Waterwheel Immersion Heater!

[RobNute]

Hello there, I have been helping my father get his waterwheel producing electricity over the last few months, he has been renovating and extending the property over the last 10 years and this has included rebuilding the original 1870's ( ish ) wheel and all the internal mill workings bringing them back to working condition. Luckily this mill never got electrified and when it stopped working in the 50's the scrap men didn't come in and smash up all the metalwork and we found the place in 2000 with a tree growing through the wheel with all the buckets missing and all the timber spokes rotten through but just holding onto the cast iron rims, all the internal workings are also complete and although it is now a residential property it could be put into gear and grind corn, most have been ruined by short sighted developers with no concern for our recent history. He has single handedly done all of the work except electrical which is what I have been helping with. Although there are probably easier ways to make a small amount of electricity there is something magical about waterwheels and the challenge was too much for my father to resist plus he happened to have some old 6 ft flat belt pulleys and shaftings kicking around, all he had to do was rebuild the wheel, build a lovely new building to put it all in, install all the gearing, dig out 1/2 mile of leat, build a new launder, 3 sluice gates, get some first hand lessons in torque twisting shaft couplings to bits and hey presto, now we are ready to figure out the electrical side of it.

I have been living in Australia for the last 5 years and have been back for six months helping my father, I am off to live in New Zealand in the new year so I am looking forward to seeing some serious hydro plants out there, working on this has really inspired me to learn more about alternative energy and hopefully I will persue this interest in the future. I must thank my father for being a source of inspiration to me and passing on his countless skills and knowledge, there are not many like him, the term multi-skilled does not do him justice!

I am new to alternative energy scene but I must say that it seems to be full of well wishing people who are very happy to share what they know and also people who are not afraid to give anything a go, I grew up in a family of makers and have seen ferro cement trawlers grow in the garden and home made machinery in the workshop etc,  most of which incorporated a bit off a Morris 1000 in there somewhere so its great to see like minded people making stuff work.

Here are some pics

The first pic shows the wheel, 16ft x 3 ft, and the building to the right is where the gearing and generator live.

The second one shows the top of the wheel, when the wheel was working hard with a lots of water it made a sound like a stationary engine caused by the water entering the buckets in one solid lump, we cured this by cutting a v in the end of the launder to give a spread of water over 3 buckets, much quieter now.

Pic 3 shows the Scania lorry clutch that transfers the power into the shed, we put this on so that if anything jams up it should cause the clutch to slip instead of breaking anything. We had a Rover car clutch to start with, lasted about 10 mins before it ripped the rivets out! Torque? Oh Yes!! This clutch is on full pressure and will just slip if overloaded.

[RobNute]

Sorry this should be the first pic!

[RobNute]

And this the second.

[RobNute]

This shows the first and second 6ft flat belt pulley's in the shed. They look lovely when they are going around.

[RobNute]

Here are the next pulley's.

[RobNute]

And here is the generator, note the proximity sensors pointing at the vee belt pulley, more about these later.

[RobNute]

The generator goes via a RCD to this box of tricks that basically diverts its 3 phase either to the house and into a 3 phase immersion heater or to a dump load. It also has a thermistor relay that operates if the generator overheats, this will switch off all load and also shut the sluice gate to turn off the water. The sluice uses a 36 volt electric ram from a sattelite dish to regulate the water. This is also governed by the Tachometer relays at the top of the box that sense the speed from those proximity sensors in the previous photo. If its running too slow they turn on some pulse relays that give the ram a 2 second burst once a minute, this gives the wheel time to settle with a bit more water, if its still too slow the same thing will happen a minute later, too fast and the same thing in reverse. This keeps it working within a range that suits the generator and our gearing. If it the leat water reduces to such an extent that its running too slowly to be practical then one of the tacho relays will shut the water off completely.

[RobNute]

Here is the other end of the waterwheel shaft in the living room, it has railings around it now that its turning! The bevel gear is not meshed with the pit wheel so the mill workings are stationary.

I hope you find this all interesting, we can produce about 1.7 kw with a moderate amount of water, more would be possible but it would be pushing our engineering ( and welding ) skills!!

Best wishes

Rob

[guydewdney]

oddly familiar looking generator that....






lol


glad that some of my ramblings have been helpful.

[RobNute]

Yes, thanks Guy. Like you were saying when we came up, there is a place in the whole renewables thing for waterwheels, I know they are not the easiest thing to sort out but they could work very well for some people. My problem in the new year is that I won't have one to play with, after 6 months of living with one I have become quite attached and obsessive over it!! We will have to make up a new syndrome for those of us with a waterwheel fixation!! I think I may have to make one for myself even if I dont have any water..... ( maybe I need to seek help). Here is an interesting article for you, someone has been doing the maths.

http://sleekfreak.ath.cx:81/3wdev/VITAHTML/SUBLEV/EN1/WTRWHEEL.HTM

Rob

[RobNute]

Hello again, I have taken a few more pics so here is one looking down from the top of the wheel.

[billi]

nice pics and set up ..... i like the copple stones  , similar type of stone work i started  in Ireland a few years ago ...

Anyhow

Is there more Info available about how the Electricity of the water wheel is utilized ? How much it generates

Perhaps i missed that info

Thanks Billi

[RobNute]

Nice stonework billi, makes your back ache doesn't it!

The generator is wired in star with a neutral and is fed to a 3 phase 2 kw immersion heater like this one,

http://www.cicn.co.uk/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=IIH3000-275&Category_Code=003

we have wired it with each element going from a phase to neutral as this gets us in the right volt range, each element is around 660 watts at 230 volts so as our volts go up with the speed of the wheel then the output rises accordingly. It always self balances as its a direct heating system and we seem to have got the load and available power gauged about right. It will produce 2 kwh but thats pushing it a bit hard so it seems happier at about 1.7 kwh. This is currently heating up water for use in an underfloor heating system. We would have been interested in grid connection but it seems that we missed the boat with the new regs making it harder to get something like this hooked up, probably better off this way anyway.

Cheers

Rob

[billi]

Thanks

May i ask why you not consider  to show the Grid the !inger ? 

or what are you gona do with about 40 kwh a day in summer ?




   Guy will give me a freezing shower 

billi

[RobNute]

Sorry billi, not sure that I understand.

"May i ask why you not consider  to show the Grid the !inger ?" ??

In the summer there is not quite as much water so there will be less power anyway but it will be used for domestic hot water as we are putting 2 more immersions in other tanks to use as much of the energy as possible, at the moment its all experimental so we will see how it runs in the long term and maybe adapt it as time goes on. Any suggestions welcome.