I would think that a solar still would be more promising. Using solar to directly heat your water would be much more effective than using the intermediary of electricity. That said, I don't see a particular flaw in using a low-voltage heat source as you propose, except that it sounds like what you're looking at is a very low power source.
http://www.otherpower.com/scotthydro1.html shows a homemade system on a 3-foot high dam, generating 2 amps at 12VDC. They provide photos detailing the entire manufacturing process (and they built essentially everything: wheel, generator, etc.) Hope this helps. Steve ----- Original Message ----- From: mr_galvo To: [email protected] Sent: Thursday, December 23, 2004 10:50 AM Subject: [microhydro] Teeny-Hydro question Hello, I'm new here and hope to learn from the group. I am interested in a low voltage project that I thought might work with a small hydro source. Any suggestions (or even letting me know I'm nuts) would be appreciated. I have a small stream as a water source. In fact, I'm going to need to verify that it doesn't freeze over in teh winter. Having said that, I odn't believe there to be a fast flow of water but it does move. I was curious if I could create some sort of low voltage hydro generator or not? Most of what I've seen, both here and on the web, are very large in comparison. My basic interest is to get a low voltage heater going to vaporize water (downstream of the generator) and then condense it to get distilled water. The area I've got is remote and fairly wooded so I'm thinking that even an expensive solar cell would not work. Any suggestions would be appr. Thanks. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> $4.98 domain names from Yahoo!. Register anything. http://us.click.yahoo.com/Q7_YsB/neXJAA/yQLSAA/FGYolB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Does your company feature in the microhydro business directory at http://microhydropower.net/directory ? If not, please register free of charge and be exposed to the microhydro community world wide! NOTE: The advertisements in this email are added by Yahoogroups who provides us with free email group services. The microhydro-group does not endorse products or support the advertisements in any way. More information on micro hydropower at http://microhydropower.net To unsubscribe: send empty message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/microhydro/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
