animal driven low pressure hydraulics

Fine idea...

However putting a 'dead weight on a floating piston' isn't going to do much except add complexity... I'd just use the head of water.
Post some pics if you get it going.

Another alternative would be couple the donkeys to a compressor (ok it would need a fair bit of gearing) and use compressed air...some advantages, some disadvantages.

Del

thanks del.

re: "putting a 'dead weight on a floating piston' isn't going to do much except add complexity... I'd just use the head of water.", wouldn't a weighted floating piston help create a greater head without the need to increase the stored height? in other words, wouldn't it pull away from a mere pumped-storage system?

Yes in theory...
Bbut it can't be heavier than the water else it won't float!
Or if it is heavier than water it relies on seals which are unreliable and add to the friction which counteracts the weight!....
I see the weight as a loose loose situation.... give me simplicity every time.
Hey why not use a big plastic bag of water as the wight? The flexibility of the bag would allow it to act as a seal???...or do it and then throw away the plastic bag

Del

hmm... that's a thought. "why not use a big plastic bag of water as the wight? The flexibility of the bag would allow it to act as a seal???"

in high pressure sealed reservoirs, there's a diaphragm with the pressure fluid below it and a countering gas pressure on top. wonder what would be a 'simple' implementation of this.

perhaps an adaptation of the roll-sock seal that philips used to use in their stirling engines but with a deadweight instead, to counter the pressure? wonder if this would work

In you method of increasing pressure I see one problem that may be over looked.

The unknown work load on the donkeys. As the weight is on top and sealed the donkeys will be forcing it up along with an increased water column. They will be laboring against an increasing pressure. I am sure the donkeys will not love that. Then again the only thing I have seen a donkey fall for is filling their bellies.

I would increase the water column to gain pressure necessary. Keeping the force the donkeys need to provide in turning the pump constant.

What makes those donkeys want to keep walking?

Maybe try to reason with them, diplomatically, before you use force?

A feed bag just out of reach.

As they say, 'You can lead a donkey to water, but a pencil must be lead'!

You can lead a horticulture but you can't make her think.

I have to ask the obvious. Why not set up a more traditional water tower and use the wind mill to keep it full? You could set up a platform and place a plastic tank on top. Fool your friends and wrap the tank in old barn siding to make it look rustic. The lid on the tank would prevent birds and rodents from falling in and drowning thus contaminating the other wise drinkable water. Tried and true technology. No weights or piston seals to add resistance. This would free up the donkeys for other work.

Water tower turbine is less efficient way to store energy. perhaps the donkeys could spin an alternator / generator to charge a battery pack 12 / 24 volt system can be very useful in remote area for everything from lights to light welding. system could be as simple as an alternator and a couple of truck batteries although deep cycle batteries would be more effecient. For mechanical power you could use the donkeys as a direct drive which would have less energy loss than any other system. A large flywheel would be helpful to smooth out power surges like when the donkey gets bit on the butt end by a horsefly ;>)

Why do we need a tower when there is a purrfectly good hill behind the windmill?

hello everyone....

thanks for all the responses, although i am afraid the donkey has distracted everyone and led them away from my query.

thanks trumanBrain for visiting the site and noticing the windmill and the hill. well, the hill is not mine and it's a natural reserve forbidden to man. not that i'd have put a tank up there anyway. my windmill has a submerged pump that raises water in a standpipe which can deliver to a maximum height of 15'. the hill, even if it were availble to me, is 70' high. fiddling around with a windpump to deliver to that height is a different mess and would drain a lot of energy. besides, i need the water for my trees, primarily.

so i return to my current passion for low pressure hydraulics, this time leaving the donkey out. pumped water power is a no-pressure (or a little over the atmospheric) system and can develop enough power only by high flow rates. high pressure hydraulics is very high pressure and low flows and too expensive and high tech.

i am looking for information, images, notes, articles on low pressure hydraulic sytems that used water (sometimes mixed with glycerine) as teh working fluid. in the bombay docks where i apprenticed a steam engine charged the pipes with water but the moderate pressure was maintained by a reservoir. it's the design of this that i am looking for.

was there a weighted, floating piston, a diaphragm with compressed air on top, or were there spring loaded mechanisms? how can i adapt that to a farm scene where animals are grazing lazily and in good conscience can be put to some work?

or perhaps an arrangement like this?: a fixed quantity of water is in circulation. in the pressure accumulator there is a free piston. discharge from the animal driven pump is sent to a bias valve to control things. a part of the power is to circulate the fluid and a part of it acts on top of the free piston to maintain a set pressure. clearly i am groping, having neglected as a young man to observe the system in the docklands worked. is there perhaps a dual diameter piston at work somewhere?

thanks for all your thoughts.

Is it not possible to revisit the docks in Mumbai to see? Or has the system been "modernized" beyond recognition? What about water wheels? I understand small, low-pressure water wheels have been used (perhaps since antiquity) for primitive industrial purposes including grinding grain, spinning and weaving, simple machine tools, and many other purposes. Look here:

http://www.qub.ac.uk/civeng/research/hy/researchpages/subpages/waterwheels.htm

i think i have found what i was looking for. here's a nice description

and this is identical to what i saw in bombay docks in the 1960s:Bristol hydraulic engine house

the images are far too beautiful and heart wrenching, if i may add

Nice! But I doubt either you or the donkeys will see the need for 80 tons of gravel to weight the accumulator...

Can we go back to the title here. gniMan has access to a power system, animals, and not unreasonable wants to use them. Stevenson's railway line used horses for power when they were appropriate, so I don't think they should be ignored as a power source.

Firstly, why not pump the water into bowsers and haul the bowsers on flotation tyres using donkey/animal power. I use 16x6.50x8 tyres on a standard plastic wheelbarrow rim with 20mm sealed bearings, and this gives good cross country ability. OK this is a plug for my own system, but I am using a power system to deliver weight, 110kg of me, across country, at high speed using a 1m (10hh) pony.

One factor to look at is the draught system, and most collars are either expensive or bad. Mine happens to be cheap and brilliant and if gniMan is interested I will publish the manufacturing details and licence to manufacture, here on my new OpenHorse licence. This is a direct copy of the software OpenSource licence. A first for CR4.

Simon

i checked you out saddlechariotMan! i enjoyed my visit to your site and browsed quite a bit of it. you are the man for me to get in touch whenever i am into retraining donkeys as power source.

seriously, i appreciate your seriousness about animal power. i am not saying they will be a future source of energy. i am asserting they will be. there is much to adapt from the times of victorian engineering.

thanks for your faith and more speed to your chariot.

the stumbling block with all alt. energy sources is the storage issue. fossil fuels *are* stores of energy but they are running out. if we can focus on several meaningful alt. en. storage devices we will find many options opening up.

if you scrolled down this page to the last photo there, you will find a raised weight hydraulic accumulator. i don't see why this can't be sized suitably to be powered by animals. the system can be quite compact and can accumulate several hours of leisurely animal walk.

here, i hope, is a conceptually valid idea: a smaller raised weight accumulator like the one in the photo mounted on a vehicle can be quickly charged by another stationary one driven by animals. the vehicle can then decouple and run powered by an onboard hydraulic motor

btw, enviroMan donkey hydraulics can lift 80 tonnes - but by perhaps a micron or two! :)

jests apart, i wonder what you guys think.

I think my Grandfathers farmed using horses and mules, so I know they are a valuable and reliable source of power. More of which to you! Please keep this forum apprised of your successes?

I like you accumulator idea, and of course animals can lift heavy weights bit by bit. The horsepower measurement was based on what a horse could pull up a mine shaft, and obviously gearing is a factor.

As a horse/pony/donkey person, not, I hasten to add an early hybrid clone, I am concerned to get the maximum benefit out of the animal's work, for the minimum pain. Firstly, this involves working animals in the largest possible circle, and reversing that circle regularly. Given bicycle bearings and gearing as cheap and easily available, a treadmill is obviously viable. With my collar design, which is going up on the naturaldriving.co.uk site, on my openhorse page, which isn't ready yet, and a ten meter counterbalanced boom driving a bike wheel geared system, you could drive pretty much what you like.

Alternatively pulling a two wheel vehicle which supported the other end of the rotary beam, would work. The essence is the largest possible circle so the animal is not having to pull at an angle. reversing the direction also means you do not wreck the animal for other purposes.

Rather than the traditional stick and carrot system, which depressingly often is more stick than carrot, using operant conditioning, the dolphin training derived system, it is possible to motivate by praise. A praise driven, eco friendly, mobile power system is easy and possible and I will be contacting you directly because we can combine both our ideas and get the best of both worlds.

Simon

"...largest possible circle..."

Would this not also equate to the longest possible beam, essentially a lever, thereby multiplying the force through distance? It's friendlier to the donkey, sure, but also more efficient for your purposes. That longer lever means the donkey can shift more mass for the same input of effort, albeit over a longer time, but that can hardly be a difficulty for the system you described. BTW, I like your attitude toward your power plant...

When I first saw this thread, I thought it was a huge April 1 "cat trap" using donkeys to simulate mice. (Dell should look out) but it's since continued. I have an idea for you without the hardware of the rotary pump.

Make a two wheel buggy for each donkey and fit a generator to each so that as your donkeys are casually grazing or whenever they move the generator runs charge into a battery on the charriot. You can then exchange the batteries as they are charged up and use the power "on demand" to run whatever you wish.

Far less capital than the merry-go-round, pumps tanks and storage that all else are focussed on, and one leak anywhere and the whole system goes down.

By the way, my grandfather had one of those horse driven rotary pumps to raise creek water for the dairy. Good old fashioned cast iron and such. He tried using one female and one male to drive it. "Natural urges" was his thoughts as to maximize output. Stallion trying to catch up, mare trying to get away.

Now that's so simple, it totally escaped me! Got a GA vote from me, too. And I like the way your Grandfather thought, too...

justAnEngineer's battery chariot is a good idea except that the net charging time will be pretty low as donkeys graze rather lazily. i'd also worry about them wandering off with my battery and charger.

my vote is still for jAE's 'pressure-tower' (described in a related thread for 'increasing the pressure for sprinkers') charged by donkeys during a 9 to 5 routine... well, er make that 9 to 12

Combine the ideas and connect donkey to mobile power generating source. Two wheel trailer carrying central pump/generator and boom. Set up anywhere there is a reasonably smooth circular track of correct diameter and charge batteries or pump water or both, then move to next location.

This doesn't begin to make sense if bottom line accounting is used, but it provides employment, power and water in an eco friendly way. The power plant and trailer can be used to haul firewood, harrow weeds or whatever.

The engineering is simple and can use bicycle gears and car alternators but it needs somebody to believe it is worth doing. But why bother when mains electricity or a petrol generator is always available.

A donkey, pony, mule or ox is an organic self replicating power source, mobile and surprisingly versatile. It isn't affected by clouds or seasons, requires no static infrastructure and can operate wherever man can. Surely 21st century equipment can improve on "horse and buggy" technology.

Simon

Personally, I'd reverse that - surely horse-and-buggy technology can improve on 21st-century equipment!

I agree in principle, but I find that "horse and buggy" is used in a derogatory tone most of the time. Windmills are back, sails are back, why not real horsepower driving totally modern machinery. In England, competition horse drawn vehicles aren't allowed pneumatic tyres, use turntable steering on the four wheelers and have to carry a servant to compete. And they think they are keeping up to date!

Simon, summoning the butler to bring me another port and warm up the chambermaid.

Windmills are back, sails are back, why not real horsepower driving totally modern machinery.

The last place I worked was a fertilizer equipment manufacturer. We built a few pull type spreader wagons for the Amish to pull through the field using critter power. Not sure if it was horse, mule, or ox. Anyway, it is being done. Could be done on a larger scale if farms were not heading towards 100,000 acre spreads. My grandfather's place was only 80 acres. I understand that using "todays technology" one person can feed thousands.

This proves my point. People will help those like the Amish who wish to reject all modern technology for religious reasons. I want to recharge laptops, mobile phones....... all the technology the Amish reject, with animal power. There are millions of people in this world with access to animals, but not with access to mains. If you could power school computers and tech equipment in rural areas with animal power that would be a clear benefit. The system will also pump water, which for a large section of the world is an issue of life and death, and the same equipment can be used for straight transport.

I'm not trying to help people stuck in a religious timewarp, I want to help people use a viable, environmentally friendly power source to the best of their ability. This means looking at "critter power" as what it is, POWER. The isssue is how to maximise it, not how to make it look quaint and olde worlde.

Your wind turbine builders aren't building wind turbines for dutchmen wearing clogs.

They do not reject all modern technology. Just most of it. It is a myth that they do not use electricity. It depends on the minister with in their community. He determines what is allowed and what is not. For the longest time they were allowed to use electric lights and appliances so long as they were not connected to the grid. That meant they were building wind generators or buying gas powered ones. For the purchased ones many would make their own fuel. Don't forget that there is another sect similar to the Amish. They are called mininights. I see them driving pick-up trucks and using cell phones. I do not claim to be a religious expert, I just know what I see. There are a few companies around here that build barns and furniture. I see them using phones, trucks, and power tools. They still dress the same as the true Amish do.

Sorry, I'm not an expert on religion either, my point is that I want to help those who can't get mains electricity, mains water, petrol driven kit and whatever, not those who for whatever reason choose to reject modern life, or certain chunks of it.

The variable speed transmission sounds like the answer. Animals don't like a high starting load and the carousel structure would have to be beefed up to cope, but with a soft start system a lot more things become viable. If you haven't seen my previous posts, I am a cook and a writer so vast areas of engineering are a complete blank to me, but as an inventor I can see applications even where I don't understand, and certainly couldn't build, the engineering. What you have given me is the link that makes a viable (in theory) project that can hook into a couple of other ideas, specifically land wheel driven mower systems.

The high initial loadings are the problem to most horsepower applications but I think you have solved them. My local gym will see me for the first time ever, but at dead of night witrh bolt cutters and a pick up truck.

Many thanks

Simon

I am shifting this to on topic to prove the massive advantages gained by reading the off topic stuff.

I am not an engineer in the sense that I hold a degree. I was raised on a small farm. I have been a certified welder. I then went to work rebuilding dry fertilizer application equipment. That included ground driven and computer controlled units with radar speed controls. After getting tired of that I went back to school to be a machinist.

Enough of the biography.

Another drive that might be useful to you is a variable speed disk drive. These were used by Snapper on their tube frame riding mowers. In case you are not familiar with these, there was an aluminum disc mounted to the vertical crank shaft of the motor. Then a rubber wheel was positioned perpendicular to it. The speed selector controlled the position. The farther from center the rubber wheel was then the faster the mower went. This also allowed for reverse. Simply the rubber wheel was positioned to the opposite side of center. I have seen these tried on antique tractors. They failed due to dust coating the disc causing slippage.