Banki installed by the creek last summer

[BurksFallsMan]

I thought that may be of interest to post the results of our Banki set up last year by the creek. It was a lot of fun, and even more much work. Piping lay out proved difficult. Black flies unforgiving, but it was rewarding. Nearly 250 feet if 4" piping (PVC-sewage, cheaper). We have 21 feet of head at flow rates that vary from nearly zero to 200 liters/second.

The testing was long and we had max. of 8.7 amps for a 12 volt system.





The Generator output is at 127 Volts or so, 3 phases for 300 feet. Then a rectifier system for the 12 Volts.





Construction started at home (texas)in January.











Building the frame and supports was not difficult, but the most important part was the nozzle. We endup using fiberglass over a mold of gypsum and one PVC tube of 2".















I would like to thank Nando for his participation and design and all people in this board that years before provided suport and encouragment for me to set up my internet antena (StarBand), and supplied answers to my other questions. Now going to my 3rd. year and hopefully get land phone this year.

[Jon Miller]

WOW, V nice

[marv]

Welcome back BurksFallsMan,

Nice job. I hope you drained the system and it survived

the winter ok.

Can you tell us about the runner, if it's home made or

is it a part from a cage fan or something?

And what size is it?

Marv.

[harrie]

real nice work, and alot of it!104 or so continous watts is certenly worth it. I didnt know Texas had a hill that tall? ha

[hobot]

Wowie is right. Thanks for trucking out to a conection

to post this. Not many Texas places offer such opportunity.

I got a simialr drop and flow rate place, you revealed a great

way to tackle it. Of course I could ask how you came up with

the turbine size/type and that slick swan neck nozzle profile and

the kick amps altenator!

Don't let no flash floods bite.

hobot

[Jon Miller]

Lol i had another look at the pictures, am i right in saying u used a stick welder, if so u need more amps, u use more rod but it works for me, stops all the splating, makes a better job,

im not picking im just saying, ok ill be shh now.

[Nando]

Let's see what he and I did.

The TURBINE is a Stainless Steel 6.40 inches diameter Fan Blower that I estimated abour 50 or so % efficiency -- later the % showed a lower value.

The Nozzle showing a lot of splashing was re-adjusted and the "Spraying" practically went away and of course the power improved because the water had better utilization.

The water available from about 2 l/s to about 10 l/sec depending on the rain, sometimes may last the whole season if the rain is more or less periodically coming down and filling the Weavers pond levels -- so it is not Texas --.

The Generator a F & P 80 size motor was set as half voltage output to generate around 120 volts AC to send the power about 100 meters ~ 300 or so feet and at the house a set of 3 transformers to bring down the voltage and to be able to set the Turbine to its best power and impedance ratio conversion. Low % losses, if Ii remember right around 1.5 or 2 %.

The Charge controller a C60 to charge a 12 volts battery set without generator ELC controller; it is not needed, when the generator is un-loaded the RPM increases to about 800 (2X the loaded RPM).

The pipe was drained and removed with the turbine before winter weather to protect the whole system from heavy flows and frezzing temperatures.

The NOZZLE again: The blades do not have the proper turbine diameter to blade width ratio -- normally it is around 17 %.

The Nozzle was installed up and not side ways to get additional power when the water passes the first set of blades and goes through the turbine center to hit the lower side blades to harvest 15 to 20 % additional power.

The Nozzle was shown in this group several months ago, see my files for the mold of gypsum for the fiberglass forming, also the Banki drawing of this Nozzle description.

He is now improving the system by replacing the Fan blower with a Small Plastic Pelton Spoons, I expect at least 15 to 20 % POWER harvesting improvement.

Nando

Nando

[Ungrounded Lightning Rod]

Suggestion:

Try putting building a "coffee can" around the turbine rotor out of more fiberglass, melded to the existing nozzle, and find something to make a low-friction seal around the shaft.  Let it fill up with water and let the water flow out at the bottom - through a tailstock pipe submerged in the water.

You might get a boost in efficiency.

[Nando]

Vacuum assisted added power can not, practically, be done with this system because the water level is quite variable from 2 to 10 l/s for this turbine -- end piping limiting the volume to 10 l/s.

Complex for this system.

Trying to "maximize" the power was not practical or needed, just an energy supplement when rain water was available, some times quite constant, some times dried.

Nando

[BurksFallsMan]

Like Nando was saying, we will try the Pelton wheel instead of the Banki runner. I am scheduled to leave Texas April 8th, pass near Marv's town around the 12th and start pipe re-installation (now I have steel supports) as soon as as arrive. The creek is in the middle of Ontario, many lakes and beautiful country.

I like the idea of the "coffe" can, except that I need more detail and would not be able to work on it now (tax time and also preparing the Silverado 1500 to lunch on the 8 with full load and the DOG. She is the "leader"). Please expand on the concept of the coffe business. I will ask again about the welding suggestion, but let me mention that most important I am welding almost "blind" because my shield is 99% clogged, also at 67 my sight is not as good..... But I must admit that the machine (MIG) is beating me because I cannot adjust it well.

Nando thinks I am "too tight" and should buy maybe a new welder, but I will wait for the next lifetime.

Meanwhile I will keep having fun this summer and re-install the piping (every year !!!) but that is fun for me. Next I need to finish "the garbogen" as Jerry calls it that is on the backburner waiting.

If anyone has a question that I can be of assistance with, please shoot or use my e-mail WFGonzalez2@cs.com     I have some more pictures, also Nando should have most of the critical ones, since I report my progress to the "headquarters" with pictures and explanations. (sometimes we do not agree, but that is life)

Again, thank to this board and members for their contribution, without which sincerely I think would not gotten nearly close to where I got it this time. A super bunch of good people !

Too bad that I have very few close members (Nando & Richard)  that we can spend time exchanging ideas about...... life. Maybe I should move to the FAR NORTH.

Wilson

I am posting a picture of the Pelton on another post right now. Nando may have better pictures, because I misplaced mine.

[TomW]

Burks;

Just a little heads up on the welder.

When JacquesM was here helping with my tower we could not get decent welds from my cheapie flux core wirefeed welder. It was simply a matter of moving the welder closer to the breaker panel. The long run of cable to the welder caused it to not be able to sustain an arc which led to a lot of spatter and crappy welds.

I am no welder at all but this may help get a more steady arc to weld with. Jacques laid some sweet looking solid welds with this thing once we got it a solid power supply.

Cheers.

TomW

[Jon Miller]

Ah I understand now, and yes the later welds look very solid indeed, sorry just thought it didnt look to good, thansk for sharring that, might explaine if some times with my work.

[BT Humble]

He is now improving the system by replacing the Fan blower with a Small Plastic Pelton Spoons, I expect at least 15 to 20 % POWER harvesting improvement.

Is the water particularly hard (i.e. mineral-rich) up there?  Just asking, because a Pelton wheel could be very quickly put together for this setup by welding stainless steel table spoons to a central boss, which would then replace the fan blower on the drive shaft.  

You could then keep a variety of nozzle sizes on hand to make the most of whatever flow rate is available, or even run two nozzles at 180 degrees to each other to allow better balance?

...but since I'm talking to Nando I'm sure that I'm teaching my grandmother how to suck eggs, right? ;-)

BTH

(Back from Fiji, photos in a few days).

[Nando]

Suck Eggs, Your grandmother ??>

The water is soft, I would say 7 PH.

The idea of using regular tables spoons to form a Pelton, I do not recommend unless one doing it really recognizes how the pairing is needed to be done.

In this case a better arrangement is the making of a Turgo, just one spoon per bucket is needed and an edge flattening for sharp stream arrival is what is needed.

Though, people like Joe Hartvigsen joe-hydro@h-hydro.com www.h-hydro.com and Michael Lawley of www.EcoInn.co.nz in New Zealand supply plastic and metallic Turgo spoons and Turbines, Michael also Peltons.

The water has a lot of particulates from ROTTEN leaves that clogged his intake filter, this time he will use a different filter with low water movement to reduce the intake clogging and as well increased intake area many, many fold.

For those that use small hydros, the intake area should be many times the nozzle area, in this case like for 10 liter/sec ~ 2.5 gallon/sec = 150 gallon/minute,the area of the intake should be 3 or 4 square feet = 0.836 M^2 to 1.48 M^2.

This type of arrangement allows the floating debris not to stick to the intake filter reducing clogging -- also the filter mesh should be of small size NOT greater than 1/3 as big as the Smaller Nozzle the Turbine may use.

Nando

[BT Humble]

Suck Eggs, Your grandmother ??



Sorry, it's an old expression in the English-speaking world:

"Don't teach your grandmother to suck eggs."  

Basically it means "Don't assume you know more than the person you're lecturing to".

(Sucking eggs is where you pierce a hole in the top and bottom of the shell to suck out the (raw) contents, leaving the shell intact).

I'm not very knowledgable about micro-hydro, it's not very applicable around here (too dry).  I've seen pictures of a turbine made from spoons in an old magazine, but I've never even heard of a Turgo turbine.  

Off to Google! ;-)

BTH

[Ungrounded Lightning Rod]

I was thinking of two things with the "coffee can" housing:

 - Add the tailstock height to the head by creating a vacuum

 - Salvage some of that splashed water.

On re-reading I see that your head is 21 feet so even if the nozzle is 2 feed above the water there's only another 10% to be had by using a vacuum housing.  You might lose that again with friction at the seals, and it's another thing to screw up (like by jamming the rotor when debris gets stuck between it and the housing, rather than having it roll off the rotor and fall in the stream).  And you've also solved the water spray lossage by tweaking the nozzle.

So it looks like building a coffee-can around the rotor would not be worth the effort.  The only likely gain would be to help keep spray off the genny and its bearings, which could be done better with a shield between the rotor and the genny/bearings and a slinger-disk on the shaft (and maybe a roof over the genny to deflect rain) if that turns out to be an issue.

[picmacmillan]

great job there burkes falls man!..i will stop by on one of my tripsto see it in action  .. i remember when you had to cut all those trees out of the way?  remember that? that was one heck of a job    ....take care  pickster