I was at a home Depot one afternoon and saw one of the orange bib guys on a forklift getting ready to drop a big wire spool into a dumpster. Seeing my new potential waterwheel, I asked him if I could have it, and he put it into the back of my pickup. It was a big one, six feet in diameter, and it was going to be perfect.
As soon as I got it home I got to work. It was wide, about three feet wide, so the first thing I had to do was narrow it down. I dismantled it and cut the center staves to nine inches then put it back together. I used the left over staves to make paddles, and I had my new Pelton wheel. Now all I had to do was mount it to my previously used pulley shaft on the pillow block bearings. Not having a welder, because I didn’t have electricity, I jerry rigged it all together.
A few weeks later I had cobbled together a few more parts. I found a mountain bike at “The Mall”, aka the dump. I had some fire hose and a nozzle. I had the alternator that helped me discover the eddy brake. And I had a bunch of other junk to work with.
I built a platform out of a bunch of 4×4’s that I could mount the pillow blocks on. I dug a tailrace for the spent water to flow away from it. And then I wrestled the new contraption into place. Not having a welder sucked, but I managed to connect the output shaft to the pedal sprocket on the bike. I removed the tire from the drive wheel on the bike thus turning it into a big pulley. I mounted the alternator to the bike frame using a bunch of hose clamps and a couple of L brackets and put a big V belt on it. I had my battery ready to excite the alternator. I gave it a spin by hand and it all seemed like it was going to work. All I had to do was shoot some water at it.