×
INTELLIGENT WORK FORUMS
FOR ENGINEERING PROFESSIONALS

Log In

Come Join Us!

Are you an
Engineering professional?
Join Eng-Tips Forums!
  • Talk With Other Members
  • Be Notified Of Responses
    To Your Posts
  • Keyword Search
  • One-Click Access To Your
    Favorite Forums
  • Automated Signatures
    On Your Posts
  • Best Of All, It's Free!
  • Students Click Here

*Eng-Tips's functionality depends on members receiving e-mail. By joining you are opting in to receive e-mail.

Posting Guidelines

Promoting, selling, recruiting, coursework and thesis posting is forbidden.

Students Click Here

Jobs

free power from excess water
3

free power from excess water

free power from excess water

(OP)
i have water pressure of 100kpa most of the year how is a cheap way to turn this into power

RE: free power from excess water

Water from where?  Your facet?  Somebody is not going to like that!  How much volume?  Seasonal?

Keith Cress
Flamin Systems, Inc.- http://www.flaminsystems.com

RE: free power from excess water

Why'd you put this in solid state relays??!?!?  Stop! Don't double post either.  You could resubmit this question with the details I requested into Electrical/Electronic engineering topics.  Then red flag this one as "wrong forum".

All would appreciate that and you'd get more participation.

forum248

Keith Cress
Flamin Systems, Inc.- http://www.flaminsystems.com

RE: free power from excess water

A short answer: Water with overpressure IS already power. What kind of power do you want to convert it to?

Gunnar Englund
www.gke.org

RE: free power from excess water

"i have water pressure of 100kpa most of the year"

What is the source of this water and why does the pressure change? Water company not paying the electric bill?  I have a camp on a cliff 30 feet above a river.  People are amazed when I tell them I have a water problem (3 feet in my basement).  The problem is solid rock up to ground level between house and river.  Used to drain out by gravity till my neighbor dug up his yard.  A few years back I ran a test and figured 500 gal a day without running dry.  That is not a lot of power, but it will solve one problem.

If the source is a water utility, you can't get more power out than they put in to pump it.  And they don't pump it for free, my water is $3.53/1000 gal.

RE: free power from excess water

Quote (itsmoked):

Your facet?

Are you implying that he got excess water from the side of a cut diamond? Quite a trick I'm sure!

poke

RE: free power from excess water

Facet => Domestic water valve on a sink.

Swedes.... lollol

Keith Cress
Flamin Systems, Inc.- http://www.flaminsystems.com

RE: free power from excess water

Oh, you mean Faucet then! pokepoke

Who you callin' a Swede?

RE: free power from excess water

I think that compliment was meant for me...

Gunnar Englund
www.gke.org

RE: free power from excess water

GROOOOOOOAN!!

Yep.. I meant Faucet.(ignorant Merican here)
rainbowcryrainbowcryrainbowcry

I must be more careful before poking fun at skogs..

Keith Cress
Flamin Systems, Inc.- http://www.flaminsystems.com

RE: free power from excess water

Hi keith shocked

santo vaca 'el hecko t'u apariencia y comportamieto est'upido
wink

Chuck

Getting older is inevitable
Acting your age is optional

RE: free power from excess water

Hrm...

What happened to the power conversion part of it?

Gunnar Englund
www.gke.org

RE: free power from excess water

sorry back to business, I was hoping the OP would post answer to Kieths first questions. I was thinking it might be an intersting idea even if generating power to store in battery while running water for daily needs. Take a shower and charge shaver or make coffee...possible? practical?

Chuck

Getting older is inevitable
Acting your age is optional

RE: free power from excess water

I sometimes stay in hotels where you may think they are using that technique. Very little pressure left in the shower. I don't think that it is a good idea. Only if you have plenty of free water (like a water fall or similar) would it be profitable. The techniques to convert power in such cases are well known.

Gunnar Englund
www.gke.org

RE: free power from excess water

The new electronic RF power meters do that, generate power from water flow so they don't have to be connected to a wal wart.

RE: free power from excess water

Operahouse

wall wart => water meter? Our meters do this and broadcast signal to meter reader walking past house with hand held unit.
Seems to work, our bill is adjusted accordingly each month.

Chuck

Getting older is inevitable
Acting your age is optional

RE: free power from excess water

Wall wart =


Cord wart =



The water company using your water/pressure for electricity figures well... for them!

Keith Cress
Flamin Systems, Inc.- http://www.flaminsystems.com

RE: free power from excess water

No. We are on track. That "Look! No Wart!" thing is just what the OP was asking for.

Gunnar Englund
www.gke.org

RE: free power from excess water

I'll be! We have those transformers everywhere in our house,
hence the slang description. Learn something every day I guess.

Chuck

Getting older is inevitable
Acting your age is optional

RE: free power from excess water

Certainly extracting power from water pressure differentials is nothing new, because of course that is what is happening at a hydroelectric dam! The economy of scale is a little different there however. Extracting power from your "facet" is not exactly economical. $1895 for a micro reaction turbine generator link and can it give out; 100W at 500GPM? So at even the exhorbitant 15 cents/kWh we pay here, it would take 126,333 hours of "maintenance free" operation just to pay for it! That's 8 hours per day for over 40 years. Let's not even go to how much water 500GPM is!

Not only that, but your local water company expended power to get that water pressure to you. If everyone started trying to extract power from it, there goes your pressure, so they would need to expend MORE power to keep it up. Their costs to do so come from where? Your water bill!

Bottom line, there is no free lunch. Not even the glass of water that goes with it.

RE: free power from excess water

Look at

http://www.ntstainless.co.uk/products.htm

Download the PDF brochure and check out the water powered LED lit taps...

(Not sure how to do a more direct link, sorry)

I wonder how they work.

"I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go past." Douglas Adams

RE: free power from excess water

Pretty cool er...hot.. no umm... purple! Yeah purple!  They must have a little impeller and they run the water out thru an orifice at the impeller.  I wonder how they do the colors?  Could be a separate impeller for each color LED.

Keith Cress
Flamin Systems, Inc.- http://www.flaminsystems.com

RE: free power from excess water

I think they're full of it!!  A catalyst that separates H2 from water?  Bunk!  If they had that we wouldn't need another power plant on earth! Only some water.

Cold fusion anyone?

 They are trying to disguise that they have some fuel in their "catalyst" container that may evolve hydrogen when reacted with water.  "Catalyst wears out? Just buy a new catalyst module!"

The polymer fuel cell is just about 'standard' these days.  I have no problem with a fuel cartridge that you add water to. It actually sounds better than a bunch of methanol leaking into airliner luggage.bomb

Keith Cress
Flamin Systems, Inc.- http://www.flaminsystems.com

RE: free power from excess water

(OP)
well guys i only stumbled on this page a nd didnt think any more of it
heres some info

15 to 20 years ago a mate put a 3 km road into world heritage fain forest pre world heritage also he put in 2km of 2inch poly pipe to a natural dam now over the wet season the wast of water in huge but only 2 months of the year there is no waste
now at the bottom of the hill it splits to two one fills his tank the other fills another plus stock an feeds an orchard so there is a number of places that it can be taped and a number of way to do it each pipe at the split has pressure of 100kpa and the waste water just flows back to the creek

6 months of the year the first tank over flows 1 gigaliteron avarge an hour not including the wet season  and the world is in drought these people dont know how lucky they are

now back to the question  how is a cheap way to turn this in to power from old cars bikes and machines

RE: free power from excess water

(OP)
also i would like to thank you for your replies

thanx

RE: free power from excess water

Also "Low head hydo". I did a number of these things on irrigation ditches in the late '70s and early '80s when the US government was providing tax incentives for "alternate energy sources". The only way they made money was in the tax rebates, otherwise they cost more to maintain than they generated. It might be better now however, there are a lot more people doing it and the technology has improved.

http:/www.jraef.com
Eng-Tips: Help for your job, not for your homework  Read FAQ731-376 pirate

RE: free power from excess water

The answer to this it seems would be many only limits here are education, creativity, and what you have available to work with. I wonder If you could also search for Patents on previous inventions, might get plans for all sorts of water driven machines.

Chuck

Getting older is inevitable
Acting your age is optional

RE: free power from excess water

(OP)
thanks chuck  but where would i find out about thes patens are they of public record or is there a book that i can buy
any help would be great

RE: free power from excess water


This is the page for U.S. Patent and Trademark office. On the top of the page Click "How to search" you will find complete instructions for viewing. Hope this helps.

http://www.uspto.gov/

Chuck

Getting older is inevitable
Acting your age is optional

RE: free power from excess water

While I realize the original question was off the forum topic, somewhere in the thread is the comment about:

RF power meters do that, generate power from water flow

are those RF power meters or rf water meters, i.e. is this an application of automatic meter reading? If you can point me to a product I'd be grateful as my googling has been rather unproductive.

RE: free power from excess water

Thanks Machmech,

Looks like it is battery powered, although a 20 year life is very impressive. It sounded, above, like it was powered by the water flow.

rt

RE: free power from excess water

Yes indeed " Believe none of what you hear and half of what you see" The water works guy told me it was self charging, I could not dissect the box it is sealed real well. Now that I know they are calling it "Tamper Proof" I am somewhat tempted!

Chuck

Getting older is inevitable
Acting your age is optional

RE: free power from excess water

Operahouse might be able to help you on that.

"The new electronic RF power meters do that, generate power from water flow so they don't have to be connected to a wal wart."

Getting older is inevitable
Acting your age is optional

RE: free power from excess water

BTW, the Wall Wart up top came out wrong and I just noticed..  DOH!

Here is a "Wall Wart", (for the one person out of 25M who doesn't know).

Keith Cress
Flamin Systems, Inc.- http://www.flaminsystems.com

RE: free power from excess water

I'd like to ask Operhouse but I suppose I have to wait until he reads this thread again.

RE: free power from excess water

Hi Keith Thanks for making me 24,999
I was that in my class as well.
But I thought possibly this could
have been California teminology,
up here in Minnesota the only
reference close would be keyboard
wart! although you can't see it in
the pic. the output plug is really short.




viking



Getting older is inevitable
Acting your age is optional

RE: free power from excess water

My pleasure mach.
(Just for the record that's my good buddy, not me, putting in concrete anchors.)bigsmile

Keith Cress
Flamin Systems, Inc.- http://www.flaminsystems.com

RE: free power from excess water

Ah shoot! Thought I had ya.banghead

Getting older is inevitable
Acting your age is optional

RE: free power from excess water

Smoked and Mach,

I think a translation is needed - at least by me...

Gunnar Englund
www.gke.org

RE: free power from excess water

Translation:

Re-checking this thread I saw that my two pictures one of a 'wall wart' one of a 'cord wart' were screwed up and in fact both of 'cord warts'.  So I put up a correct picture of a 'wall wart' stating, "this is for", the 1 out of 25 million (M) people who don't know what a 'wall wart' is.  (as apposed to 1 out of 50 who don't know what a "cord wart" is)

machmech responded "Thanks for making me 24,999
I was that in my class as well."  Which if I look at closely confuses me too.!spineyes

Keith Cress
Flamin Systems, Inc.- http://www.flaminsystems.com

RE: free power from excess water



"Here is a "Wall Wart", (for the one person out of 25M who doesn't know)"

25M = 25000

Getting older is inevitable
Acting your age is optional

RE: free power from excess water

To 'modern' engineers M means mega = 1,000,000.

Keith Cress
Flamin Systems, Inc.- http://www.flaminsystems.com

RE: free power from excess water

The problem that I think you are having with that concept machmech is in assuming that all notations are derivative of Latin, they are not.

Prefix     value    symbol   date     example        etymology

yotta      10^24    Y        1991     yottajoule     from otto, eight Italian
zetta      10^21    Z        1991     zettamole      from sette, seven Italian
exa        10^18    E        1975     exaweber       from hex, six in Greek
peta       10^15    P        1975     petahertz      from pente, five in Greek
tera       10^12    T                 teracandela    teras, monster in Greek
giga       10^9     G                 gigawatt       gigas, giant in Greek
mega     10^6     M                 megakelvin     megas, huge in Greek
kilo        10^3     k                 kilovolt       khilioi, thousand in Greek
hecto     10^2     h                 hectoradian    hekaton, hundred in Greek
deca/deka 10       D (or da)         dekapascal     deka, ten in Greek
deci       10^-1    d                 decisievert    decimus, tenth in Latin
centi      10^-2    c                 centimetre     centum, hundred in Latin
milli       10^-3    m                 milliampere    mille, thousand in Latin
micro     10^-6    m (Greek mu)      microohm       mikros, small in Greek
nano      10^-9    n                 nanosecond     nanos, dwarf in Greek
pico       10^-12   p                 picofarad      pico, little bit in Spanish
femto     10^-15   f        1964     femtonewton    femten, 15 in Danish or Norwegian
atto       10^-18   a        1964     attogram       atten, 18 in Danish or Norwegian
zepto     10^-21   z        1991     zeptohenri     from sept, seven Greek
yocto      10^-24   y        1991     yoctolitre     from okto, eight Greek   

JRaef.com
Eng-Tips: Help for your job, not for your homework  Read FAQ731-376 pirate

RE: free power from excess water

Ah but keith forgot the space, so for me the interpretation
is a quantity of a production count. This is the way Job
tickets are written It allows larger numbers to be placed
within a small box. He was describing the populace and not an electrical sum.

I think Keith is outstanding but had a little problem
thinking out side of the box!smile

25M = 25,000
25MM = 25,000,000

Now if he would have posted 25 MΩ- This I understand to be mega ohms.

Nice list of definitions by the way, I don't have this many
in my electrical manual.

Getting older is inevitable
Acting your age is optional

RE: free power from excess water

Can anyone imagine the incredibly small amount of liquid contained in a yoctolitre? Can't get much free power from that!

(I think I deserve points for wrapping this tangent back into the original thread subject).

JRaef.com
Eng-Tips: Help for your job, not for your homework  Read FAQ731-376 pirate

RE: free power from excess water

Jeff,

I first thought that it would be a split molecule contained in a yoktolitre of water. But checking Avogadro's number (yes, I had forgotten the exact value!) I think that there are about 30 dihydromonoxide molecules in a yoktolitre of water.

Going to the SI unit yoktogram makes the whole idea impossible. There is nothing like a yoktogram of water!

Gunnar Englund
www.gke.org

RE: free power from excess water

So instead of using a euphamism for ignorance by saying "His glass isn't filled all the way to the top", I can now say "His yoktolitre of water has only 28 dihydomonoxide molecules"?

That will be usefull in a conversation...

RE: free power from excess water

Yes, yes! Except when you're derailed by the five minute explanation of what a yoktolitre is.hammer

Keith Cress
Flamin Systems, Inc.- http://www.flaminsystems.com

RE: free power from excess water

Jeff,

What do you mean by "I think I deserve points for wrapping this tangent back into the original thread subject"

Did you?

Anyhow. Here's that PLS you deserve so well.

Gunnar Englund
www.gke.org

RE: free power from excess water

"Can't get much free power from that" was my attempt at wrapping back to the "free power from excess water" theme of this thread. We have diverted off into tangent land again of course, but thanks for the PLS anyway, even though I was forced into blatant self promotion to get one!

JRaef.com
Eng-Tips: Help for your job, not for your homework  Read FAQ731-376 pirate

Red Flag This Post

Please let us know here why this post is inappropriate. Reasons such as off-topic, duplicates, flames, illegal, vulgar, or students posting their homework.

Red Flag Submitted

Thank you for helping keep Eng-Tips Forums free from inappropriate posts.
The Eng-Tips staff will check this out and take appropriate action.

Reply To This Thread

Posting in the Eng-Tips forums is a member-only feature.

Click Here to join Eng-Tips and talk with other members!


Resources