Dennis Buller
18th January 2009, 23:14
Hey Folks,
I have been concentrating on a way to harness power from rivers without dams for a while now.
The main issue is one of gearing. With and overshot or undershot wheel we are talking a lot of torque but 5 to 15 RPM.
Gearing it up is the problem.
I came up with a design that I call the Pressure Wheel, which uses a spiral pump to change the slow rotation of the wheel into fluid and air pressure.
Great design, but since it uses a turbine to change the pressure into electricity it has to be a fairly large machine to warrant the design.
So back to the drawing board for the homeowner. What the heck, I have just been at it for eight years now.....
The main problem has always been, how do you make a large sprocket for a waterwheel? The Fitz Waterwheel Company cast teeth segments and then bolted them together to make a huge sprocket. To go along with their huge wheels.
I am not forging teeth anytime soon. You probably are not either.
But then I had a thought the other day.
Take a large chain (very large), which is rather cheap (Grainger), and weld it into a circle. Not that hard, you may have to get someone to cut a perfect circle out of sheet metal to act as a template. And you may have to find somoen with a welder....
Then once the chain is a perfect circle, attach it to the wheel, or add heavy sprockets and attach it to the axle. Or both.
I am leaning toward PVC wheels, so I will attach mine to the axle.
To get the gearing multiplication, put two sprockets on each side of the chain in one spot.
One sprocket will have a shaft going to a generator (or another set of gears for gear multiplication), and the other will be attached to the other gear.
In this way the power sprocket will not skip, or push out on the chain axle (the power sprocket should be on the inside, less chance of the chain sprocket deforming).
I have not built a chain sprocket yet. But I have used the two-sprocket method to control skipping and pressure. Works great.
I am going to put a crude diagram of this up on my site if you are interested.
www.WildWaterPower.com
-Dennis
I have been concentrating on a way to harness power from rivers without dams for a while now.
The main issue is one of gearing. With and overshot or undershot wheel we are talking a lot of torque but 5 to 15 RPM.
Gearing it up is the problem.
I came up with a design that I call the Pressure Wheel, which uses a spiral pump to change the slow rotation of the wheel into fluid and air pressure.
Great design, but since it uses a turbine to change the pressure into electricity it has to be a fairly large machine to warrant the design.
So back to the drawing board for the homeowner. What the heck, I have just been at it for eight years now.....
The main problem has always been, how do you make a large sprocket for a waterwheel? The Fitz Waterwheel Company cast teeth segments and then bolted them together to make a huge sprocket. To go along with their huge wheels.
I am not forging teeth anytime soon. You probably are not either.
But then I had a thought the other day.
Take a large chain (very large), which is rather cheap (Grainger), and weld it into a circle. Not that hard, you may have to get someone to cut a perfect circle out of sheet metal to act as a template. And you may have to find somoen with a welder....
Then once the chain is a perfect circle, attach it to the wheel, or add heavy sprockets and attach it to the axle. Or both.
I am leaning toward PVC wheels, so I will attach mine to the axle.
To get the gearing multiplication, put two sprockets on each side of the chain in one spot.
One sprocket will have a shaft going to a generator (or another set of gears for gear multiplication), and the other will be attached to the other gear.
In this way the power sprocket will not skip, or push out on the chain axle (the power sprocket should be on the inside, less chance of the chain sprocket deforming).
I have not built a chain sprocket yet. But I have used the two-sprocket method to control skipping and pressure. Works great.
I am going to put a crude diagram of this up on my site if you are interested.
www.WildWaterPower.com
-Dennis