Recover energy

[alex281]

Well, you have opened an interesting topic here. I want to know more about your further functionality, how much you are expecting here and in what amount of time you are going to finish it.

When I started this thread I was just basically thinking out loud. Right now I have just designed my bell syphon and purchased the river gravel for the growbed. As of now I am lacking a pump to pump the water up to the growbed. Is there anyone here that could give me any suggestion in acquiring a pump for the system?

I got mine off ebay

Brand and model of pump? Name of seller?

All i remember was searching for (amount i needed)gph submersible pump and bought the cheapest one with fastest shipping.it was from some hydro store.

[foodchain]

I have been working on something all these lines. A hydrogenterator. What I have found is that in an Ebb/flow system the flow rate isn't constant enough to generate enough power. I am still working on one for my waterfall that runs constant in the backyard, but don't have anything conclusive yet. There's several DIY versions on Youtube, and many of those videos break down how to adjust the magnets to maximize the return. I haven't determined a way to make back as much energy as the whole system uses, but the generator should reduce the usage.

I haven't found a solar cell yet that was worth the money. They suck. If you find one that actaully produces enough juice to justify the expense/labor please let me know.

Hydro will work 24 hours a day. Solar works more like 10 hours if you in the south in summer and have no trees or onstructions.
Good luck.

[bsfman]

I haven't determined a way to make back as much energy as the whole system uses, but the generator should reduce the usage.

There is no such thing as 100 percent efficiency in any mechanical system, so nobody will ever be able to recover as much energy as the system uses. Friction loss, internal inertia in the generator, paddle wheel friction and inefficiency, and water from the waterfall that misses hitting the paddlewheel blades will all contribute to efficiency loss. I would guess that if you are able to recover even 10 percent of the energy input, you are doing remarkably well. The question then becomes how long a payback period will it take to recover the cost of materials, time and effort in the construction to justify undertaking the project to begin with. Sounds like a fun experiment though!

[foodchain]

Well that's the next step I am working on. Been working and reworking a hydro design for sometime, but I have run into some problems that are outside of my level of expertise.
Premade gens are expensive, running in the ball park of 5k.
But the components to build them are less than $300 as best I can tell. Not believing everything I read, I am having problems pinning down the exact amount of wire to magnet ratio.

Then my car alternator needed changed, and I got an idea.....probably a bad one, but I am kicking it around on paper. The car alternator works as I understand it by a magnet passing around the coils, driven by the fan belt. Pretty basic, magnet generates a feild against the wires creating electricity, which in turn charges the battery on the car.

So, why wouldn't that work on the waterfall? If you say cuz it's DC, you need swatted with a newspaper. You can either buy a DC pump, or give up some of the generated juice to pass through a converter.
There's many other ways to deal with that problem. I am looking for something a little more advanced.
I am sure this is not the most effecient way, but it would give a starting point to substantiating the relationship between the gap between the wires and magnet and elec. production. There's an optimal gap here in relation to the amount of elec. produced. Where that is, will depend on the amount/strength of magnet and the conductivity of the wire coils.

[foodchain]

Does anyone know about this? Or understand it?
Or am I talking out my 4th point of contact?

[foodchain]

Everyone likes pics. This is the best layout I have found for showing the wire/magnet concept.

http://www.otherpower.com/scotthydro1.html

Not quite the same layout as I am planning, but we are talking about the generator portion.

[commander]

I dont know if I am committing a vile sin, but this link isn't related to aquaponics. This is a group on yahoo that I follow and they probably have all the answers to your questions. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/12VDC_Power/