Title:

Small Scale Hydroelectric DC Generator

The goal of this project was to design and construct a barebones, small-scale hydroelectric generator. Specifically, it was designed to use the energy from a small stream of water to generate an output current of 1 amp at 5 volts DC. This output was targeted because it is suitable for charging small USB devices such as smartphones. Design goals included being portable and simple enough to be constructed at home. It was attempted to have all components be easily obtainable and cost-effective including the alternator which is made from two neodymium magnets and two coils wound by hand from magnet wire. The design consisted of two sections: mechanical and electrical. The mechanical section uses a water wheel and a shaft to spin the magnets, with a pulley ratio between them to increase the speed of the magnets. As the magnets spin inside the coils, an AC voltage is produced via Faraday’s law of induction. The electrical section takes this AC voltage and uses a full wave rectifier to turn the AC voltage into a DC ripple voltage, and then finally leveled to a steady 5 volts by a buck/boost converter. Ultimately, the generator successfully charged a smartphone, and it was able to produce 830 milliamps at 5 volts DC when connected to a 6 ohm load.

Name

Comment*

Comments are viewable only by submitter

Captcha*