Low Head Turbine Testing - Second Attempt 

DO NOT apologize for any of the issues you have as they are learning experiences for US ALL!!! I thought the milk crate was a cool idea (using it as a screen at the top of the culvert)

It's all about filtering collection site and increasing pressure by incremental reduction of pvc pipe sizes to nozzles. I Give you lots of respect working on that cold and wet project!

Before 2020 : I am watching this just for the science. 2020: I am watching this, as I could actually need that knowledge some day

OK 1st let me say I'm not an off-grid expert anything. But this is what I saw working. The company I used to work for sent me to Spain for an equipment install a few years ago, while I was there I got a pretty good look and their hydro generator. The pipes from the water suppy ran at a slight angle to the power area, not filling the pipes but making a steady flow. Entrance of power area pipes dumped into a funnel and feed into a straight up and down pipe maybe 100 foot long. Attached to that pipe was another funnel but this one was backwards catching almost all of the water. That 100' of pipe is where the pin wheel generators where mounted (I want to say 12 but might have been 14 units) The funnel catching the dropping water had a float valve on the release end so they could keep water flowing all the time into the hot pool. Now I never got a good look in the hot pool but I think it was 10 psi water in about a 6" pipe and almost 300 psi and steam in a 1" pipe coming out. This is where the steam turbines were mounted (6 units I think. After this the water was hot but not steam and ready to be filtered and reverse osmosis so it could be run back through the plant. Oh and in the battery / power saving area each generator had it's own cell to catch the power (I think someone said because the megahertz was slightly different) I was distracted there so the battery and conversion was kinda blurry... I was told the system was saving the company around $20,000 a month. Like I said I'm not an expert but I hope this information is useful to me bro.

With the kind of flow you have can you imagine what your old water wheel would be doing? Good content Joe. Keep it up.

You could use a bell siphon to output the flow you need whenever the barrel fills. It’ll cycle on and off but will have peak flow each time.

Smaller pipe between the barrel and the turbine, barrel should have more coming in than going out, to the point of overflowing. In the video, pipe feeding the barrel is only half full, the pipe draining the barrel is completely full, and the same size. Twice as much going out than coming in. A gate valve would also work instead of changing pipe sizes.

bro, you have physics failures. how this works: one pint of water is one pound. when moving, its velocity increases its weight. when confined, the velocity and mass is increased heavily. your pipe is rated for x pounds per square inch. the blue drums dont maintain pressure, but actually make relief as opposed to high pressure because they reset the speed and volume of the water. you need (guessing by looking) rather than two nearby cisterns and a break in flow, to be much farther up the water source instead. make your pipe run go under the culvert, and several hundred feet up the creek bed. a minimum of 200. build a pond, or some type of water retention/containment there, and then pipe down to your turbine. where it meets up will be high enough pressure to give you 40 or maybe even better volts. doing this will give you a mountain of pressure, which is what you need as opposed to flow. at the end of your run, where it connects to the turbine, you can step down the pipe an inch in diameter for even more pressure. tip.

Im wondering if he made the lower pipe a smaller diameter. My thought is that it would fill the barrel up more and increase the water pressure output.

Good Job, Your meter is reading (10 volts * 1.1 Amps) = 10 Watts approx. I think this can be achieved from kitchen sink, you have built up huge hydro system, I am expecting that this system should be delivering 2 Kilo Watts. I see the other turbine runs, jet speed, Hope it should have delivered the output in some Kilo Watts range.

Very intetested to see what kind of effective but low maintenance filtration system you can come up with to keep from clogging up constantly.

To fix this get 3 water totes at 275 gallons each. The fist tank will be used to filter the crap out. Run a 12 inch pipe in point it down to the bottom of the tank Your out pipe need to be about 3/4 up from the bottom with a 90 pointing up. This will fill tote number 2 and 3. Allow both tanks to fill before you dump the water out with a 4 inch pipe run this to the turbine. Use 6 inc pipe to connect tote 1 and 2 together. then use 4 inch pipes to connect tote 2 to 3. Another option for more head is to connect 2-3 totes together then dump the water into a 4 pipe that will run to the turbine from them. Whatever you do install a sludge filter.

here's a suggestion, providing you're still working on the turbine. smaller piping and smaller hoses to make it more efficient. i know it will put more pressure on the nozzles however you wont be sucking down water from the spring as quickly. also put a screen in the barrel just a little bit under the incoming pipe

Imagine the head pressure he'd have got if the whole pipe was closed to the highest point on the hill above it without any other spot open to the air. The area acting as a reservoir should be at the highest point if you want the most out of it. Of course it could have the open section at the level of the highest desired head pressure, and it'd be self-throttling due to spill-over.

Hi. Just a suggestion. The first green pipe you going into the top of the barrel. Double the pipe up. So you get as much water as you can into the blue barrel. Then if you have twice as much going into your barrel. You have a chance of keeping the barrel full. Put a filter on the out pipe of the barrel. Just something like a metal mesh bend around the end of the pipe would do.

Why don't you reverse the water flow to remove the debris

I am wondering... if you would use a larger pipe from the colvert to the barel, maby it would help because you would not have the restraining at the pipe entrence...... just an ideea

Cool!

Joe If you could find a way (and I know you have tried) but if you could find a way to block up the culvert, you would gain much more head and reserve of water as it should then pool up on the other side of the track.

You need to have a screen or a filter where the barrel is so all the water coming from the culvert can get ran through the screen or filter so it won't mess up your turbine

An idea for you. Run your pipe through the culvert and dam it up with the pipe in it. It will need a spillway for overrun to the culvert. Remove the drum to gain full head pressure. Seems from here in my nice warm dry chair lol you could get a bit of run time that way and a small pond to boot.

Maybe try putting the bottom pvc higher so it wouldn't suck in so much junk in to the turbine just saying.

I've been missing videos like this. Keep it up!

Use the hight of the water coming into the first barrel to drop on the turbine. Every time you step the water down in hight you loose some of the potential energy.

If you want a simple drain/refill system put a bell siphon on the outlet pipe.

using a dc to dc buck converter (effectively converts a higher dc voltage to a lower voltage with higher amperage) and setting the dc output to 14.5v for lead acid battery charging should help allot on the electrical side. In the situation where the flow is to low to effectively turn the turbine making the barrel into a bell siphon would give pulses of usable flow. A bell siphon can be easily switched to the normal flow, by removing the two extra pieces of pipe needed to make it a bell siphon. To eek out the last bit of energy might want to move the barrel closer to the generator.

Naturally more water goes through when turbine is not spinning! Spinning centrifugal turbine produces "back pressure", against which the water enters and does work. A very delicate game must take place to extract the maximum power. The more the generator load, the higher torque, and the more power output. But load too much, and the turbine slows, and the back pressure goes down (and water "just falls through" without producing power). For each head and flow rate, there is an optimum resistance load that needs applying, so that the back pressure is equal to the head minus the friction loss. Adjusting the load to get the most power possible is referred to as "maximum power point tracking".

That squirrel cage wheel is fighting it self . The water caught between the wheel and the housing . Convert something else . You're making me nuts . Where are you at in the country ?

Drop level of wheel add filter seal top ,pressure gauge on top and a pump connect to hydro increase its own pressure, cud try drop water straight down with pressure valve on top of the bend ...you shud try 2 or 3 of them generators smaller pipe input👍🙂

Nice work , my question is why not filter before the barrel

put those water hoses to the left, in the barrel, it will create a clockwise vortex. It will do you good.

You could also step the size of your pipe down to increase the speed at which the water exits sort of like old school hydro mining.

Cool videos, Maybe if you had a large surface area screened underwater filter box that would be large enough to not reduce water flow and removable screens for easy cleaning would help? A shoe box size or two, stuck onto the outlet pipe that is inside the barrel?

Hi Joe, Have you thought about adding a couple more barrels in line ?? maybe three would hold the water at a constant pressure, and throw in and inline strainer

This great. Thank you for sharing. I would put an in line valve maybe on the turbine pipe to close and match the flow of the input pipe. Someone may have already suggested it. But this is excellent. This has taught me quite a bit.

Crazy idea get a cheap second hand 12 or 15 ft blowup pool fill for 12 hours run pump for 6 or 8? You can get a larger out put. Thank you for all your time and effort

Those air bubbles going into the main pipe could be used to pressurize a tank.

Nice laminar flow in those pipes ;) I think a 10Ohm 10-20W resistors in series to the poti should be doing the job. You could add another one if it looks like the max power point is at a higher resistance

Use the same shaft and add impellers down the shaft so as it falls it hits them and gives you more torque

You need a rolling debris filter at the culvert

Plus you need to get a low voltage adapter so you can use power for whatever even if you're only producing a few watts of power

i hope is was for learning and you learned somthing

I know this is technically a reactive turbine, but try sticking your 95psi garden hose down the penstock so the nozzle is shooting into the impeller. It should give you more “perceived head” And might even pull more flow through the penstock ,like an ejector pump/Venturi pump(not that there is much flow to spare). Just for fun!

Would it benefit from a screen filter at the collection source? Screw cleaning it every five minutes.

Yeah looking at that I was thinking it'd be better if it was flared for waterflow. Might be able to suck in enough water without spilling over but you can never be sure.

Interesting. I've also been prototyping a low head hydro turbine, check the two most recent videos on my channel, if there's anything in there that's of use to you.

SUGGESTION: Your setup reminds me of what water harvesters have built but an interesting twist. However rather than using 1 barrel, setup multiple barrels similar to that you see in rain harvesting. It will allow you to fill multiple barrels before overflowing, which means more water is storage. The output is what will be interesting. Using just one barrel for output, and the rest to create water weight that should create more water pressure. This is really an interesting experiment you got going.

I'd be plugging the two leaks at the flange on the turbine housing and the third that squirts out like the safety marker jet on a Yamaha Waverunner.

I think it needs some kind of nozzle, turbos have something like a nozzle, on the exhaust side, and they can run around 20psi on the exhaust,

water with free water stream are so blessed and potential having a free power source

The barrel in the middle with the tube at the bottom can be your "catch can", just put the outlet tube at the top. This isn't much different than a "first flush" that I set up to catch rain off my roof.

what if you put the incoming tube going into the bottom of the barrel and the tube going to the turbine coming out of the top of the barrel?

I hope your using MPPT charge controller cause it will take care of all that stuff for you

Have you tried a series of descending diameter lengths of pipe? 10"=8"=6"=4".... each corresponding drop in diameter would increase the velocity of the water, as well as increase the volume. Now nothing can make up for too little available water, but it will definitely increase the velocity

MPPT solar charge controller should maximise your Watts per Gallon efficacy. What do you think?

You need a screen sock over the intake and before the turbine.

You think you said in an earlier video that you are betting on the pull force of the water falling from the turbine. But this only works if you have a solid amount of water in the exit pipe. As soon as air can get up on the exit side you wont have any sucktion. I bett if you plugg the bottom of the exit pipe and only have a small exit hole in proportion to the water flow it should give you a better chance of getting the suction.

if the width of the output is the same as input, and the input is not full, won't more flow out than gets in ? have you tried a narrower output pipe/hole?

Thanks for sharing this video. It's great opportunity to take advantage of nature without negative impact. Clean energy. I would like to know if you have a turbine for selling? I can't find one in my country. Three or four inches it's what I need. Thanks for your answer.

Need some 1/4" hardware cloth on the culvert openings.

from what i have seen of these turbines is they tend to use a syphone from a damned area lak and such so they is always maximum water flow and long as posable drain away pipe to add vacuume

Why not consider a corkscrew generator? if your getting high torque and lower speed you can maybe gear it faster?

Why not neck down the barrel output to make it match the input which would give you more psi and give you a negative effect.

Maybe start to use a filter were the water is overflowing from the pipe so u can skip all the debris that is clogging the turbine? Then u only need to remove the debris by hand it's quite easy? Better to do it easy then remove turbine all the time :)

Молодец !

Have a look at Scotts Hydro Turbine 1800 for 3900 dollars he makes them himself and has parts if anything breaks or wears out

Hmm. maybe put a float in the barrel. When the water level gets low, it sends a signal to a solenoid to restrict the flow to the jet(s) so the barrel doesn't run dry. As the level increases, the solenoid opens up the jets more. That way it is automatic. If the level gets too low, a signal (buzzer) can be sent to the house to let you know a bear has knocked your barrel over to get a drink! Pesky bears!!!

You should use a smaller diameter pipe for the turbine

How about you add a plastic pipe rampump below your generator and recycle the water upstream? Plenty on RU-vid. Costs pennies, easily repairable and only needs a metre head to get you 90 feet up the grade. Nice going though..

Give a boy some water and he will be in heaven!

I figured out what you need an arcamedies screw that would work for that turbin

Why don't you have filters on the pipes for example the inlet into the barrel... like put a kitchen sieve there or something... should be easier to clean too

The top end of your penstock should be as high (close to the source of water) as possible. This increases your head, and hence the pressure at your turbine. You don’t want openings to ambient pressure (like the open culvert, and your barrel), which only serves to reset the potential energy of the system to zero. If you really want the barrel for filtration at that location, make sure the barrel is completely sealed (air tight), so no pressure is lost. It looks like you could get about 8’ of head, with enough flow to generate a couple of hundred watts. Your configuration will never produce any power. So, a single, sealed pipe, running from the top of the water source, to a turbine at the lowest point of your property will give you the most power. (Unless I’m misunderstanding, and your intent is to try to generate power with basically zero head, which is like trying to prove you can generate solar energy at night)

Have you tried using a smaller diameter pipe coming out of the 55 gallon drum down to the turbine?

If you could simply pump your output back up to the barrel, you'd have a perpetual motion machine!!!

I'm lov'n it. Your doing all the work. I'm do all the lern'en. Thanks for sharing. !:- )

Nice good work

I miss what feels like 3 videos and there's already another turbine set up

Hello you need to reduce the output diameter of the pipe to 3/4 of the input pipe to create more pressure at the turbine side.

*@Joe Malovich* Here, use this technique: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-ISfIT3B4y6E.html the Pythagoras Cup. Put the big pipe in the barrel, attach a L-bend so the pipe ends where you want the water level to be when the turbine should start. Put a bucket upside down over the pipe & down to the bottom (some rocks on top to stop it from floating up), make something in the bottom so water can flow in under the bucket (eg: holes in the bucket, or put the bucket on bricks or something.) This will make the water level increase until it reaches the pipe, then it will AUTOMATICALLY start flushing the whole barrel until it sucks air & resets. Just make sure input-flow rate is lower than output-flow rate otherwise the barrel overflows (maybe no big deal?) (a small ring (or anything) inside the input-tube should do the trick). Maybe you can include some kind of vortex filter too, to reduce the debris in the pipe?

You need a bigger pipe feeding it from the Culvert to the Barrow

Need to reduce the outlet flow to turbine by at least have you will increase water psi at turbine

I have to ask: What did the previous owner of that house do when it was flowing that much? Did they just not go down into the garage while it was flooded and play with their kids in mudland™ behind the house?

Why do you have breaks in the piping to the water source? You loose head pressure by doing this. Seal the pipe all the way up to water source. Nice video though.

But your setup is pretty good for having hydropower

Why not completely enclose the inlet to the pipe? The pressure would cause the water to back up, up the hill and also prevent as much debris from entering the pipe?

SO WITH LOW WATER VOLUMES, why don't you design it to have short burst, making a auto stop valve by placing a ball cock at the top to open once the water reaches the top. That way you don't waste the water!

have you thought about moving your first turbine back then you can use the outlet to add more water

Yer about as stunned as a kitten fresh out of the dryer

it needs a vertical multi stage pump which would give you torque and rpms

Reducing the 5” line going to the turbine from the tank will create more pressure and speed to the turbine.

It would interesting to see how much power could be generated from 2 hoses fom the house mains water with high power jet nozzles on them and a pelton or turgo turbine. If not much, how many water feeds from how many households would be needed to get usable power. It may be worthwhile you and a neighbour or couple neighbours sharing the power output for giving their water.

Bro, If you willing to put sum elbow grease in I have the best solution... Either use earth bags, or used tires rammed with dirt to create a water catchment, probably 6 ft height 8x8ft further from the turbine, and have that drop the water down with more force using smaller PVC, put a overflow line out and away or diverted around, cement coat inside and outside of the catchment, or use a pond liner inside... Put a small roof or lid for debris, then you'll be cooking with sum grease... Just a opinion, I'm building a earth home and have a water catchment recirculating system planned because no stream, I'm leaning towards a fabricated water wheel turning a alternator to charge a bank of batteries, also using solar, but I figure a constant low Watt system is better than nothing, and I'm going to use a two water tank system one low, the other high, I will run a high output pond pump using solar deep cycle batteries because I have ponds planned so I'll need the juice at night, But so far I'm not willing to put all the efforts into a system that may not work, a water wheel is proven but my main concern is that I have the power storage over night for the pond pump... So having flowing water is like half the battle...

Ты умный и хороший чувак, только я тебя не очень понимаю, мне 42 года, мой сын переводит то, о чём ты говоришь. Спасибо тебе, на нравится то, чем ты занимаешься. Ещё раз СПАСИБО!

Isn't there a conservation of energy problem here? I understand that you have new water driving your system from above, but your turbine has to pump the water back up to the bucket. I'm not very bright but I think that you want to maximize the energy of the water moving downhill. Any energy spent pumping water back up is a loss. By routing the nozzle back up, you've eliminated any gravitational gains from the barrel down to the turbine. Also, I think spinning a turbine without a load is hard on the equipment. I look forward to any responses that will help me understand this better.

Get a bigger pipe on the starting point, then adapt it to a smaller along the way. Should increase the pressure easily

i think with the flow off tube under water it is also limiting flow i think rather then the barrel direct feed

Link to water turbine 👀?

After the third attempt of trying to understand that video title, I realized it is head like the thing with the nose and not heat like in cold. Brrr... all that snow - the Hudson Valley already smells like spring!

Does the turbine require volume or will it spin on pressure? What would happen If you created a larger container from the culvert... Perhaps longer to keep it at ground level, and prevented it from spilling over so much. Then used a smaller diameter pipe at the outlet from your 50 gal drum to the turbine... but put that pipe not quite mid point on the 50 gal drum creating a steeper slope and a higher feed due to the gravity. Would that provide a higher pressure because of that pipe would be raised, and the weight of the water would be pushed by gravity. If your barrel is now filling up because the outlet pipe is smaller... and the pressure being raised because of setting the pipe to not quite the middle of the 50 gal drum... would that create a higher pressure and keep your 50 gal drum full... and that turbine spinning much faster? Or use a couple 50 gal drums to hold a good volume of water... connect the outlet pipe aprox. 1/3 from the bottom of the drum... and dig a trench and a bit of a hole to put the turbine creating a seep down hill run for the water creating more pressure. Or does that turbine require the huge volume provided by a large diameter pipe?