Hand-pump-driven Turbine

This project is about a simple hand-pump-driven turbine which converts mechanical energy of the person pumping into potential energy and vertical movement of a small mass attached to it.

The vertical movement of the mass is driven by a turbine which is in turn driven by a hand pump. For these, we need:

1. a turbine
2. a box for the turbine with an inlet and outlet
3. an axis for the turbine
4. two footholds for the axis
5. a plate to fixate each part on

The turbine is 3D printed. The design (turbine_groep1.stl) can be downloaded at attachments section.

It is roughly 15 cm in diameter.

Next, we need a box for this turbine to regulate the air flow, which you can find in the attachments section.

For the axis, find a wooden stick of 20 cm long and 15 mm in diameter. If it turns out to be too big to fit into the bearing later on, use sandpaper to slim it down.

For the footholds, get two wooden blocks of 8,5x6x3 cm and laser-cut the bearing-holder. You will also need an ITEM-part of 6 cm long to screw this together.

Make one plate of 30x30 cm of MDF to secure each part later on, and a 20x15 cm 3mm plexiglass plate.

First, glue one plexiglass plate onto the box.

Screw the bearing-holder onto the wooden blocks

Slide the turbine and then the bearing-holder onto the axis, and then glue the second round plate on it.

*important note: make sure the open end of the turbine blades point towards the inlet of the air, which is the bottom hole of the turbine-box.

Then, mount the second wooden block onto the axis.

They can now all move around freely, so we need to secure them.

The turbine-box is not perfectly alligned with the height of the wooden blocks, so glue it onto the 3-mm plexiglass plate. Place each part on the MDF-plate so the the wooden blocks are parallel with each other and the turbine box, then, glue them onto the plate.

Use a small rubber tube to optimize the air flow of the hand-pump and use duct-tape to tape the pump-tube into the air inlet of the turbine box

Attach a small string with a mass on it of around 50 grams onto the axis which hangs off the table. Use the pump to pull the mass up. Done!