Progress and not getting wet

[Heinz]

The bucket idea uses much less in the way of elctrickery than powered valves and I've not managed to find a small powered valve which can take any kind of pressure yet. Also using powered valves means having to have control systems for them, when to open, when to shut, when it's fully open, when it's closed. All times 4 and interconnected. I did look at making simple powered valves. Looked at cheap geared motors and torque clutches, but the cheapest way has to be a gate valve and a cordless drill. Still got to mess about with controls though.
The beauty?!? of my patented lever and string idea is that two solenoids can (I hope) control it and it's got built in damping/delay, all from two float switches, two solenoids valves and a bit of three core cable. It's quite possible that it may turn out to be b*llocks though 

H

[biff]

Hang in there Heinz,
                     Just a bit more tweaking and you will have it right.
                                                                                    Biff

[Heinz]

Aye, another six months or so should see it almost working 

H

[guydewdney]

have a look at irrigation valves - for crop sprayers and for lawn watering - I use a load of 12v ball valves for watering my polytunnel.

[knighty]

what size valves do you need ? I'll keep an eye out on ebay/industrial auctions for you (I'm looking anyway)


if you have float valve for each one... then it can be as easy as float up = power = valve open, float down = no power = valve closed


and it should be pretty easy to get float valves which will do the delay for you... a lot of them do what you want indirectly... when the float comes up the contact is made.... but the float has to drop down below the 'on' level before it turns off again :-)

[Heinz]

Just had a look on fleabay, can't see any 12volt ball valves? Plenty of solenoid valves though.

The float switch delay isn't going to be long enough, perhaps with a taller header tank? but not with my short arsed one which needs to be short to be where it is.

The other thing I'm hoping the bucket delay will do is low flow intermittent running. By sizing the bucket and it's drain orifice in trickle conditions the penstock should fill, float switch on, bucket fills, valve opens, turbine runs until the bucket is empty which should be when the penstock is about half empty to get the max watts out of not very much.

It's all 28mm as that's what I've got lying around.

H

[camillitech]

Any use to you H, you can pick it up when you come for your NiFe's   

Seriously though if it's any use I'll post it out to you.

Cheers, Paul

[billi]

There is not much more interesting to think about , than trying to automate a hydro system.....

I just bought a  extra 110mm sluice valve for my  stored hydro  set up   ,which i can open when battery  needs charging and drain water out of a lake  .......so soon  i will have 2 storage  lakes on the same turbine 1 kw AC and nozzle  one lake with 20 metres head the new one with only 12 metres ,the 12 metres head lake is not managing to produce 230Volt AC  in the turbine ,but still enough  to  work my AC to 24Volt DC transformer  

Anyhow   the other day i thought of these adjustable nozzles available for under 100 Euros






And perhaps its possible to  have a string  and a float attached  to the needle or an arm and float (like in the toilet flush)to control

Sure similar idea  to have a container with several pipes coming from the intake/penstock  of the hydro  at different heights levels of the penstock


But where to find so much pipes for free  

Ideally for sure would it be ,to adjust by pressure sensor  and no extra pipes needed ,but ..........

Billi

[Heinz]

Any use to you H, you can pick it up when you come for your NiFe's   
Seriously though if it's any use I'll post it out to you.
Cheers, Paul

Thanks Paul, if I fail to make the  HPVFS (Heinz Patent Variable Flow System) work, I might be in touch 

H

[Heinz]

Anyhow   the other day i thought of these adjustable nozzles available for under 100 Euros

I had a look and think about using a spear  valve, but decided against it. I would need at least two valves to get enough variation in flow, max jet diameter is 12mm for the spoons. I had sketched a spear valve controlled by a diaphragm and lever connected to penstock pressure, but thought it would probably oscillate ? Diaphragm rather than ram to stop it being damaged when it freezes.  Also thought about cordless drill powered, pneumatic, etc. After several bits of paper covered in scribbles, ended up back at the HPVFS for the minimum of controls needed and simplicity ?

H

[knighty]

I forgot how long the pipe is from your penstock to your turbine....

I know you don't have a very tall penstock... but could you run some cheap/thin hose down from it at different heights.... and then use that pressure at the turbine end to open/close valves ?

the pipe would only need to be very thin... and have a small hole in it at the turbine end to let the water/pressure drain away as the penstock level dropped


once you have that hose/pressure available at the turbine it should be pretty easy to knock something up to use it to open and close the valves as needed ?

[Heinz]

Whole lot of no progress for ages or that's how it feels. Ordered some nice full bore ball valves of fleabay, what arrived had a bore of about 20mm on a 28mm valve. After some discussion with Mr Patel about what 'full bore' meant, valves returned and some replacements ordered from BES, which is where I should have bought them from in the first place. Still waiting for the refund....
Also ordered some marine fuel hose, fleabay again. Needless to say they sent the wrong hose, 38mm wire reinforced instead of 32mm textile reinforced. Filling out their returns form I discovered that 'AP Motor store' is the same mob as 'Mr Silicone' and 'Auto Performance on Line' both of which sent me the wrong stuff in the past and both were less than helpful with sorting it out. In fact I had a very heated phone call with Mr Silicone a few months ago and stated that I would never buy from them again.... I Like Ebay, bought and sold many items on it, with only a few useless feckers like Mr Silicone spoiling it.
Still waiting for the 32mm hose to turn up, so I have only managed to connect two of the four nozzles and the variable flow thing is on hold until the pipework is done.
Been very dry here until today, the ground has been wet from the fog and dew, but no rain for days so not much in the burn. Got down to 46w on an 8.5mm nozzle the other day which is pathetic. The 8.5 makes 150w with the penstock full, and I should have fitted a smaller one to get more than the 46w but couldn't be bothered making another nylon nozzle. Decided to make the smallest nozzle from a small cable gland, same idea as my first nozzle. Picked one which will go from 10mm down to about 5mm and fitted it into the end of a bit of 28mm copper with car body filler. Roughened up the inside of the pipe and the end was cut with a pipe cutter so the filler/nozzle can't fall out the end and used a cone of plasticine in the cable gland so the filler formed a nice smooth taper from pipe to gland. The plan is to use this as the tweakable 'idle' nozzle. I can remove it while it's still connected to the penstock, adjust it's size to get the max penstock pressure and refit the nozzle. Need the marine fuel hose to connect it though.....
Tea break over, back to Stanley the Landrover's timing belt change

H

[camillitech]

Sounds like the kind of thing of thing that happens to me all the time Heinz  Funny enough I got my 38mm wire reinforced hose from the same place as you  only difference being that it was actually what I wanted  Plenty of 32mm here if your stuck and I also have some natty quick release couplings for the same size hose.



I had to upgrade this Harris to wire reinforced rubber when I increased the head from 30m to 100m plus 

Good luck, Paul

[Heinz]

Hi Paul, thanks for 'the man with the red face'. Stole it from Youtube and it's been on pretty constantly since. Crispy Bacon is good as well..... 

H

[camillitech]

Hi Paul, thanks for 'the man with the red face'. Stole it from Youtube and it's been on pretty constantly since. Crispy Bacon is good as well..... 

H

If you've got a turntable Heinz I'll post you the original on Vinyl with remixes by Svek, Jan Driver and Funk D'Void, pure awesome. It all has to go, the Technics SL1210's went to Germany so I've nothing to play it on 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MzvL11GphWw