Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Thanks for the links. They have kits on ebay some times. And there is an air foil one that looks interesting, even if its just for moving water around.

Have put this up before nice setup and plans. Also mods alternators and diy version.
http://www.windstuffnow.com/main/vawt.htm

My brother offered me a 12kw diesel generator, he has 3 of them that came off of a couple old tugs. 2 of them are probably repairable, but not sure if they are 3 phase though. It would be a good backup generator for when I lost the grid for whatever reason. Could use biodiesel in it also. I wonder what the shelf life of biodiesel is?

Well it is interesting that Opec cannot understand why the price of oil is so high so they are going to cut production by 500k barrels per day. They may not understand it but but they sure enjoy the profits and would like to keep it like it is! And with the timing of hurricanes ripping up the Gulf of Mexico; Renewable energy needs to be a national/global priority! The price of everything is linked to it. Instead of proping up big oil and opec I would love to see a huge government grant to Nano Solar, as well as agri fuels. If it was done on the scale of the big hydro dam projects it wouldn't take long before returns were realized.

Well I just swapped out 1-1/2 dozen more incandescent light bulbs for the compact fluorescent ones. I stopped at the parish Dept of public works today to inquire about damaged solar panels from electric road signs and found that the parish only used batteries and changed them out with charged ones. He took my number incase he runs across any but the score was he gave me a contact name and number with the STATE DOTD who has plenty of that type and the storms rolled them all over the place. I plan on calling them tomorrow to see if I can score some from the maintenance department in Baton Rouge. I am still reading up on Hugh Piggott’s work on wind turbines. The more I read the more I find myself coming to his experiments and designs. His explanations as well as the fact he goes over his failures/Learning so you can really begin to grasp what he is doing. And his prices on his kits are more than reasonable. I think my best bet will be to build one of his low wind speed units. I will probably just order a kit and possibly build another from scratch.

I have hear many times that you can get all the solar cells you want for free or for a case of beer if you find a state company that uses the solar signs..

Talking fuels and fuel economy has anyone looked at browns gas, its basically is the seperation of water into h2 and o and injected into motors, really efficient, much cleaner burn and great fuel economy, just thought Id throw that in, we generate by solar into the grid here where we live and hope to expand even further and generate more but its all about dollars

Bree

hehehehheheeeeeeeee. fringe. i like you, bridgette

oh, and its not quite as you describe it. the theory goes that its H-H-O ( i think) versus 2H2 02..............

If it is possible to run a large generator on hydrogen can the power be put back into the grid like solar. Always wanted to have a play with those old diesel motors that ran on oil once you got them started. Then see what other types of oil you could convert them to.

Regarding browns gas... I have tried to use it to assist my little diesel truck. It cost me milage. Instead I burn biodiesel.
If you had free surplus power like wind or solar you could use that to make the gas, but storage is problematic. I prefer to use my surplus solar and wind to back feed the grid or heat water for AP.
Another source for used solar panels is homeowners that go on the grid and quit solar. I just bought 265 watts PV from a gal that moved to town after being widowed for $1500. I have 450 watts and wind power I bought after a fire in a guys power house. His insurance would only pay to run grid power to him. Another 960 watts I bought as demo's from a dealer. When I started buying 10 years ago new prices were $3.00 a watt now its more like $5.00 on sale. Do not believe thay will ever go down in price. Shipping is another big cost avoided by buying local used.

I have made a hho device and offsetting my voltage sensor I was able to get ~42 miles per gallon in a 6 cylinder grand voyager(up from 19). It does work, but you must do it right or you will not get the desired results. You can find some of my vids on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/user/cheaphardwarez Others and my self like scarecrow labs have made a lot of progress on youtube towards making a small safe efficient device for cars. Electronic Builders Net was formed to take this to the next level. Anyway, if you are going to do, dont waste time and money in reinventing the wheel to make it better. We have 20 years of research behind what we do (not only our own research). If you are interested I can send you some good info.

The best way to put power on the grid is to do it the way power stations do it. Turn an ac induction motor 10% faster than its name plate rating hook to the grid and you will be pushing power to the grid in 100% sync, further if power fails the generator stops generating making it safe for linemen. If you local voltage is high you may need to turn the motor a little faster to get your voltage above the line voltage.

Now, as to running a motor on hydrogen alone, no that's not at all practical as the BTU value of a cubic foot of hydrogen is very low and hydrogen can not be easily compressed. So unless you are using on site low pressure hydrogen from paralysis(partial wood burning) or steam and iron then its not practical because of the HUGE volume required. Don't forget woodgas! Now you can burn wet fuels and even oil in a gas motor if you inject 5-7% BTU value as hydrogen; hydrogen being the "burn catalyst" and not the fuel. Roy Mcalister of the American Hydrogen Association has this perfected; I have videos if you are interested ).

However, if you want to try it then please do! Its rewarding to build these things. BTW, burning hydrogen and other fuels in a combustion motor is, overall, more efficient and cheaper then using a power cell and hydrogen. The hydrogen revolution was 150 years ago! Making money was just more important to everyone.

I noticed he kept his electrolizer on the grid while the generator was running. My question is weather the electrolizer could have run off of the generator with a justifiable amount of power to spare. And try to figure % effeciency. It doesn't have to do much to out perform power plants that use gas turbines that are only about 40% effecient. It is nice to see it working even on a small 3.5 hp generator. I've seen a few of the HHO torches on you tube and wasn't sure if I believed it, but I believe it's real now. It sure seems like the large corporations buried this technology!
Also are you sure your info is correct on turning an induction motor 10% faster and it will both produce enough power AND sych into line frequency? I've heard a lot of horror storys to the contrary. When I worked on an offshore rig where we had 2-5k hp Solar Centaur gas turbine gen sets and it took large controlers to sync them in to each other and it still wasn't just put it on, you still had to manually wait until the unloaded unit was synch'ed in before the disconnects were re-engaged, and if you missed it, it would pop it right back off line before damage was done. I'm not an electrician, just my experience makes me believe it's not quite that easy. I certainly hope I'm wrong but I wouldn't risk testing the theory on my house. I know synchronous motors produce a good bit of electricity when you shut them off but are still coasting down and induction motors do not or at least not near the same amounts.

It really is that easy. If you have a drill press and a small ac motor you can test it out. Of course you need to get the speed correct to push power and a separate true power meter (like tho one on the pole) so you can see that power is in-fact being pushed, not used. Power plants on dams have one alternator or generator that generates the sin wave at the correct frequency and the rest of the turbines are connected to large induction motors. This will not work with a magnet motor or brush ac motor.

In the olden days rock mines used this method to move rocks down mountains via conveyor belts. The motor kept the belt running, but when large rocks were put on then the motor was sped up and became a generator which also acted as a break to slow the rocks movement. The net effect was no power bill, or in some cases the only source of power to the camp.

Well my eyes were opened on another topic recently and that was solar water heating. I am a product of my environment as with most people. What opened my eyes was how hot solar water heaters can get and how much heat energy can be captured and stored. Enough to supplement home heating not just for a hot shower! I had no idea nor would I have excepted it, except when I read about spiritrancho burning blisters on his foot when a line blew out. But in hindsight I certainly should have understood this as this is why we don't block both sides of exchangers in the plant. A little bit of heat can create a lot of pressure in a closed system and rupture them. Just curious how well solar water heaters work and hope to hear from members who have them in their homes.