water wheel

[hiker]

friend of mine has a cabin out in the sticks..

has a slow moving stream near by--only about 3or4 mph..

low wind area - so he wants to go hydro..12 volt storage batt..

says he only needs from 20-40 watts..im sure he could use more!

its located in a real flat area-no chance for a dam or anything like that to

build up the output..thought i might build a plywood wheel with lots of paddles..

then use a 27" bike rim with a flat belt going to the alt.

for a alt i could use a treadmill motor or a truck alt rewired with 40 wraps per coil

maybe wave windings or two nines[3 phase]..

just woundering what size of water wheel i would need???

[Flux]

I don't think you have much chance. Undershot waterwheels need a decent flow and need to be very large to do much good. From your description I doubt that you would supply the losses in your set up.

Flux

[hiker]

thanks flux..........

might try a 4ft raduies wheel-maybe 6 feet wide--with as many paddles as i can get in

there--run the paddles deep-for tork...then gear up to speed...

[Ungrounded Lightning Rod]

How wide and how deep is the river?  Is it a little stream or the Mississippi?  What's the cross-sectional area and what is its shape at the point where he could install something?

Is the river entirely on his property or does he butt onto one shore?

How secluded is it?  Is this in the deep woods with nobody for six miles or is it a resort area with the banks lined with cottages, RV parks, and resort beaches?  Is it somewhere where he could moor a paddle-wheel structure that looked kinda like a barge and let it spin without a lot of comment or is it somewhere where busybodies will call down the econazis at the slightest sign that somebody had swatted an endangered mosquito or made a minnow swim an extra inch to find a smaller minnow to eat?

Can he reshape the bottom a bit?

There is a lot of information missing here and some of it could make a significant difference.