Free Power for 16 years from a modified Washing Machine / Water Wheel

[Applause] [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] right I'm giving the hydro turbines the yearly check over today my low-voltage alarm is going off at the house I need to figure out what's going on it's only putting out around 300 watts should be up around 600 I built this turbine around six years ago from an old smartdrive washing machine and some other bits I found at the dump it's been running continuously since then it generates enough electricity to run all the appliances in my house and and most of the tools in the shed apart from the compressor and welder I have to get the generator going for those this is what it looked like when I first built it it's obviously been sitting down here in the damp for six years so it's got a bit of growth or not so ever look inside here and see what's going on what the heck is that looks like tree roots or something so just shoot this telephone wheel bearings look right and there's no cups missing that's okay I'll just take this jet off and check it occasionally they get a stone jammed in there looks okay looks like I'll have to walk up the creek and check the intake filter that's an old Madurai tree maybe five to eight hundred years old that was here before the first settlers arrived in New Zealand the growth rings would be really close together on that because it's in such a dark Joey so it'll be quite dense wood I think it's still alive you can see the growth up the top but see there's like a strip of dead bark spiraling around the outside these things tend to tend to rot from the inside out sometimes and this one probably outlive me but it's it's on the way out probably be here for another few hundred years it's quite protected in this valley not too much one down here looks like that join that's been leaking for a while leaving a little plant growing there [Applause] all right so this is my water intake with the main turbine that's just a 4-inch pipe goes about 100 150 meters down that way and it just comes up here under the gravel and the pipe has hundreds of holes drilled in it like this and then the end is closed off and it's got a windbreak material sock over it so effectively this three filters here does a pretty good job I have to clean it out probably once a year it takes about 15 minutes and especially around autumn time and we get a whole lot of leaves coming down the river a certain amount to wash off this after a rain like we get a good rain and the rubber comes up and just washes all the leaves away that get an accumulation of small sand and gravel going through those holes and so I just have to come and dig it out by hand every now and then so anyway that's the filter clean so it should run a bit better now I'm only getting I was only getting 12 amps out of it 24 volts so it should be up around maybe 20 amps usually so hopefully that makes a difference see this this seems to be more to get him through there now so go back to the turbine and check the output so this is the original turbine intake it's a wee bit lower down and the other one it's that's just concreted in there it's good having to if one of them stops then the other one normally just keeps the fridge and freezer scar it's all this pipe I just got a secondhand from an old irrigation unit I think it was about probably $400 all up for around 300 meters of pipe I wouldn't wouldn't want to have to buy that stuff new it'll be thousands of dollars so just got to keep your eye open for for bargains clearing sales and that sort of thing I haven't had to spend a lot on the on the actual set up the most expensive part were the power lines going up to the house that was a couple of thousand dollars but that's half a kilometre of power lines but it would have cost me $14,000 to connect to the grid so that paid for itself the first day I commissioned it really all up the whole whole set up would have cost maybe two and a half thousand dollars it's been running for 16 years without too many problems I don't require a lot of maintenance the smartdrive motors then we just change the bearings once every two years that's really all that needs doing to them I've had that the current turbine has been running for I think six years without any problems one of these days or builder I build a new one but I'm just waiting for the current one to uh to fail but it's just it just keeps going going so you can hear the turbines going from here it just sounds like a washing machine on spin cycle it's going 24/7 never stops early apart from when I change the bearings and change the legit because I have to put a smaller jet on when there's wind there's very little flow this time here and then I put a bigger one on over winter so this is the last the stream has ever been since I've been here there's normally a lot more water than this all right let's if this is any better [Music] well we're here I'll show you my first attempts at building turbines over the past 20 years I picked up most of the parts from the dumps of uh not the flashes looking machines this was my first prototype it lasted a few years but it wasn't very efficient it only produced about 300 watts i cobbled together the waterwheel using an old motorbike sprocket the saw blade and some bits of pipe I was on a very tight budget back in those days but it worked right I mean it wasn't the most efficient thing pretty ugly as well but it did the job looks like something out of Mad Max this was my second attempt it's been running for over ten years it's my backup turbine these days it runs at low speed puts out about five amps I just keep it going case my main turbine stops this will keep the fridge and freezers running it works okay but it's heavy and it's a hassle to open up to get into so this was my third turbine about basically the same as my main turbine now but I left the bearings ended a bit long and the hub melted its way up lasted three years on the original bearings so I try and change them every two years these days so this is the emergency dump valve if the inverter shuts down or the batteries overcharge for whatever reason this will open up and dump all the water from the pipe this is the voltage sensor it's just a little simple analog circuit board if the batteries exceed twenty nine point five volts it dumps away excess power into a water heater and the stream and opens up the dump valve so that's pretty much all there is to it it's a bit of a hassle when things go wrong like today I've got to come down and try and figure out what's going on but I've got most of the bugs out of it these days usually only have to come down once or twice a year the beats paying for power anyway

Channel: Marty T

Views: 4,274,918

Rating: 4.8903842 out of 5

Keywords: hydro, hygro, pelton, micro hydro, water, driven, free, green, eco, friendly, save money, offgrid, tiny house, NZ, Nelson, smartdrive, homemade, diy, do it yourself, you can do it, home built, easy, basic, recycle, repurpose, reuse, re cycle, save, planet, turgo

Id: Xb6TIWub6KU

Length: 13min 17sec (797 seconds)

Published: Sun May 10 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/xKING_SLAYERx]

This was amazing, thanks

[u/londons_explorer]

The only thing I'd change in his setup is I'd use a high voltage DC line for the power to his house.

1 kilowatt at 29 volts is 34 amps, which over half a mile is either incredibly costly (thick copper wires), or very inefficient as you loose most of your power as heat along the way.

Instead, step the voltage up to 1000v, 1A. Regular 17 AWG 1 mm² PVC insulated cables are good for 1000V DC, and cost only ~$0.20/meter. Then the total voltage drop is only 50 volts, so you get 95% worst case efficiency (it gets more efficient when you aren't running the system at full tilt). 1000V will turn out dangerous if someone sticks a spade through it, so stick a 10Mohm resistor divider to ground, and trip the whole lot out if there is more than a few milliamps of leakage.

[u/partial_filth]

Wasn't expecting that to be as good as it was. Really cool

[u/londons_explorer]

I'm pretty impressed that a washer which is probably designed to spin at full speed for 2 minutes per wash and do 1000 washes in it's lifespan (ie. 2000 minutes) can have its bearings still good after running for 2 years at full speed (ie. 500,000 minutes).

[u/oregoon]

I could be wrong here, but I'm pretty sure the drone used in the first 8 seconds of this video managed to fly through a mating site for honeybees! Pretty cool.

[u/pickled-egg]

His whole channel is great, if you like rusty old machines and fixing stuff.

[u/IContiSonoInutili]

Exactly what I expected a man that powers his house with a creek to look like

[u/Supzzz]

While everyone have jobs to pay for electricity, Mr. Marty just sticks a pipe in a tiny little creek and powers his entire home. What a world we live in, respect.

[u/YeahNahWot]

That's Angry Rams dad.