My waterwheel project

[dave ames]

Looking good Adam!

Your work shop is WAY too clean 

Good info on that 90Hz..our six pole alternator tells us the ECM is turning 900 RPM.

The common water wheel rule of thumb says the best power production can be had when we load the machine down to run about half the freewheel speed.

Might be able to rectify your three phase to DC and feed the water heater elements?

Some rough numbers for thought...90vac open = about 45vac under load...
45vac = 63vdc when rectified.
Top and bottom elements 16-20 ohms each? series them up for 32-40 ohms?
63vdc into 32-40 ohm heater element = 100-125 watts of heat 

Great fun!
Cheers, dave

[keithturtle]

6" diameter, Width to be determined by blade material.  I'm thinking of cutting steel barrels for blades because the plastic barrels are irregular in thickness and they get narrow at the top and bottom reducing the width of the wheel.  I think the steel would corrode in a few years though.

Is that 6 foot diameter?

Steel will rust quickly.   ABS or PVC large diameter pipe can be split lengthwise for blades that will outlast your support structure

Turtle

[FoolAmI]

SouthLine,     Just a thought,     My plans which you used to help build your new wheel aren't designed for high torque applications.     If you used the lapp joint option between the rim sections that will help but for high torque applications I dado or router slots into the underside of the spokes and put steel plates with holes for bolts predrilled in them.       At 300 watt output your rims may hold but I'm worried about durability, espically with the 1" thick spoke wood you used.      Give me a call sometime and we can discuss potental ways to reinforce your wheel's spokes.
Spencer     706-207-1070    www.waterwheelplace.com

[Ungrounded Lightning Rod]

Keithturtle:

Looked at your picture.

I recommend you mount a disk on the shaft just inboard of each bearing, with a diameter about that of the bearing and fastened to the shaft all the way around (i.e. run a bead of caulk if it's not a watertight fit.

This will act both as a splash guard (to block flying drops) and a "slinger" (to divert water running along the shaft).  This will do a lot to keep water out of the bearings.

[FoolAmI]

Adam,      Glad to see you're still working on improving that wheel.      Wish I had a hydro site as good as yours.
Spencer
waterwhelplace.com

[keithturtle]

Keithturtle:

Looked at your picture.

I recommend you mount a disk on the shaft just inboard of each bearing, with a diameter about that of the bearing and fastened to the shaft all the way around (i.e. run a bead of caulk if it's not a watertight fit.

This will act both as a splash guard (to block flying drops) and a "slinger" (to divert water running along the shaft).  This will do a lot to keep water out of the bearings.

Thanks ULR.   I was going to run the bearings to fail, then replace with larger journals and Vesconite

http://www.vesconite.com/prod/hilube.htm

plastic bearing material, mainly because of the splash factor and water lube.  The splash guards will put that day off a while.

Dam got washed out and project is on hold till fall

Turtle, slow

[kenneth keen]

A bit late to ask but logging in again (at least once a year I do) I read through from the start and asked myself what an ECM is,
according to google:


Acronym   Definition
ECM1   Extracellular Matrix Protein 1

but I presume in the land of milk and honey every child knows this term.

;-)

[XeonPony]

ECM = Electronicaly cummutated motor.

or if doing mechanics

ECM = Engine control module

[southline]

Update: The wheel has been frozen since last November.  I thought I would have the new one in the shop and ready to go but it is frozen to the ground and only the top 2' are visible.   Wow, crazy winter!  If work picks up I may not have time to finish the new wheel in the spring..  I have a feeling its not going to last another year.   Anyway, thought you might want to see a pic with the snow.. Cheers,  Adam.

[HiddenMountain]

Southline, I have to say that I love your project just for the sheer romantic appeal! I'm afraid that it's not very well suited for the Canadian climate though. I sure hope that the ice hasn't warped or broken anything, as it is prone to do.

[southline]

Thanks Mountain,  makes me wonder how all the big old wood waterwheels survived the winters..?  My guess is they didn't run in the winter and/or they needed a lot of maintenance.  Looks like a turbine will be in the future plans.. but prolly harder to build..  Still loving the wheel even when there is no voltage. : )         

[Mary B]

One I saw had its own sluice channel with a way to block off water flow for winter, channel was high enough to self drain.

[HiddenMountain]

Thanks Mountain,  makes me wonder how all the big old wood waterwheels survived the winters..?  My guess is they didn't run in the winter and/or they needed a lot of maintenance.  Looks like a turbine will be in the future plans.. but prolly harder to build..  Still loving the wheel even when there is no voltage. : )       

I've wondered the same thing. I know when I was using my primitive pelton wheel, the one barely discernible in my avatar pic, we had a super long deep freeze one winter. It was at or below -30 for over a month and the spray from my wheel froze and made a beautiful "ice cage" around it. It ran throughout the entire deep freeze without any problems. Of course I couldn't lubricate anything because of the ice and when the thaw finally came it started to break down to the point of saying enough is enough and going out and buying the unit I have now. 

[olddawgsrule]

Curious, as you'll find me to be..
When you state 'R' are you speaking of resistance of the motor?
And would you explain that more?
P = E^2 / R

100W element?  Sure.  Just have to use up the battery in 3 calculators to figure out which one you need.
I'll send you my solar powered calculator.   I don't know how to use it..

Who needs a calculator?  P = E^2 / R.  Assuming you're using a water heating element (or a good fan on a space heater) so R doesn't vary too much with temperature:

(70^2) / R = 100; (120^2)/R = rating.  (E^2)/R = P
(70^2)/100 = R = (120^2)/rating         multiply both sides by R, divide both
                                                        by W.  Brings out R, so equate.
rating*(70^2) = 100*(120^2)              Drop extra "R". Multiply both sides
                                                        by rating and desired power to bring
                                                        them above the division bar.
rating = 100 * (120^2) / (70^2)          Divide both sides by (70^2) to get
                                                        "rating" to stand alone.
rating = 100 * (120 * 120) / (70 * 70)  Expand squares.
rating = 100 * (12*12) / (7*7)             Divide top and bottom of ratios
                                                        by 10 to get rid of extra zeros.
rating = 100 * 144/49                         Do the multiplies for the squares.
rating = 100 * 288/98                         Double top and bottom of ratio to
                                                        get the denominator close to a
                                                        round number.
rating ~ 100 * 294/100                        Adjust top and bottom up by
                                                        about 2% to get to a round
                                                        number.  (A calculator would have
                                                        gotten 293.8775510.  To three
                                                        significant figures (i.e. more than
                                                        we really have) that's dead on.)

Cancel the 100s and you get 294, which is within 2% of 300.

300W isn't a typical value for heating stuff (though you could parallel three 100W devices).  But 250 is, and it's only low by about 16%.  If you're using something that heats up a lot (like a lamp or a hot-wire space heater element) it will be running cool and have a substantially lowered resistance, so a 250W nominal device might actually pull closer to your desired 100 watts than the 83 you'd expect from assuming the resistance is the same under a factor-of-three power drop.

[Ungrounded Lightning Rod]

Curious, as you'll find me to be..
When you state 'R' are you speaking of resistance of the motor?
And would you explain that more?
P = E^2 / R

Sorry so long getting back to you.  I haven't been on the board for a while.

This was a calculation for a dump load resistor, seeking to calculate the
normal-operating-temperature resistance of an electric heating element
from its power (P in watts) and voltage (E in RMS Volts) rating.
(The comments about calculators inspired me to run it thorugh in
a form that could be easily done by hand.)

P = E ^ 2 / R is "Power = Voltage Squared divided by Resistance."
This comes form combining
Ohm's Law (E = I * R, where I is current in amps) with the
formula for electrical power (P = E * I where P is power in watts).
I used ^ for the "exponentiation" operator, as is done in some
computer languages, rather than trying to get a superscript-2
into the text.

With this you should be able to understand and check the
computations yourself.

The idea was to estimate the resistance from the power rating
of a 120-volt heating element, in order to select one that would
provide the desired dump load if 70 volts was applied.  That
comes out to about a 300 watt heating
element IF the resistance didn't change with temperature.

Since resistance of heating element wire does go up as it
get hotter, a 300 watt heater operating at 70 volts would
actually more current than intended, so I ballparked the
correction by going to the next lower typical value.

[southline]

The new one!  3/16 steel sides all the rest is the same. I'll post more pics and info when I have time. 

[richhagen]

Looks great!  Hopefully it will handle a long life through those icy winters that you have.  Rich

[hiker]

nice set up...........whats the power output now ?

[southline]

So far it's the same output as before. It's a couple inches bigger in diameter But I'm still limited by the belt slipping as I load it up. I need some ideas for low loss gearing/belting.

[skid]

Is it slipping on your generator sheave? It looks pretty small with not much surface area for the belt to bite on. Can you double up the belts? Go with a 5V instead of a 3V belt? Use a larger generator pulley (with a correspondingly larger wheel pulley to maintain rpm's)?

My water wheel will use three 8V belts when it is complete.

[thirteen]

As a temporary fix try a spray can of belt grip. Could you add a belt tightener pulley to put more grip on the smaller wheel so it covers more of the pulley. 13

[hiker]

looks like theirs no pulley  on the gen-just belt on shaft...you really need a pulley on their ! or at least a larger one if their  is one on their.

[southline]

Hiker, there is a pulley on the shaft.  It's off a drier motor. Skid is right it's a 3 v belt and there is a tensioner/ idler pulley. Yea I think a 5v belt and increasing the drive pulley diameter should be easy enough.  Thanks guys I'll keep working on it.

[frackers]

I've used a double tensioner effectively - this is 2 swinging arms with idlers pushing on the belt between the pulleys with a spring between them - this nips the belt together round more of the circumference of the smaller pulley and since it 'floats' works irrespectively of direction of travel (which isn't relevant in your case but was in mine!!).

[southline]

just some pics for fun..