SIMPLE MACHINES and/or CLEVER TOOLS

[PRR]

> some simple machines.
> "church key" aka beer can opener. 
> can opener: ... Gears, levers, piercing knife edge, etc.

Old. Once/twice in a lifetime a new "simple machine" appears and you can only say "golly!"

People live near water, but above it, yet wish for a little water in the house.

Some fair number of people can haul water up from a flowing stream. But how to avoid hauling?

Dam, wheel, generator, motor, pump.

There is a "Hydraulic Ram" which will lift a small amount of water a great height by dumping a lot of water at a low height. But it does need some height to work from (a dam); and it is incredibly loud.

One of the old-time HR companies has a new idea.

http://www.riferam.com/river/index.php

Advance the video to 0:23. There's a propeller on a bucket in a stream. Water comes out a hose, up to 82 feet.

But what takes the prop's torque reaction? How much gear-down is in the bucket to deliver 34PSI (2 atmospheres)?

Advance video to 1:35-2:00. All that's in there is a pipe helix. The first turn dips-up a foot of water and spirals it toward the output. Each turns adds another foot of pressure. They add up to significant lift.

Another picture at http://www.riferam.com/river/how.php

There's only one moving part (the whole thing) and only one bearing (the swivel-joint). Wow!

Price is very good compared to other choices. I wish I had a stream a tenth as good as that one. (Here it would only work 20 hours a year; my flow is more like 6 inches and has been zero for months.)

True, it kinda depends on cheap plastic buckets, good swivels, and very cheap plastic tubing, so it would not have been as practical in 1884 (when the company started with rams).

 

[JohnRoberts]

The amount of work you can get out is a function of flow. Back in the '90s I owned an acre east of Atlanta with running water on two sides of my land,,, One was a river that never ran dry, but the smaller creek was probably less dependable. I thought of putting in a low head turbine in the creek to grab some energy but I suspect these days the local regulators would critically inspect any such messing with "their" water. I ended up selling the property, but I had visions of exploiting the running water.  8)

Yes hydo power has a long tradition in new england. There are probably dams and water wheels sitting unused up there.

JR

PS: While not really a machine I recently purchased a dust mop... (a swiffer sweeper) and I am impressed with the design and functionality for a basic dust mop. It works very well for what it is..

 

[PRR]

The advantage of the River Pump is that it does not (appear to) mess with the stream flow, so is likely to evade dam regulations.

Of course it does back-up the stream some. But unless you tether it tight in a dug-ditch just big enough, the increased head is fractions of an inch, and it needs over a foot above low-water bottom, so not noticeable.

It captures a very-very small fraction of the stream energy. Which is fine for a larger (10,000 gallons/day) stream and you only need 100 gallons a day for the house.

It is of course derived from the Archimedes Screw. He didn't have good tubes, water was open, and he had to mechanically screw it up to where it was going. Here all the push is developed in a closed tube at water level and forced up through a plain hose.

I don't think it directly drives a modern house. It seems to gulp huge chunks of air. I picture it lifting to a barrel, where the air can blow-off, then some other pump (gravity) feeds solid water to fixtures. Still avoids putting a power pump right at the creek (you can't lift water much by suction).

 

[PRR]

> hydo power has a long tradition in new england. There are probably dams and water wheels sitting unused up there.

Before 1800, *every* inch of fall along Connecticut rivers (streams) was accounted-for in water rights to run mills. The water-rights system improved on the old plan of knocking-out your neighbors' dams when they dropped your upper water or raised your lower water level. (However it was not long before mills needed even more power and the fast-fix was to install a steam engine to lift used water back over your own dam to fall again. Saved major re-work of the head-end gearing.)

In Maine they dammed the river at Bangor a century ago. For saw-mills and also to help catch the logs floated down the river from the north woods. But by the mid 20th century the amount of hydro-power here was only a drip in the bucket of our total power needs. Specially since the up-water level could not be changed much (for feast/famine storage) without complaints from landowners along the bank. Coal then gas boilers (and some imported nuclear for a few decades) did the job and the dam power lay un-used. But still blocking the fish, and that's a mighty spawning-area above the dam. Last year they knocked the Bangor dam out.

A smaller river nearer me does have a mighty dam and appears to be making electricity (as well as water storage for a city that burnt-down before they built the dam).

There is a hydro-plant on an even smaller river south. The utility wanted to disown it: not worth the trouble and liability. Some younger guy raised money to buy it and operate it, nominally for profit. As I doubt the dam delivers as much power as a large V-8, it will be interesting to see if he can even cover his own time, much less any repairs to aging obsolete machinery.

 

[JohnRoberts]

We all love the concept of something for nothing.

The engine behind hydro is solar that evaporates the water from below the dam then deposits it above. Surely a mature technology, while capturing energy from tidal flows seems promising (that energy comes from the moon's gravity).

Another huge source of energy is the thermal gradient between ocean surface and a hundred feet down. In some better future we might capture energy from the warm ocean surface around the equator, and reduce the severity of tropical storms.

I always wondered about harvesting lightning but that seems less regular than solar and wind power, not to mention difficult.

It would be attractive to be able to go off grid but even modest streams can dry up in a severe drought. The small creek by my old property was too small to tap reliably, the river already had a short dam (<1' drop) near by.  I'm not sure exactly what the dam was there for, perhaps to make a swimming hole upstream.

JR

 

[Gold]

Hammer is The Basic Tool.

From cracking mastodon skulls to breaking Ford balls.

I didn't do much swinging of hammers before using them for metal hand stamps. The first thing I learned is, swinging a hammer is not as easy as it seems. Getting maximum force and accuracy takes practice. The hammer has to be matched to the job too. I just bought a bigger hammer because I think my hammer swinging skills can handle it. I haven't given it a try yet though.