It does help if you know something about electricity. You may want to purchase the following book "Motors as Generators for Micro-Hydro Power" by Nigel Smith. It will give you the basic system.

Generally the system involves a 3 phase motor with capacitors connected to provide self excitation. The AC power is sent to a transformer then rectified and sent to your batteries. A controller is used to take any excess power to a diversion load. The capacitors also allow you to maximize the amount of power produced.

A 3 phase motor is used instead of a single phase such as a wash machine motor, because of the smoother rectified power. The 3 phase motor to use should normally turn at 17-1800 rmp and should have more than 3 wires to connect to (dual voltage motors). 3 phase induction motors can be picked up at scrap yards or electric motor rebuilders.

In my upgrade I got a 2 hp single voltage (575 volts) 3 phase motor, so I had to go inside to the windings and bring more leads out and get the voltage down to a useable level( 120 volts). The motor is excited by three 9 micro farad motor run capacitors. The power goes into a 10 to 1, 3 phase transformer then through 3 full wave bridge rectifiers and to the batteries. Control of the system is provided by two C 40 controllers.

The motor used is rated for 1725 rpm. I have a 3.69 pitch diameter turgo turbine and under load it spins the motor at about 3000 rpm. Ideally I should have a larger pitch diameter but the frequency of the power does not really matter.

The hardest part of the setup was to get the right size of capacitors. There are formula and graphs but it still ends up trial and error. I currently produce 50 amps at 13.8 volts. I am waiting for spring to play around with the capacitors and increase the amperage.