A Pelton-wheel Micro-Hydro Scheme

This has been running virtually faultlessly for over 2 years now, but it's VERY small!! (Only 25 watts)

But it's very satisfying to have reading-lamps around the house, powered by my own little system which runs quietly away charging batteries during the day.

This system is powered by water from a spring on our neighbour's property. I've built a little weir on our boundary, and channeled the water in a 50mm polythene pipe down to our house, 400 metres away. The pelton wheel turbine drives a washing-machine motor to provide three-phase alternating current at about 100 volts (no load).
I've rectified this current, regulated it so that it never goes above 28 volts DC, and used it to charge a bank of recycled batteries.

.....more here later....

Here's a couple of (very bad) photos to whet your appetite for the moment...


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