Not a very good placement of your wheel. You should have it located down stream some what so that the top of the wheel is equal to the bottom of your reservoir. You proved it to yourself, by pulling the plug and dropping the water level a few inches you ran out of flow. You can only use the water when your reservoir is full. Should be down stream so that you have the whole reservoir to give you flow. Then you control flow out of the bottom with a valve. Look at any hydro dam set up and you will find the powerhouse at the bottom, not at the top. Great wheel though!
This is the most amazing piece of work I have seen in a very long time. How in the world did they do it in the old days without cement, tracktors and all the modern equipment you used today, is just mind boggling.. Well done.....
Can you just imagine how much free clean energy has passed before you built this ,its mind blowing ,even though its a stream and water its still originally solar energy.The sun vaporized the water took it into the air as clouds then dropped it on what ever slope made the water run to gravity .What a beautiful world we could have but its not possible with populations of this size ,just too many of us.
Why not making sure the waterway from the dam until slightly after the waterwheel is artificial? Will prevent soil erosion around the dam and waterwheel and therefore protects the waterwheel to dislodge/sink in.
You didn't go to the moon, son. Don't get carried away. You was drunk, on PCP and Cartel Meth and you jumped out in traffic that night and got hit by a pickup truck and you lay there on your back looking up at the moon. C'mon now. You know what happened.🥖
Im not a hundred percent sure about this especially when it comes to hydro, but even if you don't get the RPM you need to produce the voltage via gear/pully shenanagins.. Can you still hook up a MPPT charge controller to help convert and regulate the low and high voltage fluctuation and produce a constant stream of usable power? Maybe its called a Inverter or something. I know the Tech/equipment exists i just don't remember the name of the equipment, but basically you're looking for something that stabilizes fluctuations in Volts and Amps and gives you a desired output at either a constant amperage or voltage. its my understanding you can only have 1 either a desired volts, or a desired amps. and then you can run that through another peace of equipment to charge batteries or power your cabin. Then again i haven't looked into this in over 10 years which is why my memory is faulty at the moment. Anyway in that 10 years time they may have improved the design even more and allow you to have a constant output of desired volts and amps. Either way this gives you something to look for and work with if your design isn't exactly to spec. it will also help improve your power plant because mother nature doesn't do the same thing all day every day, shes Tri-polar (i was going to say Bi-Polar but i thought this would be 'Funnier/Punnier'). If you cant find the equipment im talking about then ill go look for specifics, and reply to this if you want me to. That is if someone else doesn't reply to this 1st with the name of the equipment. PS: Really cool project and channel i subbed cuz i want to see where this goes. Thanks for sharing this.
May I don't want to be a critic like everybody else. If you were built a hydro turbine. Would have saved so much work. No damn. And more electrical output
you can heat the jacuzzi with the dump load electric overflow and you can fill it and drain it from the spring ? haha....it is Great what you folks are doing...bless Yah...doug
A trick to remember is that the rubber of the belt will gradually dry out with the sun and heat. Mitigate this by coating it with some vaseline. Just get a chip brush and coat it. It works well with anything rubber, car door gaskets, fridge gaskets, etc. . Vaseline was born from the creation of gasoline as a byproduct of the process. It keeps the rubber suple and oiled up...
Thank you for sharing that helpful trick! Coating the rubber with vaseline sounds like a great way to extend its lifespan. By the way, if you're looking for a reliable power backup solution for your outdoor adventures, I highly recommend checking out the Segway Portable PowerStation Cube Series. It offers massive capacity, fast recharging, and even waterproof technology. Definitely a game-changer for camping and RV enthusiasts!
@@rustinstardust2094 only thing of importance is the use of the alternator. It has to be a GM style with a triode or you'll need a more complex charging system
Jerry did a fantastic job on the water wheel! 👏 Can't you change the pulley ratio to 16:1 or install a jackshaft with 2" and 6" pulleys to keep the speed of the wheel in character with a water wheel? 8:1 ratio = 60 rpm wheel speed, that's awful fast for a water wheel. A slower churning wheel would look more natural! The speed it's turning at right now looks pretty good, although it could be a little slower in my opinion! 👍 Looks like it's turning around 20 rpm.
@@LoftisPartyofSix Can I recommend a 12" pulley on your jackshaft instead of a 6" pulley? A 12" pulley will give you a 10 rpm water wheel speed. I think that speed will look the best for you!
When the shtf , I want to be on Jerry's team 👍. Are you gonna put some kind of brake on that wheel because I think you will have more than enough power the way that wheel is moving
Hi Channel Loftis. I really liked your water wheel and power generation projects. Very cool. I live in São Paulo in Brazil and here we have incredible hydraulic potential because we have several rivers. Although most of the power generation here in Brazil is from hydroelectric plants (approximately 85%). I also have a channel that I have several small-scale projects. Thank you for sharing your knowledge and experiences. I'm sorry for my very bad English 😩😩. Hugs and much success in the projects.
@@alabastardmasterson - Let me phrase it like this: There is a reason why they have replaces the waterwheel-design in EVERY hydroplant that value its output.. The main advantage of turbines is that its ability to harness head is much greater than the diameter of the turbine, whereas a water wheel cannot effectively harness head greater than its diameter. The migration from water wheels to modern turbines took about one hundred years. But I am guessing the talk coming out of your arse is in the early 19-hundreds or in the 18-hundreds..
Not to be a downer but it seems to me that there is only water acting on the wheel on about 25% of the circumference, wouldn't have been more efficient to put the slats at an angle to retain the water for longer?
@@LoftisPartyofSix Ah, yes rewatching it I can see that. There where certain segments, 12:50 as an example, where I thought they weren't. Man I love the look of the wheel how come you went with that design compared to others? Have been thinking about hydro for a while and kinda fell in love with the vortex turbine design myself.
If you end up finding you aren't producing enough electricity you can easily increase this. Your not limited to the slow rate of the spring what your actual harvesting is gravitational potential energy, the farther your water moves down the more energy you can create. You could put you wheel at the bottom of the hill with a very long trough to that point and harvest more of this energy
we all need a Jerry in our lives lol wish he was here so we can build a cabin lol awesome wheel so excited to see it all come together going to be so nice :)
some info. it is assumed that you cared, not at all, about Efficiency. because, the many shortcomings of this 'wheel include, too few buckets and they have NO 'lips'.!!! at 13:36,, the use of such a Large Radius drive pulley results in the LOSS of a lot of MA, mechanical advantage, that would otherwise be present, NEARER to the center of rotation. it is not clear whether there is excess clearance, below the 'wheel. if so, this is Head NOT utilized. it is NOT clear whether the maker of the 'wheel Understands HYDROPOWER. that is --- the use of Gravity and a driven-wheel in the conversion of the potential energy in Falling water, to Mechanical, then, to electrical Energy. googletranslate
Those bearings can tolerate a side loading that enormously greater than what's the case here. Remember that people use those same bearings for mounting drive pulleys run by gas engines of 20 or 50 horsepower with no problems, where the lateral forces exerted by the pulley are hundreds of times greater than the weight of that water wheel. Then if you figure out the lateral force exerted by the drive system in this case (just approximately), based on leverage which is based on the weight of the water in the buckets, along with wheel and pulley diameter to create tension in the drive belt, that's also just a drop in the bucket compared to what the bearings are designed for. Those bearings will outlast everything else in the system, though they should get a shot of grease once in a while.
Definitely looking for an update.,. I look at your water wheel I see that it has slots for water. Buckets are said to be better. Or at least produce more gravity torque because they hold the water longer equals heavier weight on the wheel.. the modification is this. On each slot cavity which you have you would add a plank covering it three-quarters across on top each one . This allows the water to be held longer 3/4 of the way around its circumference and dump it at the bottom portion of the wheel period here is the difference you're dumping your water now 1/4. To add this modification you'll be dumping your water on the lower half.. have you seen paddle wheels that have slanted blades. This is what they're trying to accomplish. Trying to harvest as much torque from The leverage and keeping that weight onto the leverage. You're doing well you actually know to keep your water wheel out of the bottom pool. This would cause a retard effect. That is an older phrase basically I probably could say drag.. yes you're doing a good job by keeping your wheel high. You're not stirring the bottom water..
I am not dissing this in any way, but you could build a smaller version, using bicycle front wheels and hubs. A short threaded rod to join the hubs together. Then build a smaller set of paddles onto the rims . This is still lovely
Wow! A water wheel for the hydroelectric power made from an old wagon wheel? Awesome! I just might get the same thing for my hydroelectric power for my off-grid house one day.
Been a couple of weeks since I saw this video for the first time, but I´m intriqued to know all about the watts and efficiency of that water-wheel so I caught myself checking if a new video is up manually everyday now 😄..still waiting! And that is the formula how you create good content on YT. Big thumbs up from Sweden!
first it will slow the rpms down with a load on generator so you may need a "Burn off" circuit for extra power like a heater etc if the rpm has to be in too narrow a range but the inverter should compensate for a voltage range that may not require this since you have a lot of water flow. Of course you know just a different size pulley or gear would result in the correct RPM. I might suggest getting a load on the generator first before you decide on final gear ratio. You could reduce rpm with less water flow which you could control but you can't increase it above the maximum.
The amount of energy you could make with this when the trowel is running fully using a very high ratio gearbox. You can make tons of power with the right electronics and mechanics. All the hard work has been done by this genius of a man Jerry.
Sorry to inform you, The installation of the wheel is Back to front, The water should enter at the Rear and Discharge at the front if you run in your orientation water will slow the wheel down as it tries to discharge at the rear of the wheel. also, use a balance arm and counterweight to tension the belt, not a spring, its a permanent fix. in the video did you notice the splashing on the blades at the rear of the wheel. No---No free flow.
nice, I bet you could add small weights to perfect spots on that wheel like they do to drive shafts to make it a perfect spin. although it is very nice already.
More water wheels are needed in the world! A more "engineery" version of the sea shore if you can hear it from the lodge, love it. For making absolute power though, would a water turbine fed from the PVC pipe you have at the bottom of the dam, with the head pressure of the dam work "better"? There is a chap on here "Joe Malovich" who has a good DIY example. Also taking the water from the bottom avoids any freezing in the winter. Keep the water wheel though either as a second power generator or make it mechanical for a wood chopper for the wood burner or similar :D
Fantastic! I would put some mortar under the metal pieces that hold the water wheel bearings. Paint the metal quick! In future crab grass over back of dam to hold dirt. Put a little house over the generator!
That is a problem getting enough RPM from wind and water. You need a low rpm motor. Like a treadmill motor. I have a motor from a old reel to reel computer. On line. Used for wind.
Beautifully build Water Wheel! But what was the reason for you to *not* tiled the individual paddles backwards a little so that the water can't splash over it on impact. With that the paddles also could hold the water a little longer on the way down, increasing the usable potential energy.
@@LoftisPartyofSix I am looking forward to your next uploads and I am curious to see which other improvements you will come up with. A small suggestion on my part for a quick interim solution would be to screw narrow boards to the front of the paddles so that small buckets are formed. With that you can test if this really improves performance without having to change to whole setup.
I really like your wheel the way you really used all wagon wheels made the whole project very nice but it means a constructive criticism I think you will find the Marlin points to the concrete in adequate and a problem with strength Yes you had covered the concrete with a thick layer of an adhesive like liquid nails it would be OK but better yet would be to have a channel that covers the entire top of the concrete
I'm not sure why you had to build such a large dam, You could have built a very small dam connected to a flume of that size and just run the flume out about 60 or 80 ft downstream. So you're looking at about 450w at 100% efficiency so around 225w to your charge controller. Nice. I will say that the water wheel looks to be a little bit too narrow for the amount of flow that you want to push through it, And you're probably going to need a second stage of belts or chain to get your generator RPMs up high enough without losing water to high RPMs. You could have a second generator running off of your 6-in pipe that's set in the pipe like a propeller, just extend the pipes so you get a lot more head and you'll get a ton of power out of that I bet. Also I saw your spring video and you could use a water wheel spiral pump to pump water up to a much higher storage container so you could do gravity-fed water like you were talking about.
