Well I have to admit, I do not know. I have yet to quantify the Gravity Wheel. The problem is I understand basic forces and economics involved, but the Math is a bit complicated. In the web site listed in my previous posting, the math is all laid out, sort of. It is a bit confusing. The guy just cannot break it down into something simple, which is a bit annoying.
Look, All I know is if a river has 20,000 gallons a minute flowing at 3 miles an hour, that is a lot of power. The question has always been how to harness that power without a dam, environmental damage and still change it to a force that can run a generator. My design does all of that.
I have a new picture that will give everyone some perspective. It is not completely right, there should be at least three paddles in at all times, the cables to hold it in place are not shown, and the water collector is too big. But my artist turned out to be a bit too attached to the happy weed, so I am amazed that it is done.
But it does put it into the right context. I think 50 foot is the shortest it should be, and the river should be at least 10,000 gallons a minute, flowing at least 3 miles an hour. This is all an educated guess of course. I have yet to resolve the question of "is it better to raise less water, higher?" and "what size buckets should I run with all of the variables listed above?"
Another aspect is "How do I harness the changing flow of the river?" I think with that one I should make the buckets fit the lowest flow the river gets to. This way it never stops, and when the river speeds up, more power is generated.
I am also working on a variable AC system to go along with all of this. I am not sure if this has ever been done, but I am looking to make the AC generators excitation field control Frequency (ie, no matter what the load or the river flow the generator runs 60 Hertz); then run that into a voltage regulator. So the only thing that varies is the amperage.
This is a lot of time and effort for something I have yet to make a dime with, no one seems interested in and everyone on these sites just put it down. Great. I should have studied business instead of technology, my life would have been a Dilbert cartoon, but someday I would be the pointy haired boss.