Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I thought about using animal power and stored energy.

You take a large weight and a pulley system...dropping the weight slowly from a given height (which you have to figure all this out, how high, the amount of resistance on the pulley, etc.) to run a pump for one hour, or to create friction for heat or etc for one hour.

Then you simply set up a system of about 24 of these weights/pulley systems, and use animals to raise all the weights. This will give you enough energy to run your system for twenty four hours. Then to recharge the system you simply have to use the animal power again before all the weights have been dropped down.

Interesting?

later,

jeff c

LOLOLOLOLOL

I like it.

jeff c

I think my pic may have killed your thread :don't know: ... sorry about that I think if we all lost power ( apocalipse ) you would need some way to power your AP

I would think that the cost of feeding the animal to generate the power to run the system would be higher than using bought power or renewable energy as animals convert energy too inefficiently, energy is wasted generating heat, growing, thinking, breathing and most need to sleep and use energy doing this while not producing any work.

I guess if you already have an animal that you are not getting any work out of then it is less of a waste, and you could also recoup some of the lost energy by consuming the animal when its efficiency drops below an acceptable level.

To get the most out of an animal powered system you would have to match the animal size and power out put to the energy demand and only make the animal work as the demand for power is switched on so that they conserve as much energy as possible.

Here in Western Australia our State fauna emblem in the Numbat

http://www.australiangeographic.com.au/ ... 3&gid=7381



and we train them to live in the ceilings of our homes to generate electricity on demand, the numbats run on a hamster wheel (we call them "numbat wheels" over here) to generate electricity. To get the numbat to start running you simply flick the light switch which turns on a rechargeable battery powered LED on the front of the numbat wheel, this LED attracts insects to the front of the unit which the numbat likes to eat and the numbat starts to run on the wheel in order to get at the insect and keep the LED Lit. One numbat wheel generates enough electricity to power one standard 100w light globe and recharge the LEDs battery, so a typical household would require several numbats living in the ceiling with a numbat wheel attached to each light. The only down side is that once a month you need to get in the roof space and vacuum the numbat bowel offerings from the ceiling, although some people claim that if you can live with the stench over time the numbat scat will build up and become a quite efficient form of ceiling insulation at no cost to the home owner. Also we can't use dimmer switches as it confuses the numbat. For larger appliances you simple couple several numbat wheels together.

The Greenies over here think that numbat power is cruel and exploits the animal but as can be seen from the second photo the numbats are free to move about the roof space and are not confined to the numbat wheel, the fact is they prefer to catch insects using the light from the wheel because it is more efficient for then than hunting them down or digging to find them. Even so the RSPCA over here have started a campaign to get everybody to switch to those low energy light globes so that the numbats don't have to run so hard to light the globe as they are worried about numbat burn out rates and that they become dependent on the numbat wheel for their food and often can't survive when the people living in the house go away on holiday. I did changed my globes to the new ones but switched back again as I found my numbats got fat and lazy, in the end they were struggling to run for more than half and hour and my TV was dying right in the middle of "Grey's Anatomy" which was annoying.

Obviously for infrequently used appliances with a higher energy demand it becomes less efficient to just add more numbat wheels so you need to move to a larger more efficient marsupial. For my washing machine and dishwasher I have a wombat, I only have one so I can't run both at the same time but you get used to it and is not really a problem, wombats are really efficient as they sleep most of the time they are not working. We don't bother with koalas they are incredibly lazy, have a surly nature and worse attitude than a teenager.

I suggest the Americans look into harnessing opossums in the same way and I see no reason why a similar se up using meerkats would not work for the Saffas

Ummm, forgive me, but is that not a Quoll? That eats meat and stuff, rather much like an opossum?

Nah I paint them to look like quolls so tht the real quolls leave them alone

Simo, here in Queensland we use possums, I have found that they are much more efficient.

Simo, are you using the Numwheel 5000(latest model with sealed roller bearings)? I have the Numwheel 4500.

The bottom picture shows the new 5000 as can be seen from the green panel on the front, the all yellow model is the 4500 like you use, I change out the 4500s for the 5000s when they burn out. I have found that 5000 run much quieter.

Simo, does the 5000 blow fuses intermittently like the 4500 is so well known for? I also have had problems with carpet snakes eating the possums Do you have any snake problems?

So far I have not had any fuse problems with the 5000s, the design is a vast improvement on the 4500 and better quality too.

I have not lost a single numbat to snakes since I started painting them to look like quolls, I can only assume that the snakes have an aversion to quolls which as we all know are widely known as the "antipodean mongoose".

Your funny Simo.....

You are funny Simo.
or
You're funny Simo,

Please!