Micro Hydro Runner Production Technique

[joekock]

Hi Everyone:

I'm trying to get a hand on How to produce
MicroHydro Runner. This is really my first time. So I'm do need help ! Also where could I'm buy used equipments for this purpose ?
Is a Mini-CNC, Mini-Lather or any kind of
tools that can accomodated my needed ?

Thanks you for any help !

Joe

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[shaque]

Why am I suspicious? Posted twice!

[Rustybolt]

What the h*ll is a Hydro-micro dumafudgie?

[J Tiers]

Its the turbine wheel for a small hydroelectric generator. The wheel is usually called a "runner" for some reason.


Micro because it produces watts, not kilowatts or megawatts.

A number are made and sold commercially, "Little Otto" is one, there
are others.

BTW, if a person wanted to invent the worst possible starting project for machining, I think maybe a turbine runner might be it. Lots of non-flat surfaces at all sorts of angles and radii. And a need for precision work to keep it balanced and efficient.

Start with a candlestick, seriously.

[This message has been edited by J Tiers (edited 04-27-2004).]

[Evan]

Joe,

Check this site. This is one of my customers.

http://www.smallhydropower.com/more.html

[SGW]

Oh, man. I'm with J. Tiers...this isn't something to start out on. But if you're crazy enough to want to who am I to stand in your way.

A friend of mine once machined a propeller, which is sort of the same idea. He did it by stacking up two rotary tables. One he used to index to each blade (for a 3-blade prop, it would be every 120 degrees). Then he used the other to add an incremental index to a position on a blade. At the given position, he milled a straight line with a ball end mill at a predetermined depth. By milling at successively greater depths at incrementally greater positions, he created the blades. All this took a LONG time.

That's a pretty sketchy explantion and I've probably left out some critical details, somewhere.

That method also assumes the blades don't "wrap under" each other, i.e. the entire blade surface is visible if you look from the top. That might not be true of a turbine runner.

[wierdscience]

Yes it is one of those things where woodcarving,pattern making,specialized mould making and casting come into play.

Ya,boat props,I watched an engineer make one over the course of three days and an old Navy hand do the same but much better in about three hours.

Navy man learned his trade on a sub tender in WWII,he started by carving one fluke and one third of the hub out of wood,he cast three identical sections in plaster,from that pattern,glued the three together with hide glue and used it for a lost cope to mould up and cast one from bronze,thing came out great and was nearly perfectly balanced,he also showed me how to setup an automatic facing/boring head in the b-port to cut the tapered bore.The man was a master,simple as that.

[This message has been edited by wierdscience (edited 04-27-2004).]