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Forum Index : Windmills : Frank’s Undershot Waterwheel
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| Frank Newbie  Joined: 13/10/2010 Location: Posts: 5 |
Sorry to put my waterwheel in with your windmills, but a couple of people asked me for photos when I asked a question about using caps with F&P motors. Here are some photos of my setup. I have been following this forum for a while as I have built an undershot water-wheel which is driving a F&P 80 in star. 7 groupings of 6 coils. The water-wheel is geared R1:48. The water-wheel does 1 revolution every 6 seconds = 480rpm. Unfortunately my cable run is 160 meters with 16mm squared cable. hence some losses. Even so open circuit, 50V. 1R:4 seconds. Connected to batteries, 7 Amps and Volts are still able to switch my tristar controller to equalization 30V and hold PWN absorbtion 29.2 Volts. I have tried the 36 pole stator in Deltor 7 amps at about the same RPMs as 80 F&P, as well as the 7 phase 2X3 coils. Much better volts, 110V open circuit. But connected to battery the load on the wheel reduced RPM to 350 RPM 7 Amps. The load eventually broke one of the drive chains. I have tried to give the amps and volts, on the 80, 36, and 7 phase at the same RPMs. Due to rain of course water flow varies. I've had as little as 4 amps and as much as 11 amps. The creek flows all the year round and I only use half of the flow for the wheel. 1st photo, With the wheel raised the vertical frame and wheel lay down on the horizontal frame, for when the creek is in flood or the wheel needs maintenance. 2nd photo, back view of wheel when raised showing gear housing and block and tackle used for raising wheel. also shows where creek divides with island in centre. 3rd photo, one gear set with chain and F & P motor. 4th photo, wheel in action, you can see the hinges where it swings from this position, also small wall in creek to channel water. The creek is slightly higher than normal in this photo but wheel can be lowered to adapt to the flow. The wheel is 2,700 in diameter and 1,100 width. You can see my wheel is of light construction, I had not seen a waterwheel before building this and tried to keep it as light as possible so it can be pulled out or moved with ease. Despite a few teething problems early on I've been really pleased with how it's turned out and the power we're getting from it. Frank. |
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| VK4AYQ Guru  Joined: 02/12/2009 Location: AustraliaPosts: 2539 |
Hi Frank Good one mate and I really like the ability to raise it out of the water for servicing and flood protection with light construction that is a big saving. With the amount of power you are getting out of it on a 24 7 basis it is really a useful bit of gear. Only suggestion is that you run high voltage up your line and some transformers to bring the volts down at the other end. Some old TV voltage doubler trannies as they have a 110 secondary you can use as the primary and the 12 volt windings in series for 24 volts out, three trannies one on each phase as from memory they are good for 500 watts. All the best Bob Foolin Around |
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Gizmo Admin Group  Joined: 05/06/2004 Location: AustraliaPosts: 5078 |
Nice post and photo's there Frank, its good to see a few water wheels here. Glenn The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago, the second best time is right now. JAQ |
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