Free power- How to convert an old washing machine into a water powered generator

I made a short video about this a couple of years ago and it's turned out to be quite popular so this time I'll go into more detail and cover the entire process including how to rewire the stator and make a custom charge controller there are many ways to power this homemade generator you can mount it on a windmill bicycle biogas motor anything that will spend the shaft fast enough I have a good supply of free water on my property so I'm going to attach a Pelton wheel to the shaft divert some of the water through a pipe and the difference in height between the water intake and the Pilton will will create enough water pressure to spin the shaft generating enough electricity to power my house this is what you're looking for a Fisher and Paykel smart drive it doesn't matter about the size or model number though pretty similar underneath tip it over and have a look underneath you should see something like this as long as the rotor turns freely and there's no side-to-side movement and the bearings that should be okay to use pretty easy to pull apart just a couple of screws hold on the top on take those up flip it back and you'll see a couple of wires there at the back just snip those unhook everything connected to the middle housing and just pull the tab out of there all you really need to keep us the tub the stator the rotor shaft and bearings everything else can go if you're building a windmill or attaching it to a motor you might want to cut bearing assembly out of there but since I'm using it for water I'll leave it as it is the motor will produce electricity with the factory wiring but it is capable of making four hundred volts AC which is dangerous to work with and not very useful for most sit-ups some people do use it like this but I don't recommend them pull the rotor off the back and have a look for any chips or cracks and the magnets if they're starting to break up you might need to look for a new rotor check the state of wiring for any signs of corrosion or broken wires and if you have a multimeter test the windings for continuity these small cracks and the plastic are nothing to worry about most of them have these now you're ready to rewire the stator I made a detailed video showing how to do this have a look on my channel and you'll see it there using an old inner tube cut out a circle around six inches in diameter cut a hole in the center and slip it on the shaft keep it about a centimeter away from the rear of the tub now I'll attach the Pelton wheel to the shaft you can get these on eBay for under $100 this one's been adapted to slide straight on the spline but you can just bolt them on using the thread on the shaft the water jet needs to hit the center of the Pelton cups so using a ruler mark out where the hole for the nozzle will be cut use a hole saw to cut out when you made the mark now cut a hole in the bottom of the tub to let the water out after it's been through the turbine now I'm making the shoot out of an old heavy-duty piece of plastic and some screws this will guide the water back into the stream using some half-inch plywood mark and cut out a cover for the front of the tub this will add strength and stop water splashing out a piece of perspex over the front acts as a service hatch and let you see what's going on inside cut the hole big enough to pull the Pelton wheel out for servicing so we're consuming around the edges keeps it all water tight that Ruben lost hot fit push it in around one inch from the edge and screw it in place cut out a piece of fun for the seal around the service hatch glue it in place with some silicon sealant before the silicon sets I'm going to drill four holes around the edge of the perspex and clamp it down with four stainless steel bolts using wide washers to overlap the edge of the perspex no I'm making a cover to stop rain getting into the electrics the plastic breaks down quickly in sunlight so a quick coat of paint will protect it from the Sun the reward stata rosa and rick the flock can now be bolted in place the rectifier converts the three-phase AC output of the generator into DC current suitable for charging a battery bank follow the link here to see how to make one plug the AC leads of the rectifier and the Spade terminals on the stator and attach the rotor now the holes with a pump used to be need to be filled so I'll just jam a couple of plastic bags in there and it's done already to start making free power this is the generator I'm replacing as you can see it's seen better days I didn't check the bearings for about four months they wore out overheated and the whole hub just melted out I'll reuse the base I made on my last video have a look there to see how it's made it's basically just a cradle to fit the contour of the tub the water pressure is about 45 psi [Music] at the moment had smoking about 21 amps at 29 volts which is just over 600 watts if I put a bigger water jet on it it'll make up to 900 watts but I don't really need that much power this time of year the power from the generator runs into a battery bank through a fuse and into an inverter where it is boosted from low voltage DC into standard household voltage the battery bank stores the power so if I need to run an appliance more than the 600 Watts from the generator the battery bank makes up the deficit so I can run kettle toaster microwave and other high load appliances the charge control of senses when the batteries are fully charged and dumps any excess power you can buy these custom-made for off-grid setups but they are expensive and have their limitations I prefer to use a programmable logic controller they are much cheaper and more flexible I use this one to dump the excess power into my hot water cylinder and when that is up to temp that switches relays and the power is dumped into a small heater it also sounds an alarm when the battery voltage is low or high and dumps straight from the battery of the inverter failed I made a short video showing the basics of programming this one so click on the link here to see it you

Channel: Angry Ram

Views: 8,493,422

Rating: 4.8715734 out of 5

Keywords: Energy, Power, free, easy, build, diy, do, it, yourself, turbine, physics, h20, h2o, perpetual, motion, bankie, pelton, sunny boy, outback, inverter, battery, bank, batteries, charge, amazing, overunity, over, unity, Climate, Warming, Global, Change, Solar, Gas, Green, Wind, Electricity, Generator, Environment, Clean, Global Warming, Tesla, Magnet, Solar Energy (Industry), Electric Generator (Invention), Technology, Save, Alternative, Climate Change, water, improvise

Id: 0ieFZI4-6K8

Length: 10min 24sec (624 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 24 2014

Reddit Comments

[u/RowingCox]

Please check the codes in your area before doing any of this. This guy definitely did not have an inspector look over his work. If you have a grid tied home you need some means of cutting you homes main grid tie when the power goes out. Otherwise you will energize the lines near your home and can injure a linesman.

Edit: If you do decide to create this crazy invention be sure to have a dump load to dump all unused power. He heats water with a resistive heating element. This is very important so you do not build up extra heat and set stuff on fire!

[u/Almoe9]

wow , this is awesome!

[u/SNip3D05]

this would be epic.. if i had a river.

[u/W35]

Here's a bit more of a professional job, though still very DIY

[u/CyberTractor]

Next thing you're gonna tell me is a microwave can be used as a time machine.

[u/iemfi]

A 20 cents a kWh 600W is about 100 bucks a month. Not too shabby at all. Would be pretty cool to scale it up and use the excess power to mine bitcoin or something. With a couple hundred bucks a month one could pretty much live off the grid with some sweet passive income.