On Tuesday, September 18, 2012 8:21:49 PM UTC-4, JB wrote:

Sounds like a science fair project to me!

No, I've not tried this method of generating electricity myself. What
were you thinking you might run off the power generated in this manner?

It definitely wouldn't be enough to power the pump that's running the
falls. If so, then it would appear that you're thinking of a variation
on a perpetual motion machine. ;-)

FWIW, I actually did major in electrical engineering in college, but that w
as about 16 years ago and I haven't done jack squat in that field ever sinc
e.

I did do a project in school, though, that used two magnets, a weight, and
a pipe to create a spinning wheel, which was then able to generate electric
ity. I think that it would generate just under 1V, but it would definitely
light up an LED. Technically, it wasn't perpetual motion because it drew en
ergy from an external source that would eventually be finite, but for my pu
rpose, it was close enough. For all I know, it might still be working at th
e college lab! LOL

I was thinking about putting this in practice to a somewhat larger scale. I
know that my landscape lights run off of a 6V transformer, so my original
thought was to just create 6V for that. But then, I started thinking about
the pump, too.

I found several 6V and 12V pump options, but the biggest one I could find o
nly says that it pumps 44gph. I'd need to pump about 10 times that, so that
's become less practical. But still, I thought maybe you guys had already t
ried it and had an idea I could use :-)


Lastly, I don't know why but having a larger body of water spill into a

smaller one seems like it may be problematic but I can't explain.

Perhaps it's because I don't recall seeing this configuration before.

Are you thinking of the big pond spilling too heavily in to the smaller pon
d, making it overflow?

That was my concern, too. But if it works out like I'm thinking, then both
ponds would basically be stand-alone ponds, and the only overflow from the
big one would come from the water pumped from the smaller one. So, if I pum
p 500gph out, then it would bring 500gph back in.

In theory, anyway! I haven't started the project yet, though, so I'm very m
uch open to discussion on that.