I'll chat up Patrice - the head tip rat, he's been on our side since my OH sorted out his accommodation in Cardiff for the last France / Wales match.

I've never seen a washing machine with a smart motor, maybe they're not a prolific in Europe but there's got to be one somewhere near here.

Cheers Stef
     
Tighten 'til it strips, weld nut to chassis, peen stud, adjust with angle grinder.

dieselspanner

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Re: Micro power gen
« Reply #10 on: August 25, 2018, 11:02:43 AM »
Hi Glort

You're on the nail with the route I fancy taking, Charger, Battery, Inverter, you missed the last step - Lister!

I've had shiploads - pun intended! of experience with 12 volt boat stuff and know that most of the kit I (eventually!) plan on using is readily available, here's how I see it........

The barn has potable mains water, big step forward, it's the one thing that's bloody hard to make!

The nearest mains electric is 250m and €8000 away, for that sort of budget I can do a lot of playing.

I intend live more in the style of Bob (Ajaffa) and Starfire than feeding power hungry aircon and so on, as it will be a summer residence, at least for the start. so I'll fancy splitting the 12v system into 3.

300 amp hr battery for kitchen and hair dryer duty, with a 5000 w inverter, 150 ah battery for the 12v led lights and 150 ah battery for the 'media', tv, radio, internet ect. Both the small banks to have their own, smaller inverters.

The charging I'm happy to split, 8/12 hrs in the daytime for the kitchen, lights 6 / 8 hours or so in the evening, the rest to the media in the dark hours. all timer controlled to allow for balancing the charging time and add / subtract batteries as 'real time' usage dictates.

Anything left and it can go to hot water preheat.

When SHMBO dictates the need for 220v ac Lister should cover the washing machine, dishwasher,ect. and allow for power in the workshop. any left over 'Lister Power' to the battery banks and / or hot water preheat.

I've got a decent supply of WVO as well, having read most of your posts on the subject I never turn it down and ahve quite stash now, I'm storing more than my old tractor and Landrover are burning!

Wood burning stove, with back boiler, for cooking, domestic hot water, the rest to under floor heating, spring and autumn (we've good good quality beech for fuel up to the eyeballs) propane cooker and 'fridge freezer.

Having done the calc's to the best of my abillty I reckon 500w 24/7 is just about doable, 750 gives a little margin and 1000 will be Rolls Royce, should I be wrong I'll start the Lister early.

As it's all going to be modular any errors, increase or breakdowns can be covered from another part of the system, also, as you suggested I'm going to go with a large pipe to start with, which will help keep the pressure up at the the hydro plant and allow for more generation to be added without extra plumbing.

All I have to do is buy it, put in a road, re roof it, put in some windows and a concrete floor ans before I fit out the internals first!!

Cheers Stef

Tighten 'til it strips, weld nut to chassis, peen stud, adjust with angle grinder.

dieselspanner

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Re: Micro power gen
« Reply #11 on: August 26, 2018, 10:21:35 AM »
A couple of good points there, Glort

I'm liking the use of the stream water for running red neck air con, and the dish washer, not too sure how the washing machine will fare with the lacy French underwear.......

The idea behind the three banks was to keep it all simple, no more than two batteries per bank with a dedicated (cheap Chinese) charger from the Lister as back up, and plenty of redundancy

The 'kitchen bank' would only be used for blenders, mixers ect. and the hair dryer, I'd rather have a bigger inverter running easy than a small one that struggles with the start up of a particular appliance. I can't see anything being run for more that a few minutes, and that would most likely be during the day when it's on charge.

I had a pair of 130 ah deep cycle batteries on my barge and they, with a 6000w inverter would run the whole boat with a standard 22v domestic under the counter 'fridge (and the hairdryer) for a day and a half.

I don't want to use too much water as the stream in question supplies the top half of our valley with potable water and if I bandit the lot the local Marie (council) will have a hissy fit, you can do more or less what you like up here, until you piss the neighbours off, then they bubble you to the Mayor and he has to do something or he won't get voted in next time.

Hence the plan to use a 4" pipe, to keep the losses to friction down but have as high a pressure with a correspondingly lower flow down below. If, in practice, there's no problem I can 'big' things up later. It would be nice to pull 5Kw and back feed the grid, but A, there's no grid and B, electricity here is cheaper, most of it is hydro or nuclear, and the feed in tarriffs are correspondingly low

The inverter on the barge was a Chinese inverter / charger, 6000w , cost around £600 and was running for 4 years before I sold up. Went a bit against the then perceived wisdom that nothing would do but a couple of grands worth of kit from the big boys.

A good tip on checking the fuse ratings too.

Cheers
Stef
Tighten 'til it strips, weld nut to chassis, peen stud, adjust with angle grinder.

ajaffa1

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Re: Micro power gen
« Reply #12 on: August 26, 2018, 12:37:52 PM »
Hi Stef, I think Glort may have a point, perhaps you have spent too much time at sea if you have taken to wearing women`s underwear, has SWMBO taken to wearing men`s underwear?

We live in troubled times, thank god for our sense of humor!  :laugh:

Bob

dieselspanner

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Re: Micro power gen
« Reply #13 on: August 26, 2018, 12:45:44 PM »
SWMBO doesn't wear Male undies, she wears the trousers.............

I did go through a spell of wearing pink lacy French knickers, the lads found out when I turned up for practice at the rugby club having forgotten I was still had them on, when the tight head prop said

'How long have you been wearing them, Stef?'

I said 'Since the Mrs found a pair in the back of my Landrover'

Cheers Stef
Tighten 'til it strips, weld nut to chassis, peen stud, adjust with angle grinder.

ajaffa1

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Re: Micro power gen
« Reply #14 on: August 26, 2018, 01:17:49 PM »
Rugby, Land rovers and lace underwear, SHMBO wears the trousers? Things are worse than I thought. When you move into your place in the Pyrenees we`ll have to get Trump to build a wall around it, to prevent the spread of dangerous, subversive French liberalism.

Bob