Turbulent hydro

[Moxi]

I think I may have another option to consider - could you do anything with TEGs and the difference between the water temperature and the air temperature and generate some amps at 12 volts ?

Moxi

[billi]

I think I may have another option to consider - could you do anything with TEGs and the difference between the water temperature and the air temperature and generate some amps at 12 volts ?

Moxi

Hey Moxi , it needs to be some water powered idea for me ... as TEGs are running here and 100 watt plus might be out of their range

[Moxi]

Hi Billi,

I was wondering if the water temperature passed on one side of a number of tegs coupled with an enhanced air side temp ( say a glass covered top for solar gain) May give you sufficient temperature variation to give any number of amps at around 12 to 15 volts. So say a wooden float with aluminium heat sink or copper immersed in the water , tegs attached then on the warm side a sheet of glass or Perspex for thermal gain, rated at 6 Amp max and 12volt for minus thirty to plus seventy I guess the question has to be is amperage linear to delta T ?

Only be looking at these as a distraction so no doubt someone may be able to shed more light on the physics of these units and their limitations.

But I have been considering toasting one near the stove to see what happens ? Etc etc

Moxi

[billi]

Moxi , as the efficiency of TEG s are pretty low , and my history of ( i still have several of them ) was not too promising , but sure an interesting idea , but not in my case , now ....

[Moxi]

Billi

Fully understand, I know in the yatch world they have towed turbines but not sure if your stream is deep enough or fast flowing to make such turbines work but another thing to consider maybe ?

Moxi

[Moxi]

Lots of other videos good bad and indifferent but i stopped on this one as the stream looked similar in nature to yours and the small undershot wheel could be frame mounted and pivoted from the railings above where you have the panel mounted. at the bottom of the frame where the wheel is I would mount two floats to hold the buckets at the optimum submerged depth - then as levels increase or decrease the wheel will float at a constant depth relative to the buckets (paddles?). There are fully floating undershot wheels also to view - so you could move it downstream away from prying eyes? then its a case of width of buckets V's wheel diameter to get the RPM you want.

There was someone who used a 500W ebike hub motor and wheel with small buckets (i believe they were desert spoon heads?) that would be nice and discreet and should get you somewhere close to what you are after perhaps?

I wish I had a stream

Moxi

[billi]

Hey Moxi as Kennedy would say ...." I have a stream"

... and i have a bridge too , i guess "under the bridge" i could channel the water of the stream via a barrier towards one wall and concentrate on a waterwheel or similar

[AE-NMidlands]

but how much water is going past, and what is the fall which can be exploited? I know tide mills were once a thing, and relatively low-output devices were moored on rivers and estuaries but nowadays our demands are orders of magnitude more than the energy which used to be extracted. I guess a secret flow diverter under the bridge taking the flow to a turbine might be worth doing, but I don't know whether that would survive floods or debris...

It reminds me a bit of the suggestions we keep seeing that a "fan" in a window being driven by convection could be exploited for power.
A

[Moxi]

But as Billi says hes looking for around 100W.

Billi, I found this which may help you determine the viability - the critical item seems to be the streams velocity.


https://www.borstengineeringconstructio ... lator.html

Hope that helps,

Moxi

[billi]

Well , i owe about 60 meter land along that stream , but only an estimated 1 meter heights difference over that distance

and if i am not completely wrong (please correct me ) in 1 second (by throwing a straw in ) in that stream 1 meter wide and approx 20 cm deep that straw makes 1 meter distance in 1 second

so that makes a 1 sqm ( not too accurate) per second x 0.2m debt, is about 200l per second , does not sound an awful lot for a waterwheel i suppose

I am the last house in that village and cannot built too high weirs , as that will cause problems with the other houses , i might be better off to talk to the others in that village (34 houses , 121 inhabitants )
Beside my wish to be independent , i followed hydro power ideas over the past , and i could just shout "idiots" when i read, that the potential of hydro power is limited or exploited ... while the streams are flowing ?

Anyway , just sprang to my mind , as remembering my second home in West Cork Ireland with a small but fast stream running through a village same size , with about 100 meters of heights difference running through farm yards , and then just disapears into the sea , i just wonder that water running down the hill could have produced some electricity , without a harm , and than disappear ....
Those valleys are drained with pipes to channel all water into a river and than that disappears just into the sea without any harvest for electricity

I better shut up now , and have to think , In Ireland i had no stream but a valley , here i have a stream , but no heights ...


jusrt thinking hoe to harvest some watts in front of my door , before that water power disapears