WOW... this sure fired up the engineer in me. If this were modified very little it could be a regenerator of energy from the water mains in every village, town or city in the world.
Think about it. A circular water system that reclaims the energy of the moving water to offset the cost of supplying water. Every motor is a generator and every generator is a motor. My mind is exploding.
They do this in British Columbia, in the greater Vancouver area our water comes from mountain reservoirs and at the point where the pressure needs to be reduced for residential units they have installed generators rather than just letting the excess pressure be wasted. The electricity is used to power main road traffic lights independently of the grid so that they continue working indefinitely during a power outage. Theoretically each home could have their own pressure regulator that also generates some electricity during use, but it would not be enough on it’s own for much, but could help feed a battery charger or something like that...
I am working on a similar line Rob, my thought is feeding from a bell syphon rather than directly from the downpipe to provide a greater flow. The syphon barrel fills from the gutters at whatever the rainfall is and then when full dumps the contents over the turbine. This way you don't loose the light rain running ineffectively over the turbine it stores it and releases in a usable burst.
A twister/tornado is a natural vortex. If you understand the elements of a twister (yin/yang spinning, cold/hot spinnng, etc), then you are half way there! BTW a natural twister generates electrical/static energy! Go for it, mate! It might help to understand that the Milky Way is a twister (fibonacci sequence) that moves through the Universe spinning through eternity. Once we have a balanced analog/Digital perspective of Unity, our energy problems will be solved. Good luck!
...and then dump into a tank that has glass sides and solar reflectors all over it (or a solar evacuated tube) which would send the steam (again through a turbine going UP) to the collector tank above which would spill into this...yeah, baby! Cycle the energy following the cycle of the day!
I love the direction you have been going with these the past several videos. You could even make a second one bigger that goes under this one. The water that comes out of the first would spin the second as well.
Good job, Rob. You actually are providing inspiration for thousands. Also, this recent design in the blade and cone of this all in one wind generator and now rainwater generator is developed inspiration. Keep it up. 😊
Robert love it go ahead and if you could make a hubless style insert For a downspout with fins on the inside of the pipe with no impedance of airflow in the center of the pipe. Wind a serpentine out side and spin the magnets
It's so cool seeing that you're using Tinkercad for at least some of your designs. I've been using it for years and find it super intuitive and quite powerful
Another inspiring video. Thanks. Your foray into hydrodynamic turbine design is similar to a long used turbine called the "Francis runner" design, but in reverse. The Francis runner is surrounded by a structure called the scroll case which directs incoming water in a spiral around the runner to apply equal pressure and flow into the runner blades from the outside, spinning the runner, with the water then discharging down through the center of the runner into a chamber called the draft tube, and then on its merry way. There are various and quite different styles of hydro turbine designs, each specialized to be most efficient for the pressure and velocity of the incoming water, called "head pressure" which, in turn, is usually dependent on the vertical distance the water drops through a pipe or penstock feeding the turbine. Thanks again, and keep inspiring future engineers to continue exploring and inventing.
Dr. Smith, consider if you would a 2 serpentine coil system. A coil on the inside and a coil on the outside with the magnets sandwiched in between the 2 coils. Just a thought. Twice the use from the one set of magnets.
Rob you should see how this works with the type of stream used in a Pelton. Maybe have a reservoir above to create pressure and feed it down to a small stream set as best you can in the center of the spike. Love the updates! You're in a hurry to explore and I feel lucky having found someone like you. I'm watching your videos everyday. You may not think of yourself as a giant, but you've certainly given me some shoulders to stand on and I'm excited to share what I end up making. Thanks for being who you are as always!
@@ThinkingandTinkering Thank you for the correction. I was trying to make a play on the saying and say that you're modest and influential is all. We do stand together and I feel like I'm in good company with the community you've assembled 🙂
you could put your coil on the outside of the pipe and the magnets and turbine on the inside. will need a very good high flow filter/screening system as this kind of turbine will be prone to fowling.
Rob, it would be interesting to see the effect of laminar flow versus turbulent flow of the incoming water on the overall efficiency of the turbine. To pick up off of another person’s comment, the turbines could be placed in series. How close one turbine is to another would be limited by the turbulence. Another factor that would affect efficiency would be the water exiting the turbine. If one doesn’t give enough space to the exiting water, turbulence will in essence back up and interfere with the rotation of the turbine blades. I am imagining a series of inverted bell shaped housings that give enough room for the water being flung outwards by one turbine to then funnel it into the next. This is cool stuff!!! Keep up the good work and happy exploring!
If your going to set this up for water, just think if you make funnel or something like it to recapture the water and could put many in succession and get as much as you can out of w/e height the water fell from. Could have a few just in a meter or so of height, like the water coming off the roof of houses. Edit: at the bottom of the fall could also get a trompe hammer going too. to reclaim some of that lost energy or potential, maybe...
I was wondering about this as well. It would be useful to see if successive generators would have the same output or not. And whether or not this would significantly slow down the flow of water. Imagine replacing the drain pipe of a multi story building with a long chain of these.
Eyy Rob, why not make a DUAL generator? Mount that wind collector on top of a rain-gutter pipe so when rain does not flow down it, the air will and...voila! For both rain and wind.... and hey, wile at it.... sun heated air raises right? So make a black canister that heats up air and lets it flow upwards the rain gutter pipe and spin the generator that way as well? 😊 Love your channel, makes my day every day. Keep the ideas flowing mate!👍😀
Love the video and the concept. Where I live there isn’t much rain and no streams or rivers nearby to tap into. But I’m thinking a pumped water storage system where solar power can pump a tank of water to the roof in daylight and controlled release at night. I only need about 500w per hour over night so it might be feasible. Anxious to see the next step.
Seems to me that this could be quite handy on a sailboat. Install it at the top of the mast, and it should get you power anytime you're not completely becalmed, with far less impact on performance than you'd get with the typical water propellor dragging system.
It's the journey that matters, not the destination, that's a great philosophy Robert, looking forward to seeing the drain pipe generator, looks great 👍👍
@@ThinkingandTinkering you wow me . Enlightened being. Living the good life. Was a duct erector in the day. Helped Finnish the British library. Back in the day. Public money. My father a head chef at brookwood hospital. Closed down. Broken heart 💔. The show must go on. The sword is in the stone. The young dudes carry the news. Mop the hoopel. Lol. Would love to be more self sufficient, you wow me. You could motivate me to a project. Water engineering. The water is magic. We all drink from the cup. Unconditional love respect and gratitude 🙏. Thank you for your amazing time and energy. You have passion. All you need is love ❤️
You'll likely be able to change the NACA blades when used with water as it will flow differently, the water will have higher momentum than air, less likely to stall at slow speeds so you could get more aggressive with the profile and/or angle of attack. Bit rusty on flow dynamics, 15 years since I was an engineer... 😪
One thing I thought of is hooking up a solar water heater, increasing the solar area to push the water to a higher temp and possible expansion into steam through the turbine and recycle back to the heating element. A closed solar steam turbine that works even when there is little to no wind.
Fabulous subject and loving the videos. In awe of the making. You may have problems if trying to generate from a drainpipe as the water tends to flow along the pipe surface. You will need some method of directing that water from the pipe internal surface to the centre to "fall" on your rotor. Good luck
Thank you for bringing the idea to the elctronic and real world! I was thinking of something like this back in the pc fan giveaway video submissions but never got to it. I absolutely love your ideas and work
$50 on the barrel head says a half dozen or seven, stacked side by side, would fit in a roof rack or in part of the trunk to have a capacitor then feed a battery, while moving and / or passing through rain? I wonder if rather than relying upon natural flow, energy expressed by pressure or vacuum, a contained system, like a hydraulic conveyor system, would amplify the impulse of the circuit?
Expanding the base with a taper to match the outboard flow shown at 2:04 would support flow through and give more room for a larger the serpentine coil. The numerous revisions you have been working on have been wonderful
I'm always shocked. At the beginning how horrible the sound is but how much I dont care by the end because of how good the content is. :) keep it up my friend
I remember seeing plans for this exact style of turbine in Popular Mechanics (et al) back in the 60s. Except it was HOUSE sized, literally. It was a build on addition to existinting structures and took wind from any direction, up through the turbine.
Connecting the turbine to the physical generator will cut down on the turbines ability to turn so freely. I’d be interested in what that loss actually is.
Hi Robert! How about that, you are actually giving it a go! Question, though: Is there a reason why you put the magnets on the inside of the coil? To me it makes more sense to add the cap directly to the rotor and add the magnets on the inside of the cap. Spinning them on the outside of the coil: you only have to print one part, and as the energy production is related to the speed of the magnets you would gain some speed pushing the magnets as far out as possible. Anyway. Great work!!!
If you keep advancing your energy producing projects, eventually you will create a system to rival or better any other air or hydro driven electrical generator systems out there.
He has and he is showing it to you. He is not the 1st person to come up with it either. But you will never be able to buy it, you must build it yourself as governments and industries will not allow it to be build commercially.
He's also showing us how to make it and inspiring us to make it. Another benefit of this community is that the whole community is a sounding board for different ideas / suggestions so that we all advance these explorations and build better projects.
@@magapefarmshomestead6453 You are completely insane if you actually believe that bs. Also you have no clue about technology if you believe his builds are advanced.
he already does consider cost and efficiency when compared to larger generators hes always talking about available power. Believe it of not, over time this thing would probably net more power than a larger turbine given the fact it can produce power at lower wind speeds and as a matter of consequence generate more often . Imagine the turtle and the hare
A great example of use of a basic program like Tinker CAD to make quite complex geometries well past the initial perception of what tinker CAD is typically used for . Great work Rob.
It is fun watching this progress. One very important difference between gas and liquid is that water does not compress. This may be a reason to change the shape or angle of the blades. Keep exploring!!!
great April fool trick Robert.... nearly got me there! (Joking, of course!) Love the reference to the Darwin cage because this project is evolutionary :)
Noticing the comments.. and thought I’d throw in … A vortex turbine ,in a tower with water and air ..and add into the mix a heavy fly wheel as well , to beef up the torque out put on the flywheel axis to push larger generation load …. Food for thought. !
To borrow from my favourite physicist, it's all about the pleasure of finding things out :) [edit] Actually when i reminded myself about the joy on Feynman's face in that interview when he was talking about physics... That looks quite the same as when Robert talks about things and how they work😁
@@ThinkingandTinkering Then you will like this one. Source the same;) "Physics is like sex: sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it."
There is something i think you'd like exploring - atmospheric vortex engine. There is an idea to use waste heat from traditional (or nuclear) power plants to make o big vortex that would drive some air turbines close to it's base. It would raise the efficiency of these power plants. The vortex mechanic would be analogous to the fire vortex you made in some video. Some people are trying to build a working model for decades now.
Hi Rob, I don't know if this has already been said, but length of the chord of the "blades" seems somewhat short. The exiting medium may very well still have some more energy in it, which could perhaps be harvested by making the chord of the blades a bit longer and gradually more curved outwards, so the direction of the exiting medium changes more..? Love this design!
@@ThinkingandTinkering I didn't mean the length of the blades, the the length of the chord of the blades. So not in axial direction, but radial direction. So if they blades would now be 50x10mm, you might want to try 50x20mm, for instance. Or even 40x20mm. I agree with you; The water stream perfectly visualizes how the medium is somewhat 'compressed' to the lower bit of the blades and doesn't really touch the upper part. But if each blade had a longer chord length (or would be wider, if you will), with some added curvature to change the direction of the passing medium more, it should absorb more of its kinetic energy.
I happen to be trying to design something very similar but for a great energy system using a device no one seems to be thinking about, I've looked a long time. Any how, I'm building that to pipe down one of the 250 to 350 feet wells I have. I'm hoping to compress air going down with the venturi effect and then trap the air rising back in the middle. But also reclaim as much as I use since I'm hoping the upward water pressure will force out water with some of the air each time to equalize the water table below. If all goes well, I'm going to try a submersible, homo-polar motor and see if I can blow the whole damn town away with HHO or at least singe some hair off a few of my cats. I really hope this helps someone because I haven't seen anyone working with water columns, vacuum, water hammer, steam, atmospheric currents, etc., that has thought to use a well and go deep (like us country boys) instead of high (like you city folk).
If you make the cone for the top of the Darwin wind turbine (1882 0:30) hollow you could probably fix it to a gutter system and have it do duel duty.. especially if you have a shroud to direct the wind and water to flow downward towards the runoff outlet (and/or a secondary turbine at the base)
I've had a downpipe generator bouncing around for years, in my head, it takes a man like you to make it a reality. Just a thought Rob, if the downpipes diameter was reduced gradually over its length it would create a pressurised jet of water. The downpipe could be glued together with plumbers solvent instead of slotted together to prevent leaks. Keep the vids rollin, they never disappoint.
Rob thank you so much for these. One thing I'd love to see is charging stone kind of battery front all of these devices. You've shown volt meters, lights etc. But if you'd charge the same battery every time it might help to compare the various experiments in terms of actual useable output. Just a thought.
Just mount the squirrel cage to a windmill generator bolt, as they are made to survive the outdoors & water. I actually have both. Thanks for the idea!!
excuse the probably rambling question, how do you increase the power from a generator? presumably you are measuring an open circuit voltage most times, and when you place a load on it an amount of current is drawn, which acts to hold back the turbine, so if you are drawing 10W from a turbine this would be the same as applying 10W of friction to the system, so at some point the turbine will be spinning as fast as it can go but can you increase the electrical friction to pull more power from the driving force? can you have additional open circuit coils that are then switched in to increase the current you can pull from the system?
you can't increase the power from a generator mate because generators don't produce power - they convert energy from one form to another - for example - here the power originates in the water - to get more power you need more water or more energy in the water - like increasing the head - the generator will convert that to electrical energy - you can get a better efficiency that's for sure - but basically that's where the limit comes from - so to improve power out you need to improve conversion efficiency - more coils doesn't improve efficiency
Create a huge Heron's fountain to power the generator using your turbine and we would be good to go. I really envy your abilities keep up the good work.
As a professional programmer, I like the project vs experimentation distinction! I’m not sure my managers (aka troglodyte overlords) would be terribly keen on the idea. Thank you for another fun and thought provoking video.
Very good that it's exciting. I can't wait to put it together around my house at all the downspouts. Wire into the basement to a battery Bank. also put it in the Stream in my backyard in a larger capacity and wire it to the house.
Brilliant Rob! That went pretty much as I hoped it would. 😊 I bet these would also go great atop a chimney to extract a bit more energy from the fuel being burnt to warm our homes. PLA might not be the material of choice, but I bet it would produce useable energy levels.
We already have those ~ called a chimney fan and they do the opposite = an electric extractor fan, sucking the smoke up the chimney to improve the draught of the fire, and the wind-spinning rotary versions often seen on chimneys and landfill methane vents
Rob, have you looked at sand casting some of the 3d prints using zamac alloy . Also I had a brief conversation with a stranger on local bus who mentioned he'd been gasifying plastic scrap using old electric heater elements within a mass of sand along with the scrap , two 250 watt solar panels for the power supply, ,, optional choice,, spoke of subtle differences in range of temperatures from 450° to 600° . Your wind energy exploration convinced me that the best wind generator is a homemade one . Although I prefer not to be in a prevailing wind environment.
hmm,more then 7 volt means i can use a 3 Volt Motor to drive the Turbine and have Power over to change something and stor Power. and all can stand in a Basement. all 10 time and connecting it paralell can you stor 36 Volt evry Time.
I can imagine a series of funnel-shaped units strung together to form an articulated snake powering an off-grid set up on the banks of a small river or creek. The output from one funnel acting as a nozzle to the next in line.
Just a thought l, I know it will probably make it harder to make but I ld like to see how it would act in comparison if you put a channel from between each blade to the top of the cone so when either water or air hit it it should funnel it to the blades and hopefully give it a little mor power and direction, maybe it will make no difference but I'd like to see
@@ThinkingandTinkering time, materials and probably skill lol, I'm trying to think of an easy way to do it without a 3d printer, although if I do I'll make a video or keep you updated :)
Perhaps using an internal spiral or "rifling" mechanism inside a section of the downspout prior to the water engaging the turbine would allow gravity to provide additional torque upon striking the turbine fins. May be worth experimenting with this added design feature to gain extra energy output.
You could make the cone a vortex shape to help the spin before it hits the blades. Not sure it would make it spin faster but surely seems in my mind to be more efficient.
There is a massive blind spot in the design of the squirrel cage blower except for the Mike Waters turbine. The squirrel cage was developed from earlier simple centrifugal pumps and when it was realised the tips did all the work the squirrel cage was born. But when is a vane a wing? Look at a squirrel cage from the wing perspective and it will be seen that the low pressure above the curve of the wing is on the high pressure side of the pump. It's wings are upside down! The late Peter Rollo filed a NZ provisional patent in 1995 showing an average 50% improvement in performance over three traditional blowers. As far as I can ascertain no full patent was ever filed. In Mike Waters' turbine the airpressure is reversed and is therefore correct. He agrees with me. Robert, there is another factor making the Waters turbine super efficient, the downstream square end causes suction on the vanes. There are a lot of great ideas lurking undeveloped in the patent files, your tinkering Robert is very important. Neil Campbell
More great food for thought as usual. Could the coil be external on the down pipe, with only the magnets inside on the turbine, thus keeping the electrical side of things dry? Fitted to a siphonic stormwater system would create some interesting results. As for installing on mains water pipes, I believe this is not permitted in some countries including the UK. Thanks again for sharing another avenue of experimentation.
The point of the Water Vortex Turbine generator is that the water vortex is present in the water flow, irrespective of whether you have a turbine inserted in the water flow or not. It's distinctly different from say a water wheel which is also gravity driven by falling water in primarily one direction. A vortex is also driven by gravity as well as the Coriolis effect (a weak force on this scale, and is actually controversial as to whether it determines the direction of the vortex. The direction of large cyclones/hurricanes is determined by the Coriolis effect being different in the northern and southern hemispheres). The flow of water from the bucket onto the turbine in your demonstration actually slows the turbine down the longer it spends in the spinning part of the turbine. That is, the fastest exit for the water when it strikes the top cone will be in a straight line so that it will impart the maximum energy onto the blades as quickly as possible. IT can easily work as you have clearly demonstrated but optimising this turbine set up is very tricky indeed. Cheers Keep up the good work. You engage with your viewers very well.
just throwing it out there, would you be able to extract more energy from the fluid, be it wind or water, if you had multi stage turbines, in different sizes, so start off small, and progressivlely get larger, like the triple expansion steam engines were?
Isn't that because the density of the working fluid is reducing from one turbine to the next so as pressure drops you need a bigger turbine hence not applicable for constant density water
BTW a 2 stage system - counter rotating coaxial guide vanes opposed to output turbine vanes makes a lot of sense (even "just" a 2 inch feed pipe can generate a lot of power -significant energy just needs a sufficient mass/volume of water from the top pondage.)..
Would you look at that! As you say, the best way is trying it out yourself. I can also see a version of this being used in a water gravity battery. Yeah, so many great things to explore.
Rob, old man...IDEA A LA ROB: RECOMBINANT VIDEO IDEAS!!! So...I notice that this starts with a thick stream, and basically turns it into a broader thin laminate flow...WHICH might work well (better than a thick stream) with the flow-over generation system you've shown previously...SOOOOO an array of those over the splash zone would yield MORE power still! No? Love the channel and progression of ideas!!!
WOW... this sure fired up the engineer in me. If this were modified very little it could be a regenerator of energy from the water mains in every village, town or city in the world.
THIS is an idea worth exploring.
Think about it. A circular water system that reclaims the energy of the moving water to offset the cost of supplying water. Every motor is a generator and every generator is a motor. My mind is exploding.
They do this in British Columbia, in the greater Vancouver area our water comes from mountain reservoirs and at the point where the pressure needs to be reduced for residential units they have installed generators rather than just letting the excess pressure be wasted. The electricity is used to power main road traffic lights independently of the grid so that they continue working indefinitely during a power outage. Theoretically each home could have their own pressure regulator that also generates some electricity during use, but it would not be enough on it’s own for much, but could help feed a battery charger or something like that...
Bob, go for it, man! The vision's bang on!
I'm thinking down spouts!
I am working on a similar line Rob, my thought is feeding from a bell syphon rather than directly from the downpipe to provide a greater flow. The syphon barrel fills from the gutters at whatever the rainfall is and then when full dumps the contents over the turbine. This way you don't loose the light rain running ineffectively over the turbine it stores it and releases in a usable burst.
A twister/tornado is a natural vortex. If you understand the elements of a twister (yin/yang spinning, cold/hot spinnng, etc), then you are half way there! BTW a natural twister generates electrical/static energy! Go for it, mate! It might help to understand that the Milky Way is a twister (fibonacci sequence) that moves through the Universe spinning through eternity. Once we have a balanced analog/Digital perspective of Unity, our energy problems will be solved. Good luck!
...and then dump into a tank that has glass sides and solar reflectors all over it (or a solar evacuated tube) which would send the steam (again through a turbine going UP) to the collector tank above which would spill into this...yeah, baby! Cycle the energy following the cycle of the day!
Bell siphons are the bomb anyway. Used one in my hydroponics set a few years ago. Impressively simply application of physics
Someone did a series on such a project. Can’t remember his name.
@@mikebond6328 a channel called Quint builds?
Love your videos sir! Great inspiration to get my butt in gear on projects that have fallen by the wayside. Thank you!
nice - then but into gear time mate lol
I love the direction you have been going with these the past several videos. You could even make a second one bigger that goes under this one. The water that comes out of the first would spin the second as well.
nice
Good job, Rob. You actually are providing inspiration for thousands. Also, this recent design in the blade and cone of this all in one wind generator and now rainwater generator is developed inspiration. Keep it up. 😊
cheers mate
Robert love it go ahead and if you could make a hubless style insert For a downspout with fins on the inside of the pipe with no impedance of airflow in the center of the pipe. Wind a serpentine out side
and spin the magnets
From little things.. big things grow! Great work matey👍
It's so cool seeing that you're using Tinkercad for at least some of your designs. I've been using it for years and find it super intuitive and quite powerful
Another inspiring video. Thanks. Your foray into hydrodynamic turbine design is similar to a long used turbine called the "Francis runner" design, but in reverse. The Francis runner is surrounded by a structure called the scroll case which directs incoming water in a spiral around the runner to apply equal pressure and flow into the runner blades from the outside, spinning the runner, with the water then discharging down through the center of the runner into a chamber called the draft tube, and then on its merry way. There are various and quite different styles of hydro turbine designs, each specialized to be most efficient for the pressure and velocity of the incoming water, called "head pressure" which, in turn, is usually dependent on the vertical distance the water drops through a pipe or penstock feeding the turbine. Thanks again, and keep inspiring future engineers to continue exploring and inventing.
I know it mate there is also the Fourneyron turbine which you might want to look at
Always great to see your wonderful videos
thank you mate
Really got some wonderful ideas you keep running into and exploring their possibilities
cheers mate
Dr. Smith, consider if you would a 2 serpentine coil system. A coil on the inside and a coil on the outside with the magnets sandwiched in between the 2 coils. Just a thought. Twice the use from the one set of magnets.
Rob you should see how this works with the type of stream used in a Pelton. Maybe have a reservoir above to create pressure and feed it down to a small stream set as best you can in the center of the spike.
Love the updates! You're in a hurry to explore and I feel lucky having found someone like you. I'm watching your videos everyday. You may not think of yourself as a giant, but you've certainly given me some shoulders to stand on and I'm excited to share what I end up making. Thanks for being who you are as always!
intersting ideas there mate - very interesting indeed - thank you for sharing - and basically we all stand together mate
@@ThinkingandTinkering Thank you for the correction. I was trying to make a play on the saying and say that you're modest and influential is all. We do stand together and I feel like I'm in good company with the community you've assembled 🙂
you could put your coil on the outside of the pipe and the magnets and turbine on the inside.
will need a very good high flow filter/screening system as this kind of turbine will be prone to fowling.
Your philosophy sets you apart from others: Curiosity is endless; discovery is its own reward; the journey is the point. Thanks for sharing yours!
Rob, it would be interesting to see the effect of laminar flow versus turbulent flow of the incoming water on the overall efficiency of the turbine. To pick up off of another person’s comment, the turbines could be placed in series. How close one turbine is to another would be limited by the turbulence.
Another factor that would affect efficiency would be the water exiting the turbine. If one doesn’t give enough space to the exiting water, turbulence will in essence back up and interfere with the rotation of the turbine blades. I am imagining a series of inverted bell shaped housings that give enough room for the water being flung outwards by one turbine to then funnel it into the next.
This is cool stuff!!! Keep up the good work and happy exploring!
If your going to set this up for water, just think if you make funnel or something like it to recapture the water and could put many in succession and get as much as you can out of w/e height the water fell from. Could have a few just in a meter or so of height, like the water coming off the roof of houses.
Edit: at the bottom of the fall could also get a trompe hammer going too. to reclaim some of that lost energy or potential, maybe...
I was wondering about this as well. It would be useful to see if successive generators would have the same output or not.
And whether or not this would significantly slow down the flow of water.
Imagine replacing the drain pipe of a multi story building with a long chain of these.
That was exactly my thought. I wondering if he is using already the magnetic rotors in this project.
yes you could
They would need to have some space between them to allow gravity to accelerate the mass again.
layman, here. is the volume of water running through it the driving factor, or the flow rate?
Thank you Robert. As always your enthusiasm is highly infectious!!😊😊
cheers mate
Eyy Rob, why not make a DUAL generator?
Mount that wind collector on top of a rain-gutter pipe so when rain does not flow down it, the air will and...voila! For both rain and wind.... and hey, wile at it.... sun heated air raises right? So make a black canister that heats up air and lets it flow upwards the rain gutter pipe and spin the generator that way as well? 😊
Love your channel, makes my day every day. Keep the ideas flowing mate!👍😀
good idea mate - try exploring a few yourself too
Love the video and the concept. Where I live there isn’t much rain and no streams or rivers nearby to tap into. But I’m thinking a pumped water storage system where solar power can pump a tank of water to the roof in daylight and controlled release at night. I only need about 500w per hour over night so it might be feasible. Anxious to see the next step.
that's clever mate - seeing the water as a battery - nice
Creating and sharing different ideas for all to explore. Well done rob.
cheers mate
Seems to me that this could be quite handy on a sailboat. Install it at the top of the mast, and it should get you power anytime you're not completely becalmed, with far less impact on performance than you'd get with the typical water propellor dragging system.
It's the journey that matters, not the destination, that's a great philosophy Robert, looking forward to seeing the drain pipe generator, looks great 👍👍
cheers mate - the thing is we have already had 5 or 6 stops along this journey too - we got off and then got back on - lol - all the best mate
@@ThinkingandTinkering haha, brilliant, keep up the good work 😁👍👍
You should try covering all surfaces with golf ball dimples to reduce friction
You are amazing. Loving it. Unconditional love respect and gratitude
wow - cheers mate
@@ThinkingandTinkering you wow me . Enlightened being. Living the good life. Was a duct erector in the day. Helped Finnish the British library. Back in the day. Public money. My father a head chef at brookwood hospital. Closed down. Broken heart 💔. The show must go on. The sword is in the stone. The young dudes carry the news. Mop the hoopel. Lol. Would love to be more self sufficient, you wow me. You could motivate me to a project. Water engineering. The water is magic. We all drink from the cup. Unconditional love respect and gratitude 🙏. Thank you for your amazing time and energy. You have passion. All you need is love ❤️
You'll likely be able to change the NACA blades when used with water as it will flow differently, the water will have higher momentum than air, less likely to stall at slow speeds so you could get more aggressive with the profile and/or angle of attack. Bit rusty on flow dynamics, 15 years since I was an engineer... 😪
One thing I thought of is hooking up a solar water heater, increasing the solar area to push the water to a higher temp and possible expansion into steam through the turbine and recycle back to the heating element. A closed solar steam turbine that works even when there is little to no wind.
Love it brother! Keep laughing
Fabulous subject and loving the videos. In awe of the making.
You may have problems if trying to generate from a drainpipe as the water tends to flow along the pipe surface. You will need some method of directing that water from the pipe internal surface to the centre to "fall" on your rotor.
Good luck
Thank you for bringing the idea to the elctronic and real world!
I was thinking of something like this back in the pc fan giveaway video submissions but never got to it.
I absolutely love your ideas and work
Amazeng...
$50 on the barrel head says a half dozen or seven, stacked side by side, would fit in a roof rack or in part of the trunk to have a capacitor then feed a battery, while moving and / or passing through rain? I wonder if rather than relying upon natural flow, energy expressed by pressure or vacuum, a contained system, like a hydraulic conveyor system, would amplify the impulse of the circuit?
Fantastic I love how your mind works good Sir, have a wonderful day!
cheers mate
Down the rabbit hole with Robert Murray-Smith! Love it. Cheers
lol
Good lad, inspiring stuff!
I love your explorations. Keep 'em coming.
Expanding the base with a taper to match the outboard flow shown at 2:04 would support flow through and give more room for a larger the serpentine coil.
The numerous revisions you have been working on have been wonderful
nice suggestion - cheers
I'm always shocked. At the beginning how horrible the sound is but how much I dont care by the end because of how good the content is. :) keep it up my friend
I remember seeing plans for this exact style of turbine in Popular Mechanics (et al) back in the 60s. Except it was HOUSE sized, literally. It was a build on addition to existinting structures and took wind from any direction, up through the turbine.
it is basically a Fourneyron turbine mate
Thank You. I am thinking about water for this as well
awesome
Don't forget the turgo Rob more pipes to one turbine
Excellent mate: this video has made me realise that a steam turbine is really just a glorified wind turbine!
yes it is!! lol - brilliant mate - that is exactly what it is
Connecting the turbine to the physical generator will cut down on the turbines ability to turn so freely. I’d be interested in what that loss actually is.
Also thinking that this would be an interesting thing to try in a wave power system in place of the Wells turbine they used on Isla in Scotland.
Hi Robert! How about that, you are actually giving it a go! Question, though: Is there a reason why you put the magnets on the inside of the coil? To me it makes more sense to add the cap directly to the rotor and add the magnets on the inside of the cap. Spinning them on the outside of the coil: you only have to print one part, and as the energy production is related to the speed of the magnets you would gain some speed pushing the magnets as far out as possible. Anyway. Great work!!!
of course I am mate lol
If you keep advancing your energy producing projects, eventually you will create a system to rival or better any other air or hydro driven electrical generator systems out there.
no
He has and he is showing it to you. He is not the 1st person to come up with it either. But you will never be able to buy it, you must build it yourself as governments and industries will not allow it to be build commercially.
He's also showing us how to make it and inspiring us to make it. Another benefit of this community is that the whole community is a sounding board for different ideas / suggestions so that we all advance these explorations and build better projects.
@@magapefarmshomestead6453 You are completely insane if you actually believe that bs. Also you have no clue about technology if you believe his builds are advanced.
he already does consider cost and efficiency when compared to larger generators hes always talking about available power. Believe it of not, over time this thing would probably net more power than a larger turbine given the fact it can produce power at lower wind speeds and as a matter of consequence generate more often . Imagine the turtle and the hare
A great example of use of a basic program like Tinker CAD to make quite complex geometries well past the initial perception of what tinker CAD is typically used for . Great work Rob.
thank you mate
It is fun watching this progress. One very important difference between gas and liquid is that water does not compress. This may be a reason to change the shape or angle of the blades. Keep exploring!!!
cheers mate
Yesss! Exploring is key. ❤ Having fun exploring and enjoying a creative journey is priceless :)
Absolutely!!
Robert you read my mind what I wanted to do with a low elevation thanks hello from Italy Robert you are amazing 👍👍👍👍
wow - cheers mate
besides these great Devices I love Roberts sometimes almost child like enthusiasm 🤓
cheers mate
We are all at the mercy of SI units.the Vorbine changes the wind direction 90 degrees, thats good efficiency. fascinating work.
cheers mate
great April fool trick Robert.... nearly got me there! (Joking, of course!) Love the reference to the Darwin cage because this project is evolutionary :)
lol - never thought about it that way but I like it - nice one mate lol
Noticing the comments.. and thought I’d throw in … A vortex turbine ,in a tower with water and air ..and add into the mix a heavy fly wheel as well , to beef up the torque out put on the flywheel axis to push larger generation load …. Food for thought. !
To borrow from my favourite physicist, it's all about the pleasure of finding things out :)
[edit]
Actually when i reminded myself about the joy on Feynman's face in that interview when he was talking about physics... That looks quite the same as when Robert talks about things and how they work😁
nice - I couldn't agree more mate - love that quote
@@ThinkingandTinkering Then you will like this one. Source the same;)
"Physics is like sex: sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it."
Nifty. Go Bob!!
There is something i think you'd like exploring - atmospheric vortex engine.
There is an idea to use waste heat from traditional (or nuclear) power plants to make o big vortex that would drive some air turbines close to it's base. It would raise the efficiency of these power plants. The vortex mechanic would be analogous to the fire vortex you made in some video.
Some people are trying to build a working model for decades now.
Hi Rob,
I don't know if this has already been said, but length of the chord of the "blades" seems somewhat short. The exiting medium may very well still have some more energy in it, which could perhaps be harvested by making the chord of the blades a bit longer and gradually more curved outwards, so the direction of the exiting medium changes more..?
Love this design!
actually they are still too long I think - you can see the exiting water stream hardly comes up them
@@ThinkingandTinkering I didn't mean the length of the blades, the the length of the chord of the blades. So not in axial direction, but radial direction.
So if they blades would now be 50x10mm, you might want to try 50x20mm, for instance. Or even 40x20mm.
I agree with you; The water stream perfectly visualizes how the medium is somewhat 'compressed' to the lower bit of the blades and doesn't really touch the upper part. But if each blade had a longer chord length (or would be wider, if you will), with some added curvature to change the direction of the passing medium more, it should absorb more of its kinetic energy.
I happen to be trying to design something very similar but for a great energy system using a device no one seems to be thinking about, I've looked a long time. Any how, I'm building that to pipe down one of the 250 to 350 feet wells I have. I'm hoping to compress air going down with the venturi effect and then trap the air rising back in the middle. But also reclaim as much as I use since I'm hoping the upward water pressure will force out water with some of the air each time to equalize the water table below. If all goes well, I'm going to try a submersible, homo-polar motor and see if I can blow the whole damn town away with HHO or at least singe some hair off a few of my cats. I really hope this helps someone because I haven't seen anyone working with water columns, vacuum, water hammer, steam, atmospheric currents, etc., that has thought to use a well and go deep (like us country boys) instead of high (like you city folk).
If you make the cone for the top of the Darwin wind turbine (1882 0:30) hollow you could probably fix it to a gutter system and have it do duel duty.. especially if you have a shroud to direct the wind and water to flow downward towards the runoff outlet (and/or a secondary turbine at the base)
that's clever - I like it
I've had a downpipe generator bouncing around for years, in my head, it takes a man like you to make it a reality. Just a thought Rob, if the downpipes diameter was reduced gradually over its length it would create a pressurised jet of water. The downpipe could be glued together with plumbers solvent instead of slotted together to prevent leaks. Keep the vids rollin, they never disappoint.
cheers mate and yes it would do that with sufficient head of water too
Rob thank you so much for these.
One thing I'd love to see is charging stone kind of battery front all of these devices.
You've shown volt meters, lights etc. But if you'd charge the same battery every time it might help to compare the various experiments in terms of actual useable output. Just a thought.
I get it mate - but it seems unnecessary - if it will light a light it will charge a battery
Just mount the squirrel cage to a windmill generator bolt, as they are made to survive the outdoors & water. I actually have both. Thanks for the idea!!
Yes, its about the journey not the destination. But its also fun to arrive from time to time ^^
Cool video.
I agree but don't forget we have already had 5 or 6 stops along the way mate
@@ThinkingandTinkering true.
Explorations!! Sounds like my engineering endeavours. 😂😂
lol
Since your printing it… incorporate water proof wiring runs to get the power to the outside without issues ;-)
cheers mate
The low-head vortex turbine is clog resistant and doesn't harm fish. Flowing water usually has a lot of things in it, especially leaves and sticks.
a screen?
excuse the probably rambling question, how do you increase the power from a generator? presumably you are measuring an open circuit voltage most times, and when you place a load on it an amount of current is drawn, which acts to hold back the turbine, so if you are drawing 10W from a turbine this would be the same as applying 10W of friction to the system, so at some point the turbine will be spinning as fast as it can go but can you increase the electrical friction to pull more power from the driving force? can you have additional open circuit coils that are then switched in to increase the current you can pull from the system?
you can't increase the power from a generator mate because generators don't produce power - they convert energy from one form to another - for example - here the power originates in the water - to get more power you need more water or more energy in the water - like increasing the head - the generator will convert that to electrical energy - you can get a better efficiency that's for sure - but basically that's where the limit comes from - so to improve power out you need to improve conversion efficiency - more coils doesn't improve efficiency
Create a huge Heron's fountain to power the generator using your turbine and we would be good to go. I really envy your abilities keep up the good work.
absolutely fantastic
cheers mate
Brilliant!
As a professional programmer, I like the project vs experimentation distinction! I’m not sure my managers (aka troglodyte overlords) would be terribly keen on the idea. Thank you for another fun and thought provoking video.
no - they wouldn't lol - cheers mate
Very good that it's exciting. I can't wait to put it together around my house at all the downspouts. Wire into the basement to a battery Bank. also put it in the Stream in my backyard in a larger capacity and wire it to the house.
nice
Brilliant Rob! That went pretty much as I hoped it would. 😊
I bet these would also go great atop a chimney to extract a bit more energy from the fuel being burnt to warm our homes. PLA might not be the material of choice, but I bet it would produce useable energy levels.
I'll bet it would mate
We already have those ~ called a chimney fan and they do the opposite = an electric extractor fan, sucking the smoke up the chimney to improve the draught of the fire, and the wind-spinning rotary versions often seen on chimneys and landfill methane vents
@@samuelfellows6923 if the chimney needs an extractor fan, it is pretty poorly designed/maintained.
Thank you very much. Please explore toroidal coil rotating blades for your top . You are awesome!!
I would suggest having the winding of the coil on the outside of the magnets on the rotor. This will greatly simplify connecting to the load.
? it is on the outside
@@ThinkingandTinkering Sorry, maybe I misread the CAD.
Great job as always 👍 what i like about it is it's stackable ❤maybe even just waves or river current would be enough to work
I would think it would mate
Rob, have you looked at sand casting some of the 3d prints using zamac alloy . Also I had a brief conversation with a stranger on local bus who mentioned he'd been gasifying plastic scrap using old electric heater elements within a mass of sand along with the scrap , two 250 watt solar panels for the power supply, ,, optional choice,, spoke of subtle differences in range of temperatures from 450° to 600° .
Your wind energy exploration convinced me that the best wind generator is a homemade one . Although I prefer not to be in a prevailing wind environment.
I haven't yet mate but I have done plastic gasification and videos on it
Brilliant as always. Ty. :)
cheers mate
This seems really cool. Have you released the 3d model files? I would love to print one
hmm,more then 7 volt means i can use a 3 Volt Motor to drive the Turbine and have Power over to change something and stor Power. and all can stand in a Basement. all 10 time and connecting it paralell can you stor 36 Volt evry Time.
I can imagine a series of funnel-shaped units strung together to form an articulated snake powering an off-grid set up on the banks of a small river or creek. The output from one funnel acting as a nozzle to the next in line.
Viktor Schauberger would love to have seen something like this!
indeed and he would have loved it - some his ideas would have been super easy to model
Just a thought l, I know it will probably make it harder to make but I ld like to see how it would act in comparison if you put a channel from between each blade to the top of the cone so when either water or air hit it it should funnel it to the blades and hopefully give it a little mor power and direction, maybe it will make no difference but I'd like to see
why don't you try it then?
@@ThinkingandTinkering time, materials and probably skill lol, I'm trying to think of an easy way to do it without a 3d printer, although if I do I'll make a video or keep you updated :)
@@ThinkingandTinkering oh yeah love the videos too Rob keep them up :)
You deser e a museum for all the dummies you create.
Thank you Robert, showing all these experimental shapes and ways how to create them
cheers mate
A turbine blade like Roberts are available for fairly cheap , clothes dryer blowers have them
Perhaps using an internal spiral or "rifling" mechanism inside a section of the downspout prior to the water engaging the turbine would allow gravity to provide additional torque upon striking the turbine fins. May be worth experimenting with this added design feature to gain extra energy output.
go for it mate
Thanks
wow - no - thank you mate it is well appreciated cheers
You could make the cone a vortex shape to help the spin before it hits the blades. Not sure it would make it spin faster but surely seems in my mind to be more efficient.
And a venturi above it. With an oval start of the venturi wider then the vacuum pipe for the extra air to come along.
cheers mate
There is a massive blind spot in the design of the squirrel cage blower except for the Mike Waters turbine.
The squirrel cage was developed from earlier simple centrifugal pumps and when it was realised the tips did all the work the squirrel cage was born. But when is a vane a wing? Look at a squirrel cage from the wing perspective and it will be seen that the low pressure above the curve of the wing is on the high pressure side of the pump. It's wings are upside down! The late Peter Rollo filed a NZ provisional patent in 1995 showing an average 50% improvement in performance over three traditional blowers. As far as I can ascertain no full patent was ever filed. In Mike Waters' turbine the airpressure is reversed and is therefore correct. He agrees with me. Robert, there is another factor making the Waters turbine super efficient, the downstream square end causes suction on the vanes.
There are a lot of great ideas lurking undeveloped in the patent files, your tinkering Robert is very important.
Neil Campbell
This looks like it would be a good generator for the hot/cold pump in a vacuum that Jeremiah is investigating.
Thank you :)
cheers mate
More great food for thought as usual. Could the coil be external on the down pipe, with only the magnets inside on the turbine, thus keeping the electrical side of things dry? Fitted to a siphonic stormwater system would create some interesting results. As for installing on mains water pipes, I believe this is not permitted in some countries including the UK. Thanks again for sharing another avenue of experimentation.
Cool idea
The point of the Water Vortex Turbine generator is that the water vortex is present in the water flow, irrespective of whether you have a turbine inserted in the water flow or not.
It's distinctly different from say a water wheel which is also gravity driven by falling water in primarily one direction.
A vortex is also driven by gravity as well as the Coriolis effect (a weak force on this scale, and is actually controversial as to whether it determines the direction of the vortex. The direction of large cyclones/hurricanes is determined by the Coriolis effect being different in the northern and southern hemispheres).
The flow of water from the bucket onto the turbine in your demonstration actually slows the turbine down the longer it spends in the spinning part of the turbine. That is, the fastest exit for the water when it strikes the top cone will be in a straight line so that it will impart the maximum energy onto the blades as quickly as possible.
IT can easily work as you have clearly demonstrated but optimising this turbine set up is very tricky indeed.
Cheers
Keep up the good work. You engage with your viewers very well.
just throwing it out there, would you be able to extract more energy from the fluid, be it wind or water, if you had multi stage turbines, in different sizes, so start off small, and progressivlely get larger, like the triple expansion steam engines were?
Isn't that because the density of the working fluid is reducing from one turbine to the next so as pressure drops you need a bigger turbine hence not applicable for constant density water
you don't really need to increase the size mate
fascinating 😊, now could we imagine for a second mini turbines in city water pipes
we could scavenge a lot of power that way mate
BTW a 2 stage system - counter rotating coaxial guide vanes opposed to output turbine vanes makes a lot of sense (even "just" a 2 inch feed pipe can generate a lot of power -significant energy just needs a sufficient mass/volume of water from the top pondage.)..
cheers mate
Would you look at that! As you say, the best way is trying it out yourself. I can also see a version of this being used in a water gravity battery. Yeah, so many great things to explore.
now you are talking mate
Rob, old man...IDEA A LA ROB: RECOMBINANT VIDEO IDEAS!!! So...I notice that this starts with a thick stream, and basically turns it into a broader thin laminate flow...WHICH might work well (better than a thick stream) with the flow-over generation system you've shown previously...SOOOOO an array of those over the splash zone would yield MORE power still! No? Love the channel and progression of ideas!!!
nice mate good suggestion
put water in a tube over the cone to make it a better generator. thank you for your input. logical isn"t it!