Free power- How to convert an old washing machine into a water powered generator

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I made a short video about this a couple of years ago and it's turned out to be quite popular so this time I'll go into more detail and cover the entire process including how to rewire the stator and make a custom charge controller there are many ways are this homemade generator you can mount it on a windmill bicycle biogas motor anything that will spend the shaft fast enough I have a good supply free water on my property so I'm going to attach a Pilton wheel to the shaft divert some of the water through a pipe and the difference in height between the water intake and the Pelton wheel will create enough water pressure to spin the shaft generating enough electricity to power my house this is what you're looking for a Fisher and park will smart drive it doesn't matter about the size or model number they'll pretty similar underneath tip it over and have a look underneath you should see something like this as long as the rotor turns freely and there's no side to side movement in the bearings it should be okay to use they're pretty easy to pull apart just a couple of screws hold on the top on take those out slip it back and see a couple of wires here at the back just snip those unhook everything connected to the metal housing and just pull the tub out of there all you really need to keep us the tub the stator the rotor shaft and bearings everything else can go if you're building a windmill or attaching it to a motor you might want to cut bearing assembly out of there but since I'm using it for water I'll leave it as it is the motor will produce electricity with the factory wiring but it is capable of making 400 volts AC which dangerous to work with and not very useful for most situps some people do use it like this but I don't recommend it pull the rotor off the back and have a look for any chips or cracks in the magnets if they're starting to break up you might need to look for a new rotor chip the state of wiring for any signs of corrosion or broken wires and if you have a multimeter test the windings for continuity these small cracks and the plastic are nothing to worry about most of them have these now you're ready to rewire the stator I made a detailed video showing how to do this so have a look on my channel and you'll see it there using an old inner tube cut out a circle around six inches in diameter cut a hole in the center and slip it on the shaft keep it about a centimeter away from the rear of the tub now I'll attach the Pelton wheel to the shaft you can get these on ebay for under a hundred dollars this one's been adapted to slide straight on the spline but you can just bolt them on using a thread on the shaft the water jet needs to hit the center of the pilton cups so using a ruler mark out where the hole for the nozzle will be cut use a hole saw to cut out when you made a mark now cut a hole in the bottom of the tub to let the water out after it's been through the turbine now I'm making the shoot out of an old heavy-duty piece of plastic and some screws this will guide the water back into the stream using some half inch plywood mark and cut out a cover for the front of the tub this will add strength and stop water splashing up a piece of perspex over the front acts as a service hatch and let you see what's going on inside cut the hole big enough to pull the Pelton wheel out for servicing so we're consuming around the edges keeps it all watertight it should be a nice tight fit push it in around 1 inch from the edge and screw it in place cut out a piece of foam for the seal around the service hatch glue it in place with some silicon sealant before the silicon sets I'm going to drill four holes around the edge of the perspex and clamp it down with four stainless steel bolts using wide washers to overlap the edge of the perspex now i'm making a cover to stop rain getting into the electrics the plastic breaks down quickly in sunlight so a quick coat of paint will protect it from the Sun the rewired stata rosa and rectifier can now be bolted in place the rectifier converts a three-phase AC output of the generator and two DC current suitable for charging a battery back follow the link here to see how to make one plug the AC leads of the rectifier and the spade terminals on the stator and attach the rotor now the holes with a pump used to be need to be filled so I just jam a couple of plastic bags in there and it's done all ready to start making free power this is the generator I'm replacing as you can see it's seen better days I didn't rip the bearings for about four months they wore out overheated and the whole hub just melted out I'll reuse the base I'm out on my last video have a look there to see arts made it's basically just the cradle to fit the contour of the tub the water pressure is about 45 psi at the moment it's making about 21 amps at twenty nine volts which is just over six hundred watts if I put a bigger water jet on it it will make up to 900 watts but I don't really need that much power this time of year the power from the generator runs into a battery bank through a fuse and unto an inverter where it is boosted from low voltage DC and to standard household voltage the battery bank stores the power so if I need to run an appliance more than the 600 Watts from the generator the battery bank makes up the deficit so i can run kettle toaster a microwave and other high load appliances the charge control of senses when the batteries are fully charged and dumps any excess power you can buy these custom-made for off-grid setups but they are expensive and have their limitations I prefer to use a programmable logic controller they are much cheaper and more flexible I use this one to dump the excess power into my hot water cylinder and when that is up to temp it switches relays and the power is dumped into a small heater it also sounds an alarm when the battery voltage is low or high and dumped straight from the battery of the inverter failed i'm at a short video showing the basics of programming this one so click on the link here to see it you