Low Head Turbine Testing 

You are a great source of inspiration for me to work harder, get my little land and play with such fun projects! Alex from Montreal, Canada

Love this! I've talked with Spencer a bunch and plan on getting this exact system. I have about 10 ft of head but a solid 400 gpm so I should be good like you said in my calcs!

It has been said that we learn more from our failures than from our successes. Thank-you.

Much better introduction! 😙🎶

Hey Joe! I really like the new production style, very professionnal!

lovely snow

Add a big bell siphon to the collection barrel. When the bucket fills the bell siphon activates giving you the intermittent gpm

I like these type of tests,nice one

Great video Joe, liked the different sort of style you edited it in. Keep up the good work. 😀

Great stuff here Joe! Nice to see so much progress in a single video.

Tremendous enough bro. Greeting from Malaysia.

Hi joe malovich first again love ur vids

Nice. Looks like it could use a lot of water.

Neat, Thanks Joe. Wish our spring would give us enough flow for these to work on the farm. Unfortunately it barely keeps up with the cows in the summer. x_x

I kept my word Joe.

Cut the inlet of the pipe at an angle...that will increase the flow into pipe. You can see the vortex near the board.

looks like a great summer project! ;)

The ultimate advantage is this being very silent. All tho this would require quite the water flow for it work at all. The problem with conventional turbines from old turbochargers is that those are built for high velocity lots visits fluids. Not some high viscosity liquid (we also have to consider that is for gas not liquids. The angle of the blades if too "straight forward". The blades should be much have much more aggressive angle of attack so that it creates some back pressure aswell. Basically designs a blade that is low velocity but high torque. In turbochargers you don't need much torque at all you need velocity and here it won't even reach that RPM because the velocity of the fluid is not enough at all. This design would be nice because it is dead silent and you only need to make a different impeller for it with different geometry to suit your flow needs. I am sure you know all this but I would like to see this idea again but with a different turbine in mind (ask someone with a multi axis CNC machine to manufacture these things). I like the design because it's silent and I don't think it should be hindered just by such a simple thing as impeller design

I’m confused by the use of the open barrel - the head height your turbine sees will be the drop in elevation from the waterline inside the barrel to the turbine. Why not just allow the culvert to be the buffer, since you’ve got overflow in your connection method, and thus utilize 100% of the head height from the outlet at the culvert to your turbine?

Hey A Joe, where you goin' with that gun in your hand? Don't do it Joe! Don't shoot the Old lady. Just Kidding. HA! This is over a year and you might have figured this out all ready or even moved on to another project. My first time here and I like it. So. Lets get to my observation and thought. "Your collection tank" The top intake is fine but the out pipe should be raised up to the half of the barrel and not at the bottom, where it is in this video. That will drop a lot of the sediment and finer silt in the water to the bottom and you will have a Purer water output also the angle will be slopped a little higher from the output of the collection tank. Good Luck on all your adventures Joe & please don't shoot the old lady.

Use a culvert section connector to make your adapter then mount it to your culvert pipe.

Use a pool noodle around the edge of your wood that way you can get a seal and clamp or screw it to the pipe

i think a waterwheel w/ some nice bukets to catch the water and some clever gearing would be better for low head setups, also alot less prone to failure from dirt and other objects in the water

If you're using the barrel to filter out trash then you need to put the outlet pipr up towards the to and put an elbow on the inlet pipe to direct the water downwards.

You could add a collection pipe further uphill to use your culvert as pressure tank 🤔 That way you probably got enough pressure to run a turbine like this from time to time. Just add a digital pressure gauge to the pipe running to the turbine, if the pipe is nearly full, you can start it, until the pressure drops to low :)

love your vids

Flexseal works....use that to make a deal on the pipeline.

Awesome video joe👍

Yes Mester..IM like and ilove you teknologi .. thanks.

I think you need a Francis turbine to run this effectively. Specifically designed for low head.

I like it bud! Planning a water wheel at my cabin up north this spring. Keep it up.

Joe may you can take a 5 gallon bucket and making converter joint from the covert to the 3 inch piep or make a funnel that tapers down .

The barrel was a genius move.

just so you know, unless the barrel has ponded water in it, you're not getting any head at all the water falling into the barrel from 6' up and then flowing into the pipe 6' below doesn't equal 6' of head, the pipe has do be submerged in fact, the head you have at the end of the pipe is (assuming the pipe is full) equal to the height of water in the barrel, and, if the upper pipe is full, includes that height, as well as whatever is dammed up behind the culvert crossing

Well done Joe. Appreciate every single piece! Learned a lot. Thnx! 👨‍🔧👍 💡🔌💧&⚡

Tip to get your setup faster with the right height: add some wood pins first with some cord connecting them like 2-3 foot away on the right height for your pipe. Then you can use the cord as reference with a level at any point of the pipe to confirm the right height. This allows you to get even very slight level changes over a long distance to be precise

Food for thought: for testing purposes you could construct an automatic bell siphon to feed the turbine briefly with your barrel setup to more reliably collect data on power production. link to Practical Engineering's video from a bit ago on the topic: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-_vV_z_0lFQ8.html

Add more tank storage either up hill and only use it when you need the extra power like when you need to charge your battery’s faster or from a deeper discharge

13:26 - you may get more accurate power readings with an electrolytic capacitor across the output of your rectifier (approx 4700 microfarad or near that) to smooth out the ripple. Might also help your MPPT controller do math a little better.

I guess I'm just confused. What's the point of generating 25 watts? Just to play with generating. Or actually get some use out of it? I would like to see you try to generate 3 4 maybe 500 Watts total. That way you could potentially power your home.

With the massive gap between the turbine and housing that setup is going to be super inefficient. Also the turbine shape and location are completely wrong for the housing design.

Keep it up

What becomes the case when the head/tube becomes more than 20 feet longb

Just came across your canal thanks for the info would have liked to know what you spent on the bigger ticket thing

nice intro 😊 so is the new turbine a replacement for the pit one or an as well as? could the new one feed the turbine in the pit with its output? (once you can get it to 100% efficiency) sorry, just getting more and more curious and extremely interested! your waterwheel you made a while back got me interested, and now with these more advanced turbine setups i just cant wait to see what you do next! never get a chance to try this in the uk, but watching your progress is so fascinating and interesting! 😊

Hola amigo te escribo de Colombia excelente experiencia la tuya pero creo que sufres mucho com el flujo de agua usa una sola manera con un tanque grande de 5000 litros para que te de presión saludos de pedro de colombia

Very nice thank you. Will support later. Your vids are well done. I'm curious about drop and length of pipe, velocity, also interested very much in recycling parts, etc. Thanks again. I have 350 gallons, 80ft plus drop. At about 1000 ft..length. actually I'm splitting it in 2 150 per direction. 2nd one less length, and about 60ft drop. 150 gallons per head..

I think you are hooking up the turbine backwards. The flow should be to the center and flung outwards.

You can use a screw turbine also

Hey Joe ...... has your stream ever frozen solid? I live in montana and i'm just thinking outloud here for myself.

Have you calculated how much your system cost and how long it will take to pay for it in electric production?

Can you send me the link for the water turbine?

0:33 1:19 1:44 1:56 3:39 11:38 12:33 14:47 14:53 16:38

Long time watcher, first time commenter. I have been watching you since I discovered your water wheel video. I hopefully this summer will be trying my hand at water generation. I actually want to do it in two different locations on my property. I have 1800 feet of road frontage with a creek that runs almost that entire length. It dumps into a 3 acre pond. First on the stretch of creek before it dumps into the pond, I want to build a water wheel. My plan is to build it more for looks than function but I also want to build it for function. It will be attached to a small wheel house where I may try to put a pellton wheel inside but not sure I have enough head. The creek has a very low decline until the point where I want to put the wheel house which has a 6 foot drop waterfall. On the other side of the pond where the outlet is we have a small camp site where we oark an RV. This side of the pond has your typical overflow culvert and it also has a 6" pipe that maintains the level of the pond. That pipe has an 8 foot drop that goes through the other side of a man made earth dam that is what created the pond. I plan to build a small turbine house where this pipe comes out. In this spot we plan to only generate enough power for the RV. Maybe with an automated control to shut the ow off when the batteries are full. Looking for ideas and opinions. I plan to record my process for the purpose of sharing, just don't know if I will create a channel. Trying to amass as much info as I can in my.plannong process.

Have you ever seen BradAlexander1 time to end the electricity racket

That turbine the dude sent you might need high flow

what happens if you take the barrel out, more pressure less volume

Hey man! This video was great!! A significant improvment doing the voice over some of the manual labor parts, and good use of time lapse!

Joe Malovich I like your black shoes I like your blue pant I like your grey winter jacket and I like your brown winter hat Joe Malovich

Eight ft to 12 feet straight drop after the impeller. Then you have it the pull on the propeller makes the spin dumping as much water as possible. Just saying. Your prop is in the wrong place. Its a vacuum pull.

did i miss the where to get this or make this?

cool

CANT U TEACH ME..HOW TO MAKE THIS?

Try this turbine on your dam

👍🇰🇷👍한국에서 응원합니다.

Have to disagree with your statements starting at 12:40. Your theory is correct in that the pressure is the same in all configurations but its just that, in theory. in practice, there will never be a perfect suction and if there is, you will always be fighting cavitation at high flow rates and speeds. i have seen multiple guys on here swear up and down that they have air leaking in their systems cause they here air going through their turbine. NOOOO its not air its cavitation and it will destroy the turbine so quickly. you breifly mention at the end of your statement about max suction height which i believe is your way of dealing with cavitation or you are repeating what you have been told. i can tell you from extensive testing on water pumps that cavitation can occur severely at 10 feet of suction. add even 1% air and it can get VERY bad quickly. if you ever here what sounds like rocks going through the turbine. its cavitation.

What you said is not true. A vacuum is not like positive pressure because as the pressure drops, the water is subject to increased cavitation which causes increasing power loss the taller your column. Only when you have positive pressure all the way can you maximize all of your potential. Will it cavitate at only 6 feet? Technically? In this type of application, there is ALWAYS SOME cavitation. It is a principle of the dynamic physical properties of water, and if you study fluid dynamics [as engineers who build full scale water turbines do] you will learn this.

Where in Pa are you?(lol just general area I'm not a stalker).... I'm from Pittston.

Who is Jo Mama vich ?

6 gallons in 12 seconds is 30 gallons per min, not 32

its a stater not a alternator

i am not an engineer but the diameter of the PVC pipe is too wide use a PVC pipe with a smaller diameter

the speed for your water will change and you will use less water per minute

8:49

Great video, it is very interesting to see the different kinds of turbines. I do not know much about these but it would be interesting to see if a tesla turbine would work in your current turbine setup. large.stanford.edu/courses/2012/ph240/nam1/

The head mounted gopro has potential, but it makes for very disorienting and nausea inducing video when you're doing things like digging.

the solution for your problem is to reduce the diameter of the pipe that is going to generator. that will create pressure at the water outlet

Your killn me!! First, put the hole for your 4 inch at the BOTTOM, not in the middle. And are you afraid of Metal???? Get an old metal trash can , and attach it to the wnd of that big pipe and then cut. hole on the botom of the metal trash can smal than 4 " for the PVC, and seal it up-- you will have the 4" SPRAYING out.

one thing you were consistently wrong about malavich is the fact that you think all of those generators are three-phase ac they are not those are two-phase AC. 3-phase has four leads not three. And you're not the only one on RU-vid who's made this mistake.