North Wales 1.5 Kw Hydroelectric System Part 5 Making The Turgo Turbine

hey everyone so uh off out to the workshop and in this video we're gonna be making a turbine for the hydroelectric install i'm doing full installation it's about one kilowatt turbine sort of average around that mark uh 1.5 peak really high flows but um it's gonna be something a bit different from mine because i've been developing with the help of my friend john a 2-inch bsp spear valve nozzle with the idea being that you can have one valve that does a really broad range of flows and that's what this turbine is going to be getting so here is the spear valve we're working on two inch bsp spear valve now it's a bit messy uh we haven't focused on absolute perfection with it it's a prototype um as you can see it's a two inch bsp so we've got we can run really high flows through this um and in this job it's going to have about five liters per second going through it with about uh 40 meters of head something like that and um so you can see we wind out this which i'm going to make a bigger handle for this actually and we wind this out and as we wind out the orifice opens allows water to flow out so with this what we can do is we can have one nozzle with one pipe so more efficient one nozzle doing a very big wide range of flows so that's the idea behind that it's a brass and stainless steel combination anywhere where stainless steel is touching um it touches brass so that you don't get locking problems because stainless steel has a tendency to buy and bind to itself so we've got brass rod inside there stainless steel spear and brass nozzle and yeah we're going to put this on this turbine and eventually it will get changed for an updated model because we've already started work on mark two uh but for now we're gonna put this one on it and uh see how it works out for the customer those of you who've been watching the hydroelectric videos probably seen that i'm working on my uh my own spoon design so uh this is the new updated version the slants back which i found is a bit more efficient and this is the small version of it just 3d printed obviously they're not actually going to be like this once they're made this is going to be scaled up made much bigger for different situations but it's not ready yet i haven't got any made so for this turbine going with these type of togo spoons these are rated for 34 millimeter jet size this has a 22 millimeter jet so they're they're about right the other ones i use can't take the jet size that the spear valve comes out the ones that are on my turbines for having to go with the next size up which these and these will be quite well suited to that that nozzle size so that's what we're going to do we're working off of a cad model which i made uh yesterday and the day before and um i've got the runner disc here there's a dxf file i'll try and get the actual turbine itself made today rough cut it out on the plasma table and then manually drill the holes very accurately machine out the middle on the lathe so that's first job we're going to make the turbine itself so let's get to work stainless steel is very expensive these days so we're doing a trial run running through the program just making sure it's doing the right thing without the plasma cutter on just doing a bit of uh steel seems to be doing the right job at a minute so i'm drilling the holes rather than plasma cutting them out i'm just boring a single hole down this seems to be working [Music] so here is our rough cut out disc needs the holes machining out accurately and as you can see for some reason it skipped two holes it's because of my power system i have to pause it to um to let the air compressor start up again then when i start it it um i haven't figured out how to get it to start the torch and then board it goes to it goes to start and misses a hole it's my fault um but there's no point wasting the piece of stainless so i'll just manually figure out where they need to go and drill them out so now it's just tidying this up and machining [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] there we go that is our uh plate runner mounting disc the turbo turbo turbo spoons the backs of them sit against here this allows it to take more power it doesn't actually need it for this job but why not you know make a quality job of it uh so that's our turbine turbo turbine mounts this way up jet will be coming in from here and getting split between two spoons yeah we've gone quite big with it it's quite a lot bigger than mine one because of the jet size and also because of the head elevation and the type of alternator i'm using i would slow it down a bit so we don't get too much voltage to cook the charge controller by coming a bit bigger we lower the rpm a little bit hey everyone so i've just got my turbine parts laid out so uh just need to assign them a cutting command and then we shall cut them out this piece of stainless steel but uh it's very expensive stuff so we don't want to make any mistakes [Music] so [Music] so [Music] so [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] right we are ready to mount the alternator right so that stage is done the housing so the next job is to make the boss which connects the turbine to the shaft of the alternator yeah very pleased with it very very pleased today's job is to make the boss for the turbine to mount the turbine to the um to the output shaft of the alternator we've got this two inch piece of stainless steel three or four stainless steel and we're gonna make quite a complicated part with no mistakes so let's get that mounted faced off the first job is to drill a 12 millimeter hole all the way through it let's get a bit further in about there [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] right because i don't have a rotary table i have a uh a um digital readout on my milling machine but i'm not that familiar with it but what i've done is i've put this temporary locator ring on here which fits this very very nicely and tightly so i'm going to locate that on there and then i'm going to mark the holes of this because then i can't get them wrong and if i was slightly out when doing these they're still going to line up so it means it'll only line up in one spot most likely but um that's how we're going to have to do it with the tools and machines i've got so it's located so make a tool now to mark these very accurately and then i drill these out [Music] got the holes drilled out so now i'm going to cut a piece off of here to be that clamping plate and all these holes will line up obviously because they're uh they're already drilled all the way through so we're going to cut a slither off this now i've just machined that location i've had on there off quite a slice off then we'll machine that locator back on right so i've chopped that piece off of there now we'll uh machine those faces off on the lathe square everything off again [Music] our plate that clamps everything down from the top those holes just need drilling out sixes because currently they're tap in size so [Music] all right the next job is to bore out this hole to the correct size for um for the output shaft of the alternator so i've got a drill bit here which gets us within point five of a millimeter and then we'll ream out the rest to get an accurate fit very important to have an accurate fit here all right something like that [Applause] so i bought it out with the internal boring bar and it's a really nice bit really nice not too tight so it'll be easy enough to come off it won't bind up but it's touching you can feel that it's touching there's no play and you can hear it all the way up perfect fit ladies i'm really pleased with that because it's quite difficult to do that yeah excellent it bottoms out there and there'll be a 12 mil bolt holds that in that goes on there like that and then this goes on here and then that on there looking good looking very good although that's upside down right i need to tap these holes now i've just cut these three holes these are going to act as a key because i don't have the ability to cut an internal keyway unfortunately um if i could then i'd cut an internal keyway but i can't so with these three six millimeter bolts we'll go through and lock into the key yeah i'm really pleased with how this is lining line up nice and tight at the moment it's excellent i haven't tapped the holes i've got them started on the mill but um my tap's feeling a bit blunt i don't want to risk breaking one so get a new tap and finish them and then the boss will be done just lining up my jets and everything so i haven't quite finished the boss yet because i need to get a new tap because i'm going to risk breaking a tap if i carry on they're all started i need new taps and start fitting the nozzle now i've drilled a hole where my model where on from the cad model where it says my jet should be and then i'm just poking this uh poker through just to check for my jet alignment i hope you can see that no you can't hang up so you probably see a little bit better now but yeah that shows me the jet alignment shows me where we're facing and that's pretty good needs to move over a tiny bit slightly further into the cup [Music] [Laughter] i went out this morning got a new tap and um yeah they're all tapped to the right depth now it was all sitting nice and screws down lovely it's exactly as i wanted it so i'm pleased with that so the next job is to assemble but i have a little problem so uh i haven't got long enough bolts to assemble this properly and i've got the wrong size washers they're on order but stuff takes a long time these days to get and i ordered them a few days ago and they haven't come in yet so i'm going to put it together with these but there's not enough stick out and i don't have enough bolt to get a washer on the back so you have to take it apart but we'll get it in a position where we have it all together get it on site and fitted and all i have to do is lift up flip it over and just change these won't take long uh yeah so let's uh have a clean up of this and then we'll start assembling for those that don't know this is a spear valve this is an adjustable flow nozzle and also can turn the water off by the name valve so it uses this spear shape water comes from the outside of here it runs around this sphere and tends to cling to it and then in the nozzle there's a corresponding taper which is the same as the spear sorry i haven't got great focus i don't think but yeah in there you can see that's the same shape as the as the spear the spear can then push against that and seal it or be moved in and out to create variable flow rates they're very they're very good a little bit less efficient than a um a fixed nozzle because you've got all this space taken up in here by you know this stuff that needs to be there but you can have such a wide range of flows of them you can have less nozzles and there's an efficiency saving there the reason i haven't used them in the past is because we haven't had um a two inch one one that's big enough for most of my needs but me and my friend john have been working on this now for a while and this now can do four liters per second at 20 meters of head so it's sufficient for this job to be just a singular nozzle which works out very efficiently and that spear gets adjusted in and out on here a lot of work goes into making one of these turbines you know there's a you can buy stuff mass-produced and nothing wrong with them to get started you know the chinese ones or plastic ones by certain company um they say they serve a purpose and i'm not having a go at them at all but to get really good efficiencies you've got to be custom-made to the site's conditions and that's what this is this is a custom made turbine exactly made to the site conditions right yeah that one's going to next is the turbine which will have to come back off yet normally i'd probably put a little bit of a lock tight on them on this on on these bolts but like say we're going to take it off again yet so we won't do that jet hits in the spoon there water blasts out this way at the bottom yeah very pleased with that looking excellent all right let's flip this back over it's getting heavy how about that for a bit of rain then it is chucking it down oh thunder and lightning just uh finished this 3d print it's a handle i had designed so uh that basically slides over there these this is made by my friend john he's done the machining for this he's done support rod the spear and the mechanism here and um he uses these uh because he's you know what he knows how to do and what he's been doing for the smaller spears and um it's fine when we tested this it's fine for the the smaller ones he does but on this because it's quite a big flow he said it can get a bit hard to turn that small diameter when you know it's high pressure in there so i've 3d printed a nice big hand wheel that will slide over there much easier to turn i might have gone a little bit over the top with it but it is nice and easy to turn so let's get that slid on it does look kind of uh out of place that i might make that a bit smaller if i do it again this first time i printed this prototype i have to say it does look out of place but it feels really nice got a lot of purchase on it it does feel very nice so i don't know the idea if it's not for looks it is for function so we might leave that like that let's just get that down a little bit further so it butts up to the end that's it like that that close all the way yes it does that's it should look a bit better in silver shouldn't it so we'll uh give that a try once that dries blend it in a bit all right hey everyone i'm on site and as you can see by wet and muddy and hot and sweaty i am it's uh chucking down the rain um which is a good thing because uh we're actually at flow rates now that this could be on should be around there somewhere there we go just like that we'll go up and have a look at the intake in a bit i'm not here all day i haven't got that much to do just come to fit this and work out the manifold oh yeah the uh the other thing from last time is i got a new gauge and uh we're at 50 psi i've actually got it turned off so it's reading 30 at the minute but we're at 50 psi i'll show you that in a bit these are getting chemical anchor fixings because um you know i don't want to put expander bolts so close to the edge right the anchors are set we've got a washer then a nut and then washer again and the turbine sits on there bolted down to that and then that gives a little space underneath for uh any water in here to drain out into the drainage hole it's a way of not needing a uh another drain let's get this turbine on again so we've got a new gauge just turn the valve on because the valve is off at the minute there we go bouncing around a bit can you see that i'll move you in trying to get it to focus but yeah you can see there we go 50 psi so 50 psi will get a kilowatt about 5 liters per second might even be 51. so i've been having trouble a bit with the focus in here so hopefully it's uh hopefully it's okay i'm gonna run a bit of water through all this and just check that it's draining out under the turbine as we planned take this off of here let a bit of water run through take that home with me all right let's uh open up the flood gate a little bit not too much just as a test make sure we're draining there we go too much a bit of a bit of sediment in there you see there we go that's more like it not gonna get everything soaked yeah it's working yeah the drain is working excellent it's flowing out underneath the turbine i'll show you there is coming out the building there's going to be some epdm uh line of the first couple of meters so we don't erode under the foundation it's just another job on the list all right so i'm uh i'm up at the intake and as you can see i haven't haven't cleaned it and it's uh it's working really really well actually it's really clean considering the amount of water we got flowing so as you can see there is a bit of an issue with it hitting that fitting so i might have to make a little something to stop that because that's not quite ideal that but look how good that's working that is really good what a difference a few weeks makes a so that now is a well sufficient um flow for us to have a kilowatt off this system that's what a lot more than three liters per second sorry five liters per second as you can see we've got a little bit of air getting trapped here so i haven't got around to trimming this yet and shaping it and we need to come to this edge a little bit but it's working very well very very well indeed it's hardly got blocked up at all that's three weeks that's been going like that anyway happy with that i just need to have a little strip of metal or something to stop that letting you know i'll just put a rock there for now so i'm back home and the um installation of the turbine on site went really well and i'm really pleased with how it turned out and i'm sure really sure it's going to do a really good job i had a really hard time filming it though had camera focus issues and then inside the small building my sound went all way too loud very difficult making these videos on my own um when i'm trying to focus on what i'm doing as well so yeah sorry for that i tried to edit the audio as best i could but i've got these new microphones and they're very sensitive you've gotta get everything just right um yeah other than that all good the next job is going to be to make the manifold to connect up to the pipe and then it's just wiring it up and then it's going to be turning it on and hoping we get what we said it was going to get quite nerve-wracking but i'm sure it will anyway that's going to be the end of this video hope you enjoyed it and thanks for watching

Channel: Kris Harbour Natural Building

Views: 489,950

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Id: MHzXH3Xevbg

Length: 31min 48sec (1908 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 09 2022