Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

i have been looking into micro hydro power systems and believe this could be a viable salutation to run your ap system off grid.
if you use a bilge pump to pump the water a pedal wheel connected to a car alternator to charge a bank of battery's.
the connect a ac/dc convertor to you battery bank witch would then be connected to a 240 v plug that you connect your pump to.
i believe this could supply enough power to keep a pump running off grid and if you had a problem with the system you would have a 3 or more hours of power ( depending on how many battery,s you have in your bank) in your battery bank so you would have time to plug your pump into mains power until you fix the problem.
this is Basically the same as hooking up a ac/dc converter system for a caravan except you are using a 12 volt bilge pump to turn the alternator and not a car engine.

now some things i would like to explain

the alternator

explanation 1

providing you get a alternator with a biult in regulator you will not over charge a battery unless the alternator packs up. the resin for this is because the regulator automatically switches on and off. when the battery bank gets below 12 volts the alternator starts to charge and then cuts off and free spins when the battery bank gets to 14.8 volts so unless the alternator packs up you will not explode a battery and even if the alternator packs up it normally douse not charge enough.

explanation 2

the aether foreseeable problem i have come up with is that even if the alternator is not charging it is still free sniping a wearing out you alternator

so lets say for example
you have a battery bank of 3 battery's and they will run the AP pump for three hours with
out the alternator recharging

on the pipe line that brings the water to the paddle wheel to operate the alternator.
on that pipe you can fit a 12 volt electric gate verve and a reticulation timer

so what will this do?
if you set the reticulation timer to open the gate valve every 2 hour the your ap pump will operate off the battery,s for 2 hours and then the gate valve will open sniping the alternator and charging you battery bank back to full and when the gate valve switches off the alternator will stop and so you do not have your alternator spinning contently witch means your alternator will last longer.

i would like to point out that people in the us are doing this already all be it in a slightly different way as they use a generator and a on and off switch with i have replaced with a reticulation gate valve and timer.

also i have not actually put this into practice myself but am going to very soon
if you wish to know more about micro hydro electric power systems there is a good selection of clips on you tube

please comment as i would value you opinion

thank you
vegaponicd

Perpetual motion just hasn't been cracked quite yet.

Pump lifting /moving water = energy loss.
Conversion of water movement to power by generator is not 100% efficient.
Storage of power in battery has losses as well.
Even just 12v-240v conversion by inverter is going to be only 80-90% efficient.

So even if you can arrange your system such that a generator can be included you are still going to need an external power source to make up the difference. Be it solar, mains power or you sitting on a modified exercise bike/pedal generator for most of day.

Btw below about 2000 turns a minute a car alternator is unlikely to produce high enough voltage to charge a battery. So you will need to modify it for lower speeds.

a alternator already operates at idle speed on a car so you will noit need to get another power source providing you get enough water pressure.

for instance i am using a bilge pump to get the water up to a tank in the roof and then run a pipe around the walls of the shed keeping a 10% downward incline on the pipe. the first 150 ft of pipe should be 90mm storm water pipe then at 150 ft regular intervals reduce the size of the pipe until you get to 20mm. now use this pressure to spin you alternator. the higher the volume of water pushing down hill the higher the presser and the faster you will get a alternator to spin.

at max speed an alternator will charge a battery at 110 to 120 amps and this will charge a battery from dead to full capacity in a quoter of a hour. and it should supply enough power.

if you can use an alternator on a car and connect an ac/dc adapter an run Waco coolers refrigerators, computers, electric stoves and radios in a caravan for 3 to 4 hours then this will work.

The fatal flaw in this plan is that it will cost you more energy to pump the water up to the roof than you will harvest with your generator. Wind or solar would be better options.

Yep, sorry vegeponic, it just won't work... You are working against gravity and against friction, there just isn't such a thing as a free lunch.

Perpetual motion http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perpetual_motion

Idle speed of the car is 500-1000rpm depends on car. The pulley system converts that up to about 2000rpm at the alternator. I think the lowest alternator rpm I have seen was 1600rpm.
Below that they may generate some power but at not high enough voltage to charge an battery.

Sure you can use a pulley system, but then you need higher pressure to turn your water wheel.

ok i see your point
you are saying that you will not get the rpm,s you need out of the alternator to recharge the battery

BUT

water mass = pressure = higher speed out of the pelton/water wheel = higher rpm,s at the alternator

so if you get a 2000L water tank on a 3m high stand and run a pipe out of the bottom of the tank
down on a 10 degree angle to a pelton/water wheel then you should get the rpm,s required as 2000L of water at 1 kg per 1L = 2000 KG =XXXX pounds of pressure and pumping the water back up would not take much with a 9000l per hour bilge pump as it only needs to pump a height of 3 meters.

also if that is not enough you can create a larger water wheel convected to a bicycle wheel.
then run a belt off the bicycle wheel down to you alternator to gear it up to the rpm,s needed.

i can spin a 55 amp alternator by hand and get 7 to 8 volts out of it so a 110 amp alternator should do better.

Simple it cant be done

I don;t think you quite get the point VP... friction and gravity just make it impossible...

If it was possible, then we wouldn't need to burn dirty coal to get power, and everyone would have a little system in their back yards, but????? You make no allowance for losses in your calcs.

i remeber as an 8 yearold getting a Dynamo for Christmas for my bike with 6v lights etc....

i hacked apart a RC Car and got the 6v motor out of it and joined it all up so the motor run the dynamo etc thinking this would be Awesome once i kick start it with the battery it will run forever...

Short story.... im not a billionaire... yet again its not possible man.....

wish it was.....

Unless you have a massive amount of free water sitting at a great height [ eg living below a dam or stream], don't waste your time,money and oxygen.

i still bereave it can work. try vegging this sight

platypuspower.com.au

I can't make up my mind if your a troll or not

A couple pictures of a micro turbine proves what?

$4000 turbine low flow. That's bore the client brought inverters etc and built the installation.
4L a sec at 10m produces 200w. (14400 Liters an hour)

Now find me a pump that can lift 14400 liters an hour at 10m head but uses less than 200w.

Total different story if you have a nice hill and a year round stream.

Despite the fact that I have a creek running through my front yard I still don't have enough potential energy to do this economically (because of lack of fall) so there is no way a bilge pump would prove enough.

If you could get a bilge pump to turn an alternator fast enough to produce power it would not be enough to run the bilge pump let alone an inverter connected to say a 35watt AC pump.

If what you are say was feasible it would simply be easier to hook a solar panel to a battery bank and then run an inverter from the battery to power your pump. This can't be done however and sooner or later you will run out of battery power. I have never hooked my 35 watt pump up to an inverter and ran it from a battery to measure actual current draw but you can bet it would be more than was sustainable from any small solar or hydro system.

Think you nailed it there Privatteer