# Rick Is Thinking WEIRD Again...



## rake60 (Dec 2, 2008)

You all know just how off the wall I can be so this thought should be of no surprise to those
of you who know me.

Oil prices went out of control and did their damage.
Now those prices have dropped like a rock and created a new way to exact damage.

There are 3 basic FREE energy sources.

Solar: Too expensive to be a viable resource with today's technology.
Wind: Unreliable and expensive to install and maintain.

The third is Gravity.
About 200 years ago the water flow of a river or stream was diverted to flow over or under
a wooden paddle wheel that would drive a line shaft in the ceiling of a textile mill, machine shop ,
hammer mill, feed mill, etc. 
Today that gravity driven force of falling water directly drives electrical generators.

We can build small compressed air operated engines that will run on 10 PSI of air that generate enough
power to run accessory machines of the same scale. 

If the power of falling water was used to operate a compressor, how many turbines could be operated
by the engines it might support?

I told you it was weird thought!
If you've bothered to read it this far, it's not MY fault! 

Rick


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## Kludge (Dec 2, 2008)

First off, it _IS_ your fault and you should be ashamed! 

Second, it depends on the waterfall. The compressor too but the waterfall we can't control quite so well unless we build the dam etc and even then it depends on rainfall and ... okay, let's not go there.

Okay, so we build a basic compressor - a multicylinder oscillating affair all of which are check valved into a surge tank then fed to an engine. (Actually, this is also a vacuum pump so if you still have vacuum windshield wipers, you can kill two stones with one bird.) So ... how big's your waterwheel and how much of a waterfall do you have to play with? 

The meds are playing with my head but I'm sure (read as: I hope) Marv can jump in with the math to get this working in some grandeloquent fashion. I can see the solution; I just can't find the math to do it even though I know that I know what it is.

Oh, yeah. When you mentioned "weird" and "gravity" at the same time, I was a bit worried you were going to start using falling apples or something. ;D

BEst regards,

Kludge


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## Cedge (Dec 2, 2008)

Solution...
1,000,000 water pressure engines!!... but I'll definitely need the bigger lathe...bwahahahaha

Steve


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## Philjoe5 (Dec 2, 2008)

OK Rick, here's an off the top of my head thought on this problem you've put forth on us. Water at some height, H, has potential energy. When it falls against a water wheel or turbine, the potential energy is converted into kinetic energy, ie, movement of the turbine or waterwheel at some efficiency. So, Kludge has hit on some of the variables you have to know before you can do the math. The potential energy of the water can be found if we know H, the height its going to fall. The flow of water has to be known in say, gallons per minute, so we can find power from work (or energy) per unit time. Once we have power on the turbine shaft, then we need to correct that for efficiency to power the compressor...more details needed, but are you suggesting I power my model engines by using the Susquehanna River? In a way I do, 'cause there are two hydroelectric dams on that river no more than 30 miles from my house. :big: :big:

Cheers,
Phil


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## jack404 (Dec 2, 2008)

Rick it all depends on the ammount of fall ( height the water falls down) you have with the water 

this is combined with the ammount of flow ( how much water is falling)

i helped build a generator in bouganville ( a island off new guinea) with a mate who is electrical minded

a 25 foot water fall with a 30 gallon flow makes enough electricity to power a village 

meaning 50 light globes 3 deep freezers and a community TV and satillite system with heaps to spare

and this is a pretty basic setup in the jungle

a bloke not far from where tel lives has a series of 12 volt car alternators generating all his house and shop power

he is blessed for australia ( water is a on again, off again thing here) he has a mountain behind him that soaks up water and it leaks out along a basalt line and he catches it and directs all the drips along a 200 meter line and directs it to his setup then into his dam, its not a big flow ( ammount of water) but its got a lot of fall , over 100 ft.

its doable if you have the water and the fall

cheers

jack


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## dsquire (Dec 2, 2008)

Rick

I think maybe you have hit on something here. Everyone here could build a waterwheel or turbine to power a generator that will be hooked into the power grid. Now most of these will be small power but could be larger to utilise what ever water stream one has.

I can hear it now. Most of you are saying that you have no water to power your waterwheel. Wrong! We just have to redo the plumbing slightly and we have our waterfall. Go down to the basement and open up the drain pipe before it enters the sewer. Just the gray water, not the toilet. Install your waterwheel here. Now everytime you have a shower, Laundry, wash etc the waterwheel spins driving the small electrical generator that you built to put energy back into the power grid.

Now one little generator isn't going to light up the world but 1 cent isn't much either. 100,000.000 cents equal $1,000.000.00.

This could just be the tip of the iceberg. How about some more brilliant ideas?

Cheers :bow:

Don


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## jack404 (Dec 2, 2008)

Rick, folks

this aint weird thinking

i am working on a wind based system that makes its own wind!

Crazy? narrhh optomistic?? narrh in fact i stole the idea

from ants...

the outback in Oz has some clever ants

i like your thoughts too Don

little fish in big numbers is a lot of food.. 

cheers

jack


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## shred (Dec 3, 2008)

During one of the last energy price spikes, some enterprising people were going around rebuilding and restarting old water-powered mill equipment in the New England area and turning them into mini-hydro installations, selling the power back to the utilities. Seemed like a neat idea here, but my water flow is very sporadic. I'd do better with solar by far.


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## ksouers (Dec 3, 2008)

Not so weird at all, Rick. I've always thought the solution to our energy problems was going to be on a micro scale. Energy independence will have to be truly independent, millions of us "little people" producing our own electricity and selling it back to the utilities. The utilities then essentially become brokers. Some days you will produce more than you need and sell it, other times you will need more and have to buy it. But until we reach that saturation point we are stuck with what we've got.

There won't be any one solution. Wind, solar, geothermal, hydro, ocean tides and currents. Whatever. It'll be millions, billions, of small solutions based on your own unique situation creating a common commodity to be bought and sold on the common market.

It only takes about 35 horsepower-hour to run a house with 200 amp service at full capacity. Most of the time will be much less than half of that since you don't always need full capacity.

For what it's worth, I'm in the planning stages for taking my shop off the grid, making it totally energy independent. I'm looking at a combination of solar and wind with a gasoline fueled backup generator. The nasty part is using batteries to store the energy until it's needed. A couple deep-cycle batteries should be sufficient. Who knows, maybe from there I can move to powering other systems in the house.


Kevin


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## artrans (Dec 3, 2008)

My be far fetched but picture this use our boiler. On the return side the water pass,s a paddle thats hooked to an alternator every time the boil calls for heat the return water being pumped though the system is our little water fall in the winter thats a lot of energy. ;D ;D


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## artrans (Dec 3, 2008)

hello all this is exactly what I was trying to do with that question what can be done in a this economy to make money. Its about starting a idea and getting differant input that makes new ideas surface that you or me alone would not make come to light. Of cause its only and idea and nothing my come of it. But if any of you have read the book think and grow rich he Mr hill talks about this very subact that when differant people come together and start taking on a problem a solution will surface even when its not your speclity. sorry hard to explain and my writing skills are not the best hope you get the idea thanks art


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## raggle (Dec 3, 2008)

SWMBO and I are generally amazed that here in Wales, to where we moved last year, there is a helluva lot of water. Afon Hafren flows within a quarter of a mile from our house before it crosses the border into England and changes its name to River Severn. it has countless tributaries many of which are fast flowing in wet times. The amazement stems from the relative absence of hydro power schemes. We know of a few and they are by no means unsightly, in fact barely visible.

We can also see, just on the skyline, a huge windfarm. Given that when the wind drops fossil fuelled power stations are needed as backup, they need to be kept on standby. Not particularly green, I'd say. No, I'm not anti-windfarm, though many people are.

A lady campaigning against them pointed out that the cost of roads needed to transport the huge turbines to site could never be recovered from the value of the electricity produced in their service lifetime. My riposte to that was it provided work but the earnings could only be spent on imported goods.

Given the variability of wind my opinion is that it would be better to use wind energy to pump water into high holding ponds, surface or subterranean until needed. The water is then a battery to be turned on for turbines only as required. Such a project already exists (though not wind powered) at Port Dinorwic.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinorwig_power_station

What has this to do with HMEM? Ok, if you have a sloping site (or a small country where it always rains) get you a big tank at the highest point and another at the lowest with a water turbine somewhere near the bottom. Use a windmill to catch the excess energy and pump it to the top. Arrange for the flow to stop when there is no electrical load.

More info: http://www.cat.org.uk/index.tmpl?refer=index&init=1

Coo, might run me Unimat from a water wheel 

Ray


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## Brian Rupnow (Dec 3, 2008)

Hey Rick---I'm way ahead of you----kinda----sorta----(Well actually, the one in my back yard is only there for ornamental value)--It ran all summer and fall, but now the creek is frozen solid and there is 15" of snow on top of it!!!--You have to admit though---It is a different way to use a bunch of s.s. soup ladles.


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## mklotz (Dec 3, 2008)

It all depends on WHY you are doing this.

If you want to generate your own power just for the survivalist/ecological satisfaction you derive from doing it then, yes, you can do it assuming you have adequate head and flow and can cope with the severe frictional losses involved in gearing up a low speed water wheel to drive a generator (very few will have the facilities to install a penstock and direct drive a generator as is done in power plants).

OTOH, if you look at it as a practical engineering problem, I'm pretty damn sure that the expense in terms of time, planning, equipment, fabrication and maintenance will never allow you to generate power for a price less than the cost of commercially supplied power any time within our lifetimes. There's a very good reason for the fact that we don't see thousands of small scale hydro-generators operating in every small municipality.


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## Brian Rupnow (Dec 3, 2008)

Back in the very early sixties, when I was in high school, I had a summer job as an electricians helper. Ontario Hydro had just ran a feeder line into one of the northern lakes near Algonquin park, not far from where I grew up. One of the cottages we were wiring for hydro electric had a fast running stream beside it, and the enterprising cottage owner had damned the stream and put in a penstock and water-wheel which ran a car generator, which in turn charged a bank of 12 volt car batteries. The entire cottage was wired with automotive car wire, and each room was lighted by a 12 volt bulb. I remember thinking at the time what a great use of a free resource it was. The fact that he was having it wired for 110 volt A.C. now that it was available did not diminish the cottagers creativity in my eyes.


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## rake60 (Dec 3, 2008)

I have been a model builder since my early teen years.
At the age of about 13 I came up with a plan to build small lamp that would
operate without batteries. It involved a clock mainspring a pendulum for speed control,
several little plastic pulleys robbed from broken toy, tools, radios and tape players,
and few thin rubber bands as drive belts.
The final load was a motor out of an old 8 track tape player that would put out a small
current to a flashlight bulb.

I spent months playing with that crazy idea.
At that age I was never able to get it to work well 
but I did get the bulb to flicker a few times! 
:big:


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## shred (Dec 3, 2008)

Marv's correct that there are great economies of scale to be had with power generation and transport. There's a reason mills and factories no longer have their waterwheels and steam engines and all.

Micro-power generation can be cost-effective in certain cases, but mostly is a 'because I can' thing. Not that that should stop any HMEM-er. ;D


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## rake60 (Dec 3, 2008)

When you are bombarded with information like this it *forces* you to think!

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqyZ9bFl_qg[/ame]

I'm quite aware of just how how old I've become and understanding the the next level of
of what might be possible in the model builders craft is sometimes a little hard to grasp.

My skull may get thicker with age but my desire to learn and create hasn't matured a bit.  

Rick


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## Bernd (Dec 3, 2008)

Think of that video as taking a car assembly line down to the size of an atom. It's like building a car one atom at a time. 

Bernd


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## rodbuilder (Dec 4, 2008)

One thing to think about is you have a free source of power coming into your house if we tap into it. Think of all the water running into your house of the water main. If you put a small turbine in the main line then no matter where the water is going it will generate power. I say its free because you are paying by the gallon of water not the pressure used. Look at it this way if you turn on the sink water comes out, let it do a little work on its way to your hand. This would only provide small amounts of short lived energy that needs to be stored, but it is free energy (well sort of).


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## rake60 (Dec 4, 2008)

Now THAT is a good one rodbuilder!

Rick


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## Bernd (Dec 4, 2008)

One minor problem with all this "MICRO" generation idea. We use the power faster than our micro generation plant would be able to replace it. 

You first need to eliminate the wasteful products in your house or unplug them. Take your remote TV for instance. Even though you turned it off it still is using power waiting for a signal from your remote. And how about all those chargers for your cell phone, do you leave them plugged in or pull the plug? How about your phone and answering machine? All a sucking a bit of juice out of the system. All those clocks in the devices such as microwave oven, coffee maker, clock in the stove, your VCR, should I go on? 

Oh, by the way, do you leave your computer on over night?

Bernd


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## max corrigan (Dec 4, 2008)

Rod builder great idea but itWould'nt last five minutes in SE England there is so much lime in the water it would clog in no time assuming you are going to use a propellor or screw of some sort in the water main, to power the charging unit you would need some sort of filtration/water softener which would need salts or fiter medium (or whatever they use) 
just my two-pennorth! not trying to dampen the dream though, definately food for thought!
Max...........


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## dparker (Dec 4, 2008)

Hello All: in reference to putting a turbine in your water line at your house--if it does any work (generating output power) it will lower the water pressure available at the tap. This could possibly be a good thing by lowering the water usage for instance in a shower head. Conserve water! Shower with a friend!

Where I worked we built turbines to put in water systems that had excess pressure and rather than use a pressure reducer valve, a municipality could put in a turbine and generate power and at the same time lower the water pressure. This works in places that have hills that when the water runs down to the lower elevation it raises the pressure at the bottom of the hill to more than the normal allowable pressure.

We were also approached about putting a sewage pump turbine in the basement of high rise office buildings and generating power from the sewage outflow at the base of the building. Just imagine all the people in the Chrysler building using the facilities in a day/week or even year. How much power is in that height and flow?

Another idea we worked on was a windmill turning a pump in a closed loop and the friction of the water flow would heat up the water and the the warm water could be then pumped to the house (or shop) to be used as a heat source. It will work, I had a 30" discharge pump on test running at 20,000GPM at almost 100PSI in a closed loop of 10,000 gallons and the water temperature raised up to 170*F. We even had to put up signs to warn people of the hot pipes. As if they couldn't tell that the 36" diameter pipes were hot as they walked up to them! Glad that test was in the winter rather than the 100*F heat of summer time.
don


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## rake60 (Dec 4, 2008)

What do we know?
We're just dumb toy makers!

Why build it? *BECAUSE WE CAN!*

I'm sure enjoying the brain storming that's going on here! 8)

Rick


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## jack404 (Dec 4, 2008)

I hope this aint considered a hijack but thought i'd share my little plan for a hybrid wind system that makes its own wind







this is based on two cone shaped objects 

the out cone is polycarbonate (UV proof)

sunlight passes through the polycarb and hits the black surface of the inner cone

the light is turned into heat and the heat rises the heat also heats the black cone and if this is plate steel that retains heat this heat can be used as a "mass"






thankfully heat rises and creates a substantial force of air moving upwards 

due to the compression created by the cone shape the air gets compressed and this compression creates even more force.







this force can be captured the same as with a standard wind turbine but instead of the wind propellors being long lanky and thin to capture light density air it is possible to use 80% propellors ( similar to a boat prop.)






this is the plan of my first stage experiment 

it ran a dual power fridge (240volt/12 volt Oz) during the day and charged a battery bank to run lights and the fridge at night.






this got some interest from Flinders University ( Adelaide ) and they loaned me a lot of turbines

the effect of the cone and the denser air means that turbulence is not really a factor and allowed us to stack the turbines.

At a Aboridginal settlement at Wilpena ( near the big meteor crater in South Australia) we tested this rig

the internal black section was made into a water tank and the heat held by the water allowed the effect to continue for many hours after dark.

the differential of the air to the mass means the heat of the tank heats the cool night air and actually increases the effect.

The real problem was that BP took over the governments handling of funding for alternate energy and they only looked at Photo Voltaic systems ( they have blanket patients and so can force a percentage of any development income to be thiers)

hope this was not too big a post and not too bad a highjacking

excuse the plates these are from my powerpoint demo for attracting investment interest 

i have a completed powerpoint if anyone is interested

cheers

jack


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## dsquire (Dec 4, 2008)

Jack  :bow: :bow:

Very impressive. I definitely am interested in learning more and would be interested in seeing the balance of the powerpoint display. I am sure that there are others here that are equally curious. Thanks for showing us this Jack.

Cheers 

Don


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## Macca (Dec 4, 2008)

Thats a pretty fantastic idea Jack. There are a large number of places on this planet which need a simple, effective and clean way to generate electricity if things are to improve.
One of the great things about this setup is that it is automatic, it requires no manual intervention to start generating each day. This is also a downside however, how do you shut it off for maintenance? Two ideas immediately present themselves; One - perform maintenance at night. Two - A system of louvres or vents at the base of the cones to control airflow, close the vents to stop the airflow. This also provides a way to regulate generation, as you do not want to generate at full capacity the whole time. It would be fairly simple to rig up a scheme to monitor the output load and increase airflow, and therefore generation, if the load increases (and vice-versa). A similar idea would put the vent at the top, venting a percentage of the airflow to atmosphere, to regulate (or stop) generation.


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## jack404 (Dec 4, 2008)

Cheers Folks

i gotta figure how to post a powerpoint online..

but i have to find a new workshop first, long story but my shop is near bankstown airport and if the Aussies saw the news last night the new owners have put the rents up 500% and not respecting the existing leases 
( i have 2 years left on mine but have to be out in 2 weeks or the new charges kick in)

this system costs about 10% of that of just the mast to mount the traditional wind turbine systems

i figure a 8000 watt version would cost about $21,000 AUD ( $16,500 USD) and provide hot water as well

and the colder the air the better it works ( differential effect ) cold air needs only a little heat before it rises as its denser and dense is best for turning wind turbines

if anyone wishes a copy of the powerpoint, PM with your email and i send it along 

cheers

jack

 Macca i like the maintinance idea, i was thinking of a clamshell design to open one side to negate the effect but vanes at the base would be easier and cheaper.... 

Macca there'll be a envelope in the mail this week, sorry for the delay i got distracted by this rent bunfight its sitting here still sorry

cheers

jack


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