Testing our Waterwheel - Results
Friday and Saturday, 6th - 7th October
Stefan stayed over at Sam's house and they both continued to work on their project.
Past week or two: All ordered items have arrived including the charge controller, rectifiers and fuses.
On Friday, Stefan and Sam began by cutting, trimming and digging their track down into the stream. It looks very nice now. Sam and his dad put together a flume. With the help of a sledgehammer to smash down rocks, they were able to secure the flume into the stream. It is a large wooden track that diverts water to the wheel.
Later on in the evening, Sam and Stefan began rewiring the SmartDrive motor into 3 phase 4 x 3 coils in series. Some photos show their work.
They finished rewiring on Saturday and roughly tested the setup. Despite their efforts, the results were very disappointing. The wheel was supposedly making just under 12 watts, (12 volts at 1 amp). They figured that the wheel was not spinning fast enough and 20 or so watts were being lost from the controller cutting the voltage to 12v to charge the battery. A goal of 100 watts is a challenge.
After a recent comment on one of our videos, we have learned that we must make a larger waterwheel with a gearing system to achieve the best results.
Stefan stayed over at Sam's house and they both continued to work on their project.
Past week or two: All ordered items have arrived including the charge controller, rectifiers and fuses.
On Friday, Stefan and Sam began by cutting, trimming and digging their track down into the stream. It looks very nice now. Sam and his dad put together a flume. With the help of a sledgehammer to smash down rocks, they were able to secure the flume into the stream. It is a large wooden track that diverts water to the wheel.
Later on in the evening, Sam and Stefan began rewiring the SmartDrive motor into 3 phase 4 x 3 coils in series. Some photos show their work.
They finished rewiring on Saturday and roughly tested the setup. Despite their efforts, the results were very disappointing. The wheel was supposedly making just under 12 watts, (12 volts at 1 amp). They figured that the wheel was not spinning fast enough and 20 or so watts were being lost from the controller cutting the voltage to 12v to charge the battery. A goal of 100 watts is a challenge.
After a recent comment on one of our videos, we have learned that we must make a larger waterwheel with a gearing system to achieve the best results.
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| 100 watt light bulb |
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| Digging a track into the stream |
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| Rewiring schematic |
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