Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

imagine being able to aerate your water... pump your water and generate power for your house from a moble water wheel? enter stage... the mento's wheel.

do a search on google for these gadgets http://amasci.com/freenrg/minto.html

low rpm HIGH torqe you ramp it up with pulleys and belts or chains and gears (wich give less friction and do not have to be tight wich reduce efficiency)

all you do is build it and apply heat source and it runs for generations.

it is a gravity engine in basic terms. it utilizes low boiling liquids like propane bottles connected with steel tubing to the oposite bottle ie it always runs in pairs. so as heat is applyed to the bottom bottle it expands the and evaporates the liquid to gas wich increases pressure and pushes liquid up the tube to the top bottle wich then lets gravity take over and pull itself down.

i can see this running entire ap systems without the use of power if wished. you can hook air pumps and water pumps upto this unit. generate your heat source from a number of different points.

Before you get too exited check out Mythbusters on this topic, Yes it works but it was bloody slow.

H.

it is slow.. but it has torq you just have to ramp it up with sprockets and chains perfferably to pulleys and belts to the required speed of your generator requirements.

you gonna do it?

butane might be a better choice than propane because of pressure/temperature

but then i think it has a density 1/3 of R-12 but a higher latent heat and as this device primarily uses weight re-distribution it may be less effective.

The most efficient gas to use would be one with the highest density but lowest latent heat. opposite to AC.

aye. im thinking of building a mini one that's powered by a usb mug warmer for my desk eventualy i will be building fullscale version to power my property with.

you're hooked then?

points to consider that have come to mind so far.

use the least refrigerant that will completely boil. more will reduce efficiency.

Less "dip" in the water will give higher efficiency due to less loss overcoming buoyancy

The higher the temp differential between hot water and ambient the more power.

Any way you can increase surface area of the bottles (fins?) in a safe manner will increase power.

Bookmarked!

You might want to take a look at the Stirling Heat Engine if you haven't already. Not sure which is more efficient, but there has been a lot of renewed interest in the Stirling Heat Engine of late...

Yeah, but try to find a non miniature sized one to buy !!

Have you seen the Whispergen?

There's another smallish version I've seen that has a solar concentrator (parabolic mirror), that is very impressive but I'm not sure if it has been fully commercialised yet... Forget the name of the company - it was US based.

What gas is in those "drinking birds" and hand boilers. You know the ones that you place in your hand and the liquid rushes to the top ball and then bubbles?

got a pic? never seen them

I bet the wispergen cost so much money that you could buy a diesel gen and 5 or 10 years worth of fuel for the same money.

thats not the right thought processs dan lol. what happens after the 5-10 years.

Steve there was a link for the WhisperGen a few posts up - or have you never seen a dunking bird?