Pico Hydro How To Downloads - Tips
Hello Chris,
The first paragraph should be tattooed onto the chest
of NGO-ONG people. I remember being a Philosophy Major and studying Logic, some
comments on Empirical Data, the teacher gave an example of few so-called
Philosophers discussing how many teeth a horse had, and the conversation was
continuing for a long period of time finally one says,
- Let us go count. -
I was thinking, offering the wiz kids, not the
NGO-ONG I do not think the know, but the wiz kidsmay like a
challenge.
1000 US if they could go to a village with no
electricity.
Then in one day of work, they can think for longer then one day,
but in only one day of labor.
In one day, the go to local stores, buy all the
materials needed for less than 30 US dollars and run lights into a home that is
100 meters from the river.
This is the problem, a person needs to start and
finish quick, then use only local sold products.
I have here in Badou:
1. 55 Gallon Barrels for a water wheel
2. A 25
Watt 220 Fan for 10 US for a generator
3. Speaker Wire to go the 50
meters
4. I see a ton of broke TV for diodes to stop the electricity going
backwards.
Note, I do not see why we need a battery, the water runs
continually.
The problem, they do not need electricity, the are on
the grid, hehehe, they have electricity, so I maybe I can build here, this is
the problem, build here, I need a mobile source of electricity I just drop in
the water and made in the backyard, garage as we think, and dropped in the
water.
The have two big needs here
1. Pump water from
rivers to homes.
2. Grind grains into flour.
Neither needs electricity
to accomplish.
I do not think lights is needed, but they spend a lot of
time carrying water, and they PAY for gas or petrol to grind grain. Seems to me
that grain mills were invented that use water were invented thousands of years
ago.
Pumping water up, is easier than pulling, I think a
small water pump, using the power of water, to pump water could send a quarter
inch tube of water 300 meters easy, and in the time of one day would pump a lot
of water?
I think a 55 gallon barrel could make a good water
wheel and would not sink.
Speculation and doing are two different things, sort
of causing a challenge in my brain.
There is a difference between solving
the needs and just making complicated solutions to easy problems to
solve.
Andy in Badou, Togo May of 2007
YOU WROTE:
There's plenty of well wishing think tank activists that spend years making
Appropriate Tech for places like Togo and then find either that it's one thing
in the lab and unworkable in the field OR they've simply ignored how local users
do things and adapt to that. For instance one stove group spent countless
hours refining a stove for Guatemalans, gathered a bunch of money and volunteers
and found that they made to wrong type of stove for local cooks and their
recipes. People accepted the stoves and quickly stopped using them.
First, the people, their ways and their environment has to be surveyed and then
the gadgets have to be made for that "market" aor they won't be adopted.
Some things can't be popularized until the society will accept them (great idea,
but ahead of it's time).
I think I'd be glad for anything that takes
less power over something that takes more to operate. That's the whole
point, right? Suggest you have them plug in the fan for you to
evaluate. You may not be happy with it after testing. Microhydro
relies on cumulative storage of small charging capacity. Per day, it all
adds up provided you have enough battery storage. Otherwise, you need
larger chargers to provide the energy for using bigger appliances on demand in
Real-Time mode.
Use of a water pump as a ready made turbine/generator
should be checked out. Off the shelf sounds good.
I just sub'ed to
a
Pico Hydro and it's
download site which you might be able to
use direct from the link Pico Hydro For Village Power (for under 5 KW)
looks like it might be good. Multiple pdf's for easier download. It
get's interesting by the 2nd download listed with pics of their Pico Power Pak the 7th pdf downoad (last
chapter section) Basic Electricity looks
like required reading or for review. I think these would get a Peace Corp
puke dumped somewhere without a project to get started on hot. All in all,
a good eBook in readable style (for a technical manual) for free.
Next download is the 4-part pdf
Pico Power
Pak HOW-TO describing how to build their project Pico generation
system. This might be more worth your time as it include mechanical
drawings and fabrication notes. However, it appears it would require the
services of a machine shop and would be appropriate for manufacturing in a
technology transfer.
- Chris
Pico Hydro How To Downloads - Tips
