Last fall we were staying at a holiday cottage generating its own electricity from a water wheel. We reproduced that in a little workshop with the kids, powering a LED with a miniature water wheel.
We made several attempts, a number of which worked, but those based on a stepper motors from a discarded printer proved to be the fastest an easiest to make. Furthermore, apart from some glue it was completely built out of discarded parts, thus combining the demonstration of renewable energy with reuse.
We had a great time building and playing. Check out the video to see the result in action:
We made several attempts, a number of which worked, but those based on a stepper motors from a discarded printer proved to be the fastest an easiest to make. Furthermore, apart from some glue it was completely built out of discarded parts, thus combining the demonstration of renewable energy with reuse.
We had a great time building and playing. Check out the video to see the result in action:
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Signing UpStep 1: Reusing parts and materials
Reused:
a small stepper motor as found in a printer
2 discarded CD-ROMs
a foam tray
some long stick (I used a piece of 20mm diameter PVC tube from demolition)
a LED
one or two tie-wraps
a small piece of scrap paper
Non-reused: The only non-reused part is the hot melt glue (I recommend the low temp type, especially when working with kids).
Tools: scissors, screwdriver to disassemble the printer (not shown), cutting pliers or desoldering tools for (optional, not shown).
Stepper motors make very easy generators, as they produce relatively high voltages (I’m talking 5V range) at low rpm. Small DC motors (toy motors) need high rpm and still produce only a low voltage (1V range). Stepper motors do not need gears and/or electronics to power a LED (compare it to my junior wind turbine). I was worried about blowing up the LED at first, but that did not happen. The current generated being pulsating very probably contributes to that.
I doe not bother to waterproof anything (motor or electronics). Repeated use for several minutes, on several occasions, showed no need for that.
If found two stepper motors in an old Lexmark inkjet printer for which first the ink heads were no longer available and which later did not survive more than a couple of refills of the last ink head. I guess most inkjet printers will have two stepper motors, one for moving the paper and one for moving the head. The way to disassemble the printer will differ for each model. As in this case the printer should be a discarded one and there is no need to put it back together, you can’t do much wrong by simply unscrewing al screws you can find until you can free the stepper motors. Just keep the pinion gear and the connector they come with on the motors. To give you an idea on what to disassemble, you can go looking for an exploded view of your printer, like this one.
With a bit of luck the LED can also be found in the discarded printer. With even more luck you can find some discarded electronics with a LED standing tall on a printed circuit board, with most of its legs still intact, instead of mounted flush on the board. This makes it easier to remove from the print (leave the legs as long as possible) and easier to connect to the stepper motor by simply inserting it in the plug. As alternative you either us a new LED or desolder one and solder it to the stepper motor leads (I guess it is hard to tell if the ecological impact smaller for using a new led or for (de)soldering).
To keep within the spirit, you can also reuse tie-wraps: when you cut them loose carefully near the “ratchet”, you end up with a shorter, but still usable tie wrap.
Now to start building, see the next step.
a small stepper motor as found in a printer
2 discarded CD-ROMs
a foam tray
some long stick (I used a piece of 20mm diameter PVC tube from demolition)
a LED
one or two tie-wraps
a small piece of scrap paper
Non-reused: The only non-reused part is the hot melt glue (I recommend the low temp type, especially when working with kids).
Tools: scissors, screwdriver to disassemble the printer (not shown), cutting pliers or desoldering tools for (optional, not shown).
Stepper motors make very easy generators, as they produce relatively high voltages (I’m talking 5V range) at low rpm. Small DC motors (toy motors) need high rpm and still produce only a low voltage (1V range). Stepper motors do not need gears and/or electronics to power a LED (compare it to my junior wind turbine). I was worried about blowing up the LED at first, but that did not happen. The current generated being pulsating very probably contributes to that.
I doe not bother to waterproof anything (motor or electronics). Repeated use for several minutes, on several occasions, showed no need for that.
If found two stepper motors in an old Lexmark inkjet printer for which first the ink heads were no longer available and which later did not survive more than a couple of refills of the last ink head. I guess most inkjet printers will have two stepper motors, one for moving the paper and one for moving the head. The way to disassemble the printer will differ for each model. As in this case the printer should be a discarded one and there is no need to put it back together, you can’t do much wrong by simply unscrewing al screws you can find until you can free the stepper motors. Just keep the pinion gear and the connector they come with on the motors. To give you an idea on what to disassemble, you can go looking for an exploded view of your printer, like this one.
With a bit of luck the LED can also be found in the discarded printer. With even more luck you can find some discarded electronics with a LED standing tall on a printed circuit board, with most of its legs still intact, instead of mounted flush on the board. This makes it easier to remove from the print (leave the legs as long as possible) and easier to connect to the stepper motor by simply inserting it in the plug. As alternative you either us a new LED or desolder one and solder it to the stepper motor leads (I guess it is hard to tell if the ecological impact smaller for using a new led or for (de)soldering).
To keep within the spirit, you can also reuse tie-wraps: when you cut them loose carefully near the “ratchet”, you end up with a shorter, but still usable tie wrap.
Now to start building, see the next step.
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I will be doing this project soon. Just a question, though. I browsed online for "stepper motors" & I came across motors like this, so I just want to make sure if this would be right?
http://www.adafruit.com/products/858#Learn
You can hack it, but then the actual stepper motor needs very high rpm. I managed to use one in a wind turbine by adding my own gears to the hacked stepper motor, but it became complicated and fragile build.
As far as I know. The cheapest you can buy and that do the trick https://www.sparkfun.com/products/10551
But it does need quite high rpm and therefor a fast water stream. Under a tap it just about works with good water pressure, full open and about half a meter below the tap.
The steppers stripped from printers actually work a lot better.
I've recently had good results with these geared DC motors powering a LED in a wind turbine: http://www.kelvin.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=280513
It should work in a water turbine too. You will need to protect the motor from water, as in contrast to many other motors, these ones break down after having water inside.
succes!
It's just a quick thought.
M
i want to create a self powered "shishi odoshi" (a sort of japanese fountain).
by recirculating the same water with a recirculation pump powered by a hydraulic mill.
i made a gif to explain it: http://img3.imageshack.us/img3/5840/shishiodoshi4resize450.gif
my question is:how do I connect a mill to a circulation pump?
and more generally: how energy (in this case mechanical) can be canalized and used?
here i want ask if my project is possible, cause i don't know if such little turbine or with so little amount of water a recirculation pump can be powered.
thanks in advance
Do I understand correctly you plan to drive the "hydraulic mill" with only the water pumped up? That can not work, as it would be perpetuum mobile.
mmm so i missed a little detail :P
then it's impossible to do it perpetual but for me it would be good in a finished perspective too, if it can go on for a few minutes or hours, it's ok.
what's the main problem? to what point the energy fails?
can work if I add water from time to time in the bottom tub?
or accumulating energy in some way: manually turning the turbine might accumulate energy, for example in a rechargeable battery then leaving it play for a few time.
can you explain better or reply to my questions?
Adding water at the bottom makes no sense, as this brings no energy in the system. Adding water to the top could work. There are systems that use the energy of a large water flow to pump up a smaller amount of water to a higher altitude.
Obviously, powering the pump with a charged battery will have it run for som time, and you could recuperate a part of the energy with the turbine. Feeding this energy back to the battery or the pump would however need some decent control. My guess the energy gained would be rather limited.
I would suggest using an off-the shelf solar powered pump.
Anyway, cool instructable and a neat idea for old CDs, it's given me some ideas on making a siren...
The stepper motor should be able to give enough power to charge such devices when using all coils and a rectifier. The wheel will probably need some upgrading.
A win turbine is actually how I started out :-)
see: http://www.instructables.com/id/Junior-Wind-Turbine/
You could have more effectiveness gluing the vanes at an angle.
In this case I wanted to keep it as simple as possible and have it work in both directions of rotation.
By adding the measurement of voltage and current it would make a good start to experiment on what works best.
How you hold it in the stream is also an important factor. Actually, when holding it with the "edge" only in the water flow, my guess is straight vanes aren't bad. For that kind of use the vanes could be made more narrow (run less deep towards the center), but of course it should remain strong enough.