Tim Streater wrote:
On 25 Jan 2021 at 00:21:19 GMT, alan_m wrote:

He's generating low voltage 3 phase AC from a water powered turbine,
rectifying it to 24V DC and then using a inverter to generate 110V AC
(this is the USA). This is then wired to a standard USA plug which he
plugs into a wall socket - almost the equivalent of having an extension
lead with a main plug on each end

https://youtu.be/V82SVeVXKcA?t=450

He doesn't know much about electricity but his mate wired it to "code".

He uses a shop vac to start his generator by introducing a vacuum in the
pipe which is then maintained allowing water to flow faster than it
would with just a simple syphon arrangement.

I see his turbine is at the top. Presumably, since he's doing a syphon he's
relying on the low point being no more than 33 ft or so below the top (which
it is in his case). I was minded to wonder whether the setup would be more
efficient if he had the turbine at the bottom instead. I suppose his setup is
simpler because he doesn't have to arrange, at the top, that the take-off pipe
stay below the water surface level until it can start to drop vertically.

Nice idea about the tennis ball - which is chaos theory in action.

It may be that Yank homes with their cheeseparing 110V can get two phases
supplied to their house quite easily and his arrangement may somehow
disconnect the phase he's feeding into. What is worse though is that he's
shoving 5A or so through that ****ty two-pin socket. With their notoriously
flimsy plugs/sockets, there will be some heating effect there that he may need
to keep under obbo.


Since my heat is off here, and I'm heating electrically as a backup
and have a heater per room, I'm currently drawing 8.8kW through
a series of those flimsy plugs/sockets.

If you search through the dross at the hardware store, you can
find slightly better outlets with nicer contact action. If an outlet
is worn, you replace it. For example, I replaced my kitchen kettle one.
And replaced the outdoor outlet for the electric mower.

The electric dryer is on 230V and has a four pin socket.
The stove with oven, is on 230V and has a four pin socket.
That socket is a nice design. And the insertion/removal force
does not make it "intended as a convenience outlet". Those
connectors are rated 230V 30A.

The breakers take multiple positions, and some are two breakers
with a common handle, or even four breakers with a common handle.
Single breakers for 115V 15A fill the rest of the circuits. We plug
electric kettles or 115V electric lawnmowers into such outlets. Our
kettles don't heat water as fast as yours do.

The only thing which is really dire, is the dalliance with aluminium
wire. Surely the idea from hell. You need Al-Cu outlets for that.
And I doubt that's even code any more, because it was a bad idea.
But you can still buy Chinese motors wound with Al wire inside.
It wasn't the Al itself which was bad, but the mixture of metals
involved in connectorisation.

Pole (Can)
Transformer
___________ half the panel off this phase
|| /
|| \
|| /
|| \___________ use both phases for 230V loads
|| /
|| \
|| /
|| \___________ half the panel off this phase

On a stove, the stove-top elements run from 115V, the oven
element (bottom) or broiler element (top) run from 230V.
The four pin 30A connector gives access to all three wires
above, plus I presume the fourth pin is green safety ground.

Devices are randomly fused. ATX power supplies have a Slo-Blo
in the casing. A kettle would not have a fuse, but has a
thermal cutout. The breakers take time to respond, and
on a slight overload on a branch circuit, might take
five minutes to trip. On a gross overload (about 5x rated),
the breaker will open with some speed.

Things that contribute to a bad reputation, are not using
a panel properly for a job. The wiring is quite conservative,
if you follow the code today. For example, in a properly
wired kitchen, you could plug a kettle into *every* socket
hole, as the outlets are split, and each hole gets its own
wire. Other rooms in the house, run a two-hole outlet plate
off a single cable. So only one kettle per two-hole plate.
I could not run two electric heaters off a bedroom two-hole
plate.

Some houses have two, or even three panels in them. Mine
only needs the one panel, as it's relatively small. A McMansion
would have more panels.

And there's a proliferation of leakage sensors in the panel
now, but I don't have an ordered list to show you. I'm sure
if I saw a code-compliant installation, I would probably
freak out at the complexity and conservative-ness. We've
run lekky with much less pompous code in the past. The
code today is built like a brick ****house. It's too bad
that my (rural quality) distribution on the street was
not built to the same lofty standard as the panel wiring
plan you have to follow today, inside the house.

The house I was born in, which followed an older code,
I could not electrically heat the house without blowing
fuses, so I'd be pretty cold. In this house, I'm comfortable,
and it's the usual temperature in here, at 8.8kW. I started
out at 9.6kW, but that was slightly too much. The thermostats
on the heater are not properly designed, so I'm just manually
balancing temp as weather outside dictates. For a home
built to R2000 standard, you wouldn't need nearly as much
electricity for emergency heat.

It will cost me roughly $32 in local currency, to heat the
house per day in this way. That's about 7X what the natural
gas to do the same job, would cost.

Paul