Author Topic: Smart Drive Oil Barrel Undershot Waterwheel  (Read 15044 times)

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bmannz

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Re: Smart Drive Oil Barrel Undershot Waterwheel
« Reply #33 on: August 11, 2017, 03:56:30 PM »
Does anyone know a good way to measure torque on a waterwheel?

Thought about putting some 1kg blocks of cheese into one of the backside paddles until it stops rotating but I don't want my cheese to get wet.
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Mary B

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Re: Smart Drive Oil Barrel Undershot Waterwheel
« Reply #34 on: August 11, 2017, 07:44:26 PM »
Gallon jugs of water, fill and weigh one...

bmannz

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Re: Smart Drive Oil Barrel Undershot Waterwheel
« Reply #35 on: August 12, 2017, 06:40:28 AM »
Thanks Mary, if I tie a bucket onto a upward bound paddle and pour water into it until it counteracts the force of the water, then weight the bucket that would have to be pretty close right?

Let's say the bucket centre is 1m from the axle centre, and it took 5kg to stop the wheel turning that's 50 newton metres right?

It's been a while since school.....
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MattM

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Re: Smart Drive Oil Barrel Undershot Waterwheel
« Reply #36 on: August 12, 2017, 01:41:03 PM »
Newton-meter is torque metrics.  Didn't you want joules?

bmannz

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Re: Smart Drive Oil Barrel Undershot Waterwheel
« Reply #37 on: August 16, 2017, 06:51:40 AM »
Thanks Matt, not sure what I need to go about calculating the optimum gear ratio but I have some data at last!

Hung an empty 10 litre bucket off the wheel and it took 9L of water to stop it turning, tipped it out bit by bit and got to 6kg before it would start up again.

So let's say the wheel can push 6kg at 1m out from the axle - pretty sure that's 60 newton metres

I ran into one of the chaps who designed the F&P Smartdrive on Monday night and he said they were designed to run between "agitate" and 1000 rpm, he didn't have any experience using them as generators but thought around 500rpm might be a good target speed.

I am seeing a rpm range of 6 to 10 rpm in the drain depending on the flow so to be conservative let's call it 6rpm

to get from 6 rpm to 500 that's 83x
Given my small end sprocket is 9 teeth, my big end needs to be 747 teeth
Or alternatively I need another 1:9 multiplier (intermediate / lay shaft)

Now I got a quote today for a 200 tooth sprocket for $500, I hate to think what a 747 tooth sprocket will be!

I expect a lay shaft will add a lot of loss in from bearing friction

If my wheel can turn 60 Newton metres and I have a 1:83 multiplier, that means I can't exceed 0.72 Newton metres of friction in the genny end or the wheel will stall, that's 70grams at 1m, but the F&P is say 200mm, so that's 3.5kg at 200mm

I am pretty sure the F&P friction will be less than this even under load

Does all this make sense ?
Hows my maths?
Does anyone know the rotational friction of a F&P under load ??

Any tips greatly received













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MattM

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Re: Smart Drive Oil Barrel Undershot Waterwheel
« Reply #38 on: August 16, 2017, 07:29:31 AM »
Are you forgetting how much simpler a belt drive can be?

And it's much easier to unhitch a drive belt than a chain drive.

How about keep your existing chain drive and boost the RPM's with a belt drive?

bmannz

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Re: Smart Drive Oil Barrel Undershot Waterwheel
« Reply #39 on: August 17, 2017, 05:42:56 AM »
Hi Matt, thanks for the suggestion, much appreciated.

I played around with vee belts and pulleys as a kid and always suffered from slippage & also read a few threads here saying what a pain they were, especially around side loading the F&P shaft.

If I was more mechanical I would probably be good with screw tensioners etc but decided given my poor skills in that direction I'd go the chain route where it has turned out that tension issues at these rpms are a pleasantly dim memory

A friend Mark has reminded me of a local water jet cutting outfit who made large parts in stainless for an earlier Americas cup challenge boat so have pinged them an email this avo.
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frackers

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Re: Smart Drive Oil Barrel Undershot Waterwheel
« Reply #40 on: August 17, 2017, 07:58:08 AM »
I found this approach http://gilks.ath.cx/gallery3/Nuts/IMG_3469 worked for me - in this case a motor driving a large drum but the 'pinch' works very well even in the wet and is about 40 times cheaper than a toothed belt ($12 rather than $400).
Robin Down Under (Or Are You Up Over)

bmannz

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Re: Smart Drive Oil Barrel Undershot Waterwheel
« Reply #41 on: August 24, 2017, 04:30:34 PM »
Thanks Robin, great idea!

I had thought about welding something for the chain to bite into around the big outer hoop but a big rubber band will be a lot easier to handle - looks like a treadmill drive belt - any idea where to get them?
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bmannz

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Re: Smart Drive Oil Barrel Undershot Waterwheel
« Reply #42 on: August 24, 2017, 04:45:30 PM »
Maths update: it's not 3.5kg at 200mm, it's 350g at 200mm, Mrs Taylorson would be horrified.

RPM update: it turns out I count too slow, so my actual RPM range is 1.7RPM to 6.5RPM over the past 2 weeks.

I have been pulling rainfall data from our national weather service "NIWA", and logging rainfall against RPM, the wheels going to get a lot slower over the coming months, there is going to be a LOT of variance in RPM and power, I see my options as:

1) huge big end sprocket (simple but may come with huge cost)
2) lay shaft (intermediate sprocket) (friction loss, but adjustable summer to winter)
3) robins big rubber band (will need to weld a plate to the big hoop)
4) gearbox (bicycle or motorbike perhaps, likely big friction loss, but easy summer winter adjustment)

time for some research on Trademe (ebay)

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frackers

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Re: Smart Drive Oil Barrel Undershot Waterwheel
« Reply #43 on: August 24, 2017, 08:02:46 PM »
Thanks Robin, great idea!

I had thought about welding something for the chain to bite into around the big outer hoop but a big rubber band will be a lot easier to handle - looks like a treadmill drive belt - any idea where to get them?

It's a cheap vee belt (from Blackwoods) with a vee belt pulley on the motor running on the flat band on the drum.
Robin Down Under (Or Are You Up Over)

bmannz

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Re: Smart Drive Oil Barrel Undershot Waterwheel
« Reply #44 on: August 25, 2017, 03:44:19 PM »
So it is, didn't zoom in enough - clever tensioner design (tensioners have always been my downfall with vee belts) is that curtain net wire ?
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bmannz

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Re: Smart Drive Oil Barrel Undershot Waterwheel
« Reply #45 on: September 06, 2017, 02:52:43 PM »
I now have a months RPM data and the average is 5 rpm in the rainy season, I have seen up to 12 rpm, oddly the higher the flow the lower the speed as the buckets get stuck underwater in this run of river design. I could reduce the amount of bucket, so really just have the leading edge (more like a banki / cross flow) and increase the bucket count, and / or shift the wheel to a place with fall to fix this.

Sorry about the terrible pic, red is rainfall in mm, blue is wheel rpm

10772-0

Anyway back to the gearing issue, I went to the laser cut man yesterday and asked how much for a 1500 tooth sprocket so I can direct drive my 9 tooth and achieve 166x ratio on my estimated low flow average of 3 rpm to get 500 rpm on the smart drive, no problems he said, that sprocket will be 4 metres across!!

Ok I say, let's assume I want a 1 meter diameter sprocket, how many teeth and how much is that? The rough price estimate was $250 which I thought was pretty good, however the tooth count was down around 450 which is a 50x ratio, less that the 100x a lay shaft will give me so it's back to Randall at Edgell automotive for some more go-kart parts.

I collected some 25mm pillow block bearings, and a length of 25mm mild steel shaft and dropped them into the workshop in amongst some racing cars in pieces having their engines rebuilt, randalls going to turn the shaft on his lathe to fit the small bearing and all going well I'll be installing this weekend...







« Last Edit: September 06, 2017, 03:07:00 PM by bmannz »
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MattM

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Re: Smart Drive Oil Barrel Undershot Waterwheel
« Reply #46 on: September 07, 2017, 09:23:42 AM »
You would need a planetary gear system to keep the gears small.  Is that what the lay shaft is, a planetary gear?

bmannz

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Re: Smart Drive Oil Barrel Undershot Waterwheel
« Reply #47 on: September 08, 2017, 03:15:11 PM »
Hi Matt, it's an intermediate shaft placed between the waterwheel axle shaft and the Fisher and Paykel generator shaft with a big and small sprocket on it.

At the moment I have a big tooth count on the waterwheel shaft and a small tooth count on the generator, 89:9 (10x speed increase) I'm going to add another shaft in between the two so the 89 teeth on the wheel will drive the 9 teeth on the intermediate shaft which is also turning another 89 tooth sprocket which drives the 9 tooth on the generator

So 5rpm in the creek will give me 50 rpm on the intermediate shaft which will produce 500 rpm on the generator (or so the theory goes)

Will be chucking it on today so will post a pic when it's done
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george65

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Re: Smart Drive Oil Barrel Undershot Waterwheel
« Reply #48 on: September 09, 2017, 04:23:19 AM »
So 5rpm in the creek will give me 50 rpm on the intermediate shaft which will produce 500 rpm on the generator (or so the theory goes)


This would be 100:1 speed increase.  Sounds like it is going to need a LOT of Torque to just to overcome the gearing drag let alone power anything on the final output.
I was putting together a Post hole Differ this afternoon that has a 40:1 Reduction gearbox on it. Just twisting the output shaft to make the input side spin up, Even with a Screwdriver as a lever took a lot of effort.  I think for 100:1 gear up, you'd want to be using serious shafts and gears because even if you do have the torque, once a resistance is applied at the other end, the forces on the Primary drive components are going to be Huge.
Going to be 100X speed magnification and even more Torque multiplication.

It would seem to me that there is only so much driving power anyway and the the least path of resistance will simply be around the waterwheel rather than through it.
I played around with F&P motors a while back and I would say they are a pretty  " savage" sort of a generator. They don't need much speed as they come out of a washer to generate high voltage (gave a few friends some good belts after I did it to myself and realised how ppowerful they were) but the torque is going to be reasonable to get any power out of them. Even spinning them with no load creates some reasonable drag, maybe just from the fields energizing. 

I have nothing but mucking around and gut feeling to go on but I would think that given the power I imagne you have from the stream, you would probably be OK at 100 RPM on one of those motors to make power which would be at least a couple of hundred volts and then pull it down to what you want ( if it's for battery charging ) from there. If you want AC, My gut feeling is you are not going to get much more than to light up an  LED globe, If that.

Not trying to put you off, more like noting my predictions to see how far wrong I am when you get the thing working. :0)
That said, 100:1 gear up still sounds like a lot of parasitic drag to me.

MattM

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Re: Smart Drive Oil Barrel Undershot Waterwheel
« Reply #49 on: September 09, 2017, 12:16:31 PM »
Just a rough guess, but he will probably pull a steady 300-350rpm.  He can hand start it, because once it starts spinning - the water isn't sporadic like wind - it will sustain.
« Last Edit: September 09, 2017, 12:22:48 PM by MattM »

bmannz

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Re: Smart Drive Oil Barrel Undershot Waterwheel
« Reply #50 on: September 11, 2017, 03:06:18 PM »
DISASTER

George was right, 100:1 looked great on paper but the wheel only turned sporadically :(

The happy news is that with the setup as it is, I can simply swap my four sprockets to find a combination of ratios that do work

I know 10:1 makes too little power
I know 106:1 stalls the wheel

Think I will try for 25, 50 and 75 and see how they go

One thing has become obvious, in high flows a lot of the power is wasted so thinking about moving the wheel down the drain a bit and out of the main flow, piping to it to turn it into a breastshot to make use of the buckets and keep the downstream side of the buckets from creating drag.

Now to find a large quantity of cheap or free pipe around 500mm...
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MattM

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Re: Smart Drive Oil Barrel Undershot Waterwheel
« Reply #51 on: September 12, 2017, 01:52:34 AM »
Your power is going to be relative to velocity over time.  Dropping (vertically moving) water is obviously moving faster than horizontal flowing water.  But ultimately, if your generator is too big for your flow then it won't matter either way.  Would a dam be potentially an option?  Adding 24" of drop or more to the water could pay off dividends.

george65

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Re: Smart Drive Oil Barrel Undershot Waterwheel
« Reply #52 on: September 12, 2017, 02:17:26 AM »

George was right, 100:1 looked great on paper but the wheel only turned sporadically :(

Was that with the generator hooked up or just the wheel turning an empty output shaft?

Go for the even money first and try 50:1. Still a lot of gearing but if the wheel moved at all at 100, 50 will tell you which if any way to go from there.

bmannz

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Re: Smart Drive Oil Barrel Undershot Waterwheel
« Reply #53 on: September 13, 2017, 03:09:49 PM »
Cheers for the feedback guys,

Matt, I'm trying to avoid a dam if possible for four reasons:

1) this drains the neighbours farm and he's already told me he would like to lower it one day to get more usable farmland back (reduce the 5 hectare lake he has in winter)

2) letting aquaculture (eels in particular) migrate

3) avoided grief with the council

4) the flow can be enormous (47 cubic metres per sec) so high risk of destruction

I am thinking a very low weir (300mm) higher up and long run (300m) of large bore (300-500) mm pipe - just have to find the pipe!

George, that sporadic turning was under load, with it freewheeling the rpm is approx 75% faster than with the 10:1 and generator

I collected a bucket of sprockets yesterday so will pop them in this weekend and let you all know how I get along.

I think how this is going to play out is the wheel will stay here making only a fraction of the power it could until I can get the weir and pipe setup in place
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george65

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Re: Smart Drive Oil Barrel Undershot Waterwheel
« Reply #54 on: September 13, 2017, 05:47:38 PM »


I am thinking a very low weir (300mm) higher up and long run (300m) of large bore (300-500) mm pipe - just have to find the pipe!

I know Pipe size is exponential rather than linear for flow but perhaps you may find like I have in the past that using multiple smaller pipes does in fact work out cheaper than using one large one.

90mm here seems to be about the best value and most widely used so even maybe  4-5 runs of that or even 150mm could work out better than something harder and more expensive like 500mm.

Have you ever worked with large PVC Pipe? I have and it's a bitch.  Firstly its heavy as hell due to the wall thickness. I was using pressure pipe which you'd probably want as well and it had at least a 5mm wall thickness. This makes it heavy. 2ndly, if you have to cut it, it's a big job more than one would realise.  9" grinders are the order of the day with that, not much else is big or fast enough. 3rd, Not that you would have to put in the bends and fittings I did, but even putting on an elbow on that big stuff is a multiple man job that requires an amount of planning.  And check the prices of those fittings as well. Yeeesh!
And as for the cement..... Was going through 4L tins of the stuff like it was going out of style.

I think you will find that size pipe is anything BUT cheap and for the length you need..... Also just see if you can look at some to get a feel for handling it.
You are pretty much going to need machinery just to move the lengths round of that big stuff.

MattM

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Re: Smart Drive Oil Barrel Undershot Waterwheel
« Reply #55 on: September 13, 2017, 08:54:40 PM »
A dam doesn't need to block the main flow.  You just need a bypass at a higher level.  The bypass is essentially a non-invasive stream flow, so eels won't be cut off.

But why use round pipe to mismatch your rectangular bucket surface facing the water?  Marine-grade plywood should hold up a few seasons.  Build your bypass out of wood.
« Last Edit: September 13, 2017, 10:09:16 PM by MattM »

bmannz

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Re: Smart Drive Oil Barrel Undershot Waterwheel
« Reply #56 on: September 17, 2017, 05:34:22 AM »
Hey boys, thanks for the comments,

George, the large plastic pipe sounds like a PITA, I have also considered large bore concrete and steel, I spent a bit of time on the eco innovation / powerspout calculators playing around with different pipe configurations and an open trough is the best for me but a trough is going to create its own issues

I have access to an endless supply of 60L and 200L drums and was wondering about creating my own pipe, funnily enough my barrel man at Ruakaka is selling exactly this at the moment - not load bearing worth a damn but set it deep enough and your all good. My run will be around 300m so trade me (NZ eBay) is my friend right now!

Matt, during my research phase, I came to the understanding that a dam is a structure where the water usually goes underneath in a pipe and a weir is a structure where the water goes over the top

Remembering that my flow is super variable (dry to 47 cumecs) and basically no head, I am thinking a low weir is the only way to satisfy all 4 points above, any sort of dam will be either empty or overflowing - or perhaps I misunderstood your post?

as for shape mismatch, a ply section will fix that, I've seen a few examples online of how they look.

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bmannz

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Re: Smart Drive Oil Barrel Undershot Waterwheel
« Reply #57 on: September 17, 2017, 05:39:30 AM »
This is how the lay shaft turned out:

10786-0

The lowest ratio I could get was 50:1, but even that was to high and the wheel is currently stalled so I'm going to change the small end from a 9 or 10 tooth to a sprocket carrier and aim for 25:1 overall



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MattM

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Re: Smart Drive Oil Barrel Undershot Waterwheel
« Reply #58 on: September 17, 2017, 10:10:19 PM »
I was thinking you had a more substantial flow to draw energy from.  You have only one flow, not really a diversion off a stream.  With so little flow and so little elevation delta, it might make sense to run two gennies.  Maybe switch from your F&P in high water and run a scooter motor at low flow.  The F&P probably has the mass to spin only with the highest flow.

I have the same problem with my crick.  No mass or drop most of the year.  I'm not going to try to generate that one or two days a year the rain from hell gives it flood stage.

george65

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Re: Smart Drive Oil Barrel Undershot Waterwheel
« Reply #59 on: September 17, 2017, 10:25:38 PM »

Don't know if it's at all applicable here re a dam, But, I was looking at a property a couple of years back that had a small stream running through it. Was told it ran all year but was pretty much only a small flow till it rained then it was a gusher.

Always wanting to do a MH setup, I thought about building a dam that open and closed as the flow I was seeing was pretty much useless. Not much chance of elevation but plenty of room to back the water up.
My idea was to have a dam with an automated gate.  The gate would close till the water built up to sufficient level and then would trip a float switch which would open the gate and the water would flow in sufficent volume to be put to useful generation.  Could easily control it with an arduino and some float switches to open and close. When the water was flowing as in after or during rain, the thing would run constantly. When the flow got too low, it would shut down and save up the water till there was the set level and off it would go again.  Seems to me that short runs even just once or twice a day would in the end yeild more power than the piddly flow that was normal and still be able to run hard and handle the much better flow with rain.

You may be able to back the water up a little at least to do this.  May be the easiest way to get some work out of what you have while still allowing for when there is a lot better flow.

bmannz

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Re: Smart Drive Oil Barrel Undershot Waterwheel
« Reply #60 on: September 18, 2017, 06:15:30 AM »
Thanks again for the good suggestions,

Matt, I had thought of putting two smart drives on the system at lower ratios and kicking in the second one electrically when the RPM gets up using the Hall effect sensor to trigger.  I haven't heard about the scooter motor, do you think they will have less cogging force than the F&P? is that scooter as in electric bike motors?

George, I read some calcs on pump storage early on and the storage area required to do anything approaching useful is going to make the upstream neighbour a bit pissy & we don't want that!

Planning on surveying the whole drain in the next few weeks so will know then exactly what fall I have and where, one funny thing is the place i surveyed with Emma using the garden hose method showed great fall (at least for my site) of 1.3m but the bottom of the creek was 1m under water so left me with only 300mm fall!

In retrospect, I'd probably have been better there with a breastshot and 300mm than an undershot where I am at the moment - oh well, live and learn and that's all part of the fun!

Thanks again guys, much appreciated!

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MattM

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Re: Smart Drive Oil Barrel Undershot Waterwheel
« Reply #61 on: September 18, 2017, 07:22:04 AM »
I have taken apart a few scooters and the motors are usually between  750W to 1000W at 24V.  Not a ton of amperage, but they reach 16V without a ton of resistance or clogging.  The other easy to find motors are the 24V and 48V treadmill motors.  Even less amperage, but might be the voltage you want.

bmannz

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Re: Smart Drive Oil Barrel Undershot Waterwheel
« Reply #62 on: September 19, 2017, 02:56:39 PM »
Thanks Matt, I'm 48v so will put the word out for treadmill motors & check them out
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XeonPony

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Re: Smart Drive Oil Barrel Undershot Waterwheel
« Reply #63 on: October 27, 2017, 02:38:46 PM »
your under shot design and mechanics is good it is the geometry of water flow over it is the problem, take a quarter arc of the wheel and cast a cement or even wood slew in that shape then rest the wheel so that just one quarter on the bottom side is mated to it.

then if possible pitch the buckets  back a bit so as it nears the bottom it dumps its full load, this will maximize the over all efficiency of it

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_wheel#/media/File:Breastshot_waterwheel_simple.svg

https://kingstonrenewableenergy.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/undershot-algebraic-dimensions.gif

Breast shot is the proper name seems like you thought of that as well, given the resource at hand be my best suggestion that or a bankie as it is a double acting unit.
« Last Edit: October 27, 2017, 02:45:53 PM by XeonPony »
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