Hydro Electric Trouble Shooting And Maintenance 

If you listen very closely, when Kris is cleaning the pipes, you can hear a distant Canadian voice saying "release the schmoo!"

I always loved messing about in water unfortunately I am too old for it now so enjoy watching you 👍🏻

If you have a slight increase in efficiency over a period of time, say a week or so, consider that you may have air bubbles in your penstock and they are being slowly absorbed into the flowing water. Air bubbles are restrictive even though not solid. Every time you open it to atmosphere the air will reenter and need to be purged or absorbed. Efficiency loss near maximum flow would manifest because of this reduction in cross section. I have experienced this added resistance in my hydraulic ram system delivery pipe and it is measurable as a flow rate increases over time. It is difficult to get all the air out of a slightly undulating penstock other than letting the air absorb slowly into the water.

Thanks for another interesting video, even when you're not making something beautiful, your work is still impressive. It looked like a ton of mud came out of those pipes!

I still think a airlock remover would work in this scenario Kris, one that could be put in the main water tank before it goes into the jets, perched onto a upright pipe, any air would find its way there and be ejected by the airlock remover

Kris having watched your channel from the beginning. I've noticed that whenever you have problems with the hydro it seems to be working fine on the standard three valves, and as soon as you incorporate the spear valve it starts again with problems not necessarily straight away but within a short time. You reach about 400 / 430 Watts on the three nozzles my question is why not replace the spear valve with a fourth nozzle of the same spec as the other three. Wouldn't this help push the power up by another 100 plus watts? Or is the brain of the operating system only able to work at about 480 / 500 watts? Before cancelling out? I was glad to see you run the piggy down the whole tubing it definitely looked to clear away some buildup of sludge etc.

Intermittent faults are the most frustrating to deal with.

I look forward to seeing the new manifold project. I do think you're getting some losses from the bit in front of the manifold: not so much from the change in diameter, but from the turbulence of the size change and fittings. Though I agree it's only worth it for the RU-vid content and experimentation and not so much the additional watts it may yield.

That is amazing. Never thought the system looks like that. Thank you for sharing!

Great video Kris, I'm wondering if the problem has to do with the shape of the top of the generator box. It might be that the rectangular shape is causing some water at the highest volume (all four valves open) to bounce back from the wall and impede the generator blades. Looking at the video you can see that each valve is directly opposite a flat, albeit slightly sloping wall. Perhaps a larger conical top might help...just a thought.

Hello matey. This was in my feed today and I wondered if you had seen it.... the rotating screen was what got my attention ! Hope all is well. = )

I might be a bit late but I would suspect vortexing, easy way to sort it out is to shut off at the bottom and let the main stagnate for a while then try it on again, we used to think about stagnating for at least a couple of hours but our main was 10 inch cast iron about 6 miles long and fitted with automatic vent valves.

I don't know if you noticed there was water leaking from the pipe you did elongation on. Probably nothing, the set up is really nice.

I love it come home from work and there's a video uploaded Happy day 😊

Hey Kris, England in a fookin lockdown now too.... hope the madness ends soon.

thanks Kris. good to give things a check over now and then....

Kris, have you considered adding some form of cage around the top of the turbine? Just to make sure nothing (including your hands) gets caught in that.

To monitor risk of air in the pipe, you could have a section of clear pipe right after intake and/or after the stem pipe. In theory when going full blast - the long pipe after the stem pipe might suck more water than the intake can supply. But at low power it should not be a problem with air. Another idea is to replace the stem pipe with a clear pipe, or at least a section of it.

its still close to 500 watts i would be happy with that here at my home all day long when its raining it adds up.. to a massive saving.

Kris Another interesting video which cast my (now failing) mind back 40 years or so when I last played with fluid dynamics but does the enclosure , square in your case, contribute to turbulence within as the 'used' water tries to make it's way out causing back pressure and slowing the turbine or could the profile of the nozzles used be adding to non laminar flow. Cleaning of the pipes is a perennial problem when dealing with a 'natural flow' and should be factored into the cycle. As I said it is a lifetime ago since I used to encounter hydrostatic situations but in my experience it was always the turbulent/laminar flow issue that used to keep me up at nights. Regards from a Melbourne ex pat enjoying slight relaxing after lockdown since March it is an unfortunate situation that the whole world has to come to terms with including the orangutan leading the USA and reminds us that no matter how clever we have become as a species biologically we are all interdependent on everything else inhabiting our planet and we should disrespect that at our peril.

Hey Kris love your videos and am a current subscriber, just a suggestion mate a wireless mic would help the audio a lot

Don't forget that the Wires have a Power-loss aswell. The Resistence of the Wire together with the Current make up a Power-loss.

Perhaps a lexan view port on the hydro "manifold" buffer tank to look for air bubbles, along with a soft-spring check-float valve to auto-bleed air.. Maybe cap off the air stack with a similar "flap" style check valve to vent air off and make sure gravity (when vacuum above it is high) isn't going to pull air in. Only things I can think of right now.

pretty glad that your investment pays back well

Found that interesting. (Kansas USA)

Salut super vidéo magnifique tank you

Great to see the hydro still belting out the power! How’s the fencing going?

The alternator, acting as a transducer of mechanical energy to electrical energy, has certain operating parameters and losses. You should generally see spin rate proportional to roughing AC voltage, and when you see that not having the same proportional delta then you may be coming across an inefficiency of the alternator. There are numerous sources of this, including eddy currents in the stator, thermal losses, etc. Seeing spin rate vs roughing voltage is better than water flow versus wattage to discern flow of energy.

7:26 don't those bolts on one side mess with its rotational balance? I thought these things needed perfect symmetry or they'd wear out too fast.

👍 learning on every video kris, thanks”

Why not weld the pipes to reduce the friction, just wondering?

Whats the difference between a spear valve and ball valve? Does one have more potential to regulate???

Hi. I don’t know anything about hydro power but have you considered the possibility of having two electric motors or more attached to the water turbine via a belt or gear system thereby giving you twice the power? Just wondering if that’s possible?

This is great. Thanks

Kris, why do you only use part of the water flow from the reservoir/damn set up, is it cost or ecological reasons or something else. It seems like there’s more to gain from the excess water? 🙂

from the looks of all the silt that casme out the pipe i think you may have a slow spot where the silt is building up and slowing the flow

I'd move up there if I could lol love the thought of getting of this place... ps I do make a good handyman mind

i would check all power connections for deteration of connection leading intoi more resistence in the cable

brill vid again kris

Is 480W just from hydro or does it include your solar and wind as well?

Hi Kris, Dot, Snoop, hope you are all well. Here's a tech question for you. Would it make any difference in water pressure at the turbine if the pipe reduction was spread over a longer length of pipe? As I'm not a tech was just wondering. Thanks for sharing. Stay safe and keep up the good work. 👍🖖😎😺🐔

Hi Kris, have you thought about using a spinner screen for the intake? if so, what were your thoughts?

is there any way you have muck in the collector/splitter box inside the hydro outhouse?

Thanks a lot CHINA.

I have a question, Kris. When do you think your home turbine system will have paid for itself (figure out how much the electricity you’re created would have cost purchased off the national grid, and then take that off the cost of parts and your labour for building your generator, pipes, etc)

Ah, I see you have the turbine on it's side:) Nice.

How much head+flow do you have on your system to generate 488w?! I've been watching videos of people with massive setups and they can only generate 300w or so. And their parts cost is so high it'll take them a decade for it to start paying off, that is if there are no maintenance costs.

It required a sacrifice of time and effort.

If I followed you words / video, the first of many changes you made (stand pipe) did not changed your number (watts) in anyway. You then continued to make other changes without going back and undo the first change you made. This leads to not knowing which change helped. You should return a change you make back (if no improvement) to its original existence before moving on to the next attempt at a new change. Once you find the reason you lost watts you then can go back and improve on or change earlier attempts at trying to isolate the source of the problem that did not show to be the problem, but you just feel improvement is needed (example: stand pipe). Does the "LOCK DOWN" feel like a "LOCK DOWN" when living a life style simpler to a self made lock down ... ha,ha,ha.

11kWh per day, that's plenty as long as you have a sufficiently large energy storage system.

I don't know if you saw a chunk of debri came out near step down pipe

Quite entertaining even if not enlightening;)

👍🏻⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

👍🙂🐈

I can't wait for people in 12 year when this gets recommend

Il devient de plus en plus sale et négligé.

Hey Bud love what your doing.. but can i say the way the turbine runs at such high speed, it causes a lot of stress on bearings etc.. and i know you have invested a lot of time and effort, into your system.. but i would seriously consider a vortex turbine.. they run a lot slower and a lot quieter... and pretty sure not as effected by frost and ice... i know it's more time and money but you could sell on the old one... just trying to make your life easier in the long run... ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-lUR_U-0D63w.html

13:55 "oh sorry that lense is a bit dirty, I rub over it with my thumb, so it's completely dirty" :-D A cleaning and service of the system before winter is better than do this things if it's freezing cold

to my untrained eye awhen you sent the pig down to clean the pipe did a black piece of fabric come out like a sock??

Dear Kris Harbour. 👍👍👏 Well maintained. Maybe it was only a dirt problem (like it often is on/in any kind of technical and even biological things?! Thanks a lot for making teaching recording editing uploading and sharing. Best regards luck and health to all of you (including all animals of course)

Watch from 10:08 that was definitely the problem

Life goals: Have as good a relationship with a cat as Kris.

Stay safe, stay healthy and keep up the good work.

Thanks for my favorite Friday unwind activity! I don't have any useful suggestions (what's new, right? :D) but I can sympathize with troubleshooting a whole system, not finding a smoking gun, gaining some improvement by taking everything apart and putting it back together, but not knowing exactly why. Maddening!

How long are the bearings good for in the turbine? Could there be loss there overtime? You sealed the unit pretty well after the last one got water logged. I'm just curious, I know nearly nothing about hydroelectric.

My kitties always come to help me with my garden jobs too lol, they make fine supervisors 😉

I do love your cat. She’s gorgeous 🥰

I remember when I only watched the hydro videos. After watching thema all, I'm glad I followed along this awesome journey. Great content, editing and all. Only I wished Kris would wear a microphone from time to time, but he said he wouldn't like that. And that ist ok as well.

Lovely seeing your brain chipping away at theory and practical ways learning, thanks for sharing

Have to admit, when the wattage went from 480 watts and dropped to 0 watts, my heart skipped a beat.

Cheers for the content Kris it's always appreciated even if it takes me 2 hours to watch with the baby it's one of the things I really look forward to each week. Can we have a Jam episode?

Love your energy videos at most! Very nice

the whole Lock&down thing is really hard for working-class.. all the savings are depleting day by day.

I've seen in a few other builds where people have put a baffle up in the air intakes to calm the water before it goes down the pipe I wonder if something like that could minimize any chance of air bubbles getting in the pipe. It doesn't look like there's really any that are getting in there right now but even testing it out with a piece of metal with some feet on it might be something to try

There was quite a lot of mud and debris came through the pipes when you were cleaning them out, maybe that was the problem?

Having watched all of the hydro content i wanted to ask a few things: if you do rebuild the manifold to accept the full sized pipe, can you mount the control valves on the manifold, taking some weight off the nozzles & also making it easier to disconnect the turbine. With regards to your intake, could you have a sluice gate to control the flow over the screens ? My thinking is that you can regulate flow in the slightly lower water flowing times to hold water back. A sluice may even help with debris on the screens. My last thought is about the stand pipe, would a one way valve be of help to only let air out but not allow air to ever be sucked in ?

Start with the simple things first and work up and diagnosis.

Good work on showing the silver play button Kris, All hard work pays off

That was really interesting to watch all the process for the checks you did. Thanks for sharing and I am glad the power went back up :)

Hei, Can you point me in the right direction! I am looking for an adjustable jet nozzle. Or can you give me your guy's contact, please? Good content, Urmas

what if you put the manifold at the end of the 110mm pipe and have 4 small valves one for each nozzle. just a idea

Don't understand why you don't put an inflatable boom around the drop off to prevent debris from sliding down and clogging your inlet, you could even put very mesh over the boom to stop leaves from falling into boom area 👍👍👍👍👍👍

Have you thought of filling a massive buffer barrel that way you wont get silt in the pipes. Then you can drain the dilt from the barrel every now and again./

Thank you for taking the time to explain all of the dynamics and walking through the trouble shooting and obtaining the 480 watts!I hope it works all the way through the winter without too many hiccups! Pretty near!😀👍

Hi Kris, we find your videos very inspirational. We have recently moved to rural France into an old farmhouse, and are learning to do things in a very old fashioned way. As an ex coach-builder, your woodworking videos have helped me to find my long lost skills. Keep up the good work. Alex & Sally

One more question. Any reason why you don't double up on the Hydro Electric Turbine. Run two pipes down instead of one?

What about turbulence inside the turgo chamber? Too much water spray for too little space? Your resolution indicates it's rather not your issue but I'm wondering long since when the critical point is reached in terms of max throughput of the wheel chamber.

Not far from 200k now 😎👍🏻

Can you also run the machines as well? That's while making Jam and having lights on in the workshop?

Shooting troubles, huh?)

excellent work Kris! what kinda storage bank are u running?

Hi Kris, need your help willing to pay you for your time. Liam

Change the angle or remove that buffer thingy from blocking the flow

Water flow 7.3 ltr per sec 40 m head calculate the power can be generated plz

What is the cost of living off grid still pay rates , council tax or not?

the best thing you can do to support the channel is hit the thumbs up button.

Yeah lockdown is terrible

GREAT VID

I wonder wat County are you based?

A lot of the time you cannot be heard