It is a far fetch that you will ever be lost in the woods near a running stream, and have some empty water bottles, a wire, some plastic plates, and a stepper motor with you while your phone battery is dying out. But with the odds of this happening one in a gazillion, you might want to see this neat idea of a homemade turbine which can charge your smartphone.
This project is pure gold for all the DIY enthusiasts, and every DIY fan knows that creating an energy creation project can both be satisfying and useful. In the video below, a YouTuber named Thomas Kim builds a small water turbine which produces enough voltage to charge your smartphone or some LED lights using the simple supplies mentioned above.
Kim himself is a power plant operator and a science enthusiast, and in the video clearly shows how this project can be achieved. The video probably needs more technical description and details to make this super clear, but it does clearly articulates the viability of a small-scale DIY hydro generator which can practically produce electricity.
According to the video description, the proposed hydroelectric generator uses simple plastic bottles and disposable plastic plates for creating the waterwheel. This waterwheel is then used to turn a shaft in a 3-phase stepping motor, whose movement ultimately generates electricity. The current then flows through a rectifier circuit, converting the AC current into the DC current which finally can be used to charge a mobile or a light.
The design can also be modified by integrating a voltage regulator and a USB connector which can keep the output from damaging the phone. From the video, we can see that this turbine is giving the output of around 10.5V, and he’s able to get a smartphone charging and light up a small LED device with this setup.
For those with a passion for this type of micro-hydro projects and access to free running water, this can turn out to be a fun and useful way to harness some carbon-free renewable energy which can be used to power small lighting systems or charge battery banks at a minimal cost.
Have any more cool clean energy DIY project you want to share with us?
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