Rick: You need the diameter of the pipe, the distance between the water source and where the turbine may be, the height differential between the source and the turbine place.
The height differential gives you the HEAD and also if you can not define the head, you could place a pressure gauge to the pipe at the lowest point where the turbine may be. Knowing the pressure in PSI or KG/m^2 then is easy to convert to feet or meters ( Head). I sent this message sometime back : > Rick: > > 5 gpm=0.315 liter/sec BUT we need the head ( vertical distance from the > spring exit to the end of the pipe) -- and the length of the pipe and the > diameter -- maybe the end pressure of the water if the pipe is closed. > > Example head of 10 meters =32.8 feet gives around 15 to 18 watts of > energy > or 0.360 to 0.430 KWhour.PER DAY ( correction). > > If you do not have enough time to charge the batteries, may what you need > is > a higher power charger. > Can you define the capacity of your battery bank (amp hour) and the > voltage ? Regards Nando ----- Original Message ----- From: "Rick Bluntschli" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Monday, December 05, 2005 9:57 AM Subject: Re: [microhydro] I want to build something from scratch > Tks for the replies; I obviously need to provide some more specific info > concerning my request. > > We have a Xantrex Trace 1012 UR-UPS inverter (1000w) and 4 6v car > batteries. We get a modest charge from 3 solar panels. Since we get some > power from the grid, the hydro unit would be another supplement to charge > the batteries. We are looking to provide current for a couple of homes: > lights, computers, and one refrigerator. > > I'm not quite sure about how to calculate psi or the kw per hour/day that > could be generated from what we've got, only that the spigot out of which > we got 5 gpm is fairly close to the ground level and distance from source > that the proposed location for the equipment would be. > > We had envisioned that whatever setup we decided on, it would be > propelled by water from a standard household pvc pipe. Ideally, we'd like > to build everything from scratch. We have friends who do sheet metal work, > so we'd be able to rig up a wheel (say, by welding blades to a bike > wheel). We figured that our proposed setup would use a wheel which would > spin a car alternator which would send a dc charge straight to the > batteries. > > We'd like to do something as cheaply as possible, but obviously a > scratch-built unit is going to suffer a lot of mechanical loss that a > pre-fab unit wouldn't have. > > If someone has attempted such a project, or knows what the issues are > that we need to resolve (gearing ratios between wheel and alternator, how > fast an alternator needs to spin in order to generate current, how to > avoid ovecharging, etc.), it would be much appreciated. > > Tks again, hope this is enough info. > > > Rick > > > > > > Matt Fombong <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Possible but we will like to know what scrap or skratch you have at hand. > Let us also get as much info as possible on what you hope to achieve. > For example you may want to build your turbine and you have access to > sheet steel and shaft material and bearings and you want to use a car > alternator to charge so many batteries etc. > This will help us to help you. > > > FOMBONG Matty FRU, Executive Director, > Rural World Resources International > P O Box 522, Mankon,Bamenda > North West Province, > Tel: 00237 5153746 > CAMEROON > > > > > --------------------------------- > Yahoo! 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