Who has an alternate energy powered shop?

[Dev Emch]

I am wondering who has a shop which is powered by alternate energy. This would include wind power, water power, solar power, etc.

I am esp. interested if anyone is running a shop on hydro-electric and if so, how it was done. I have heard rumors about a few pro shops back east running on tiny "Micro-Hydro" set ups and this is of interest to me.

Thanks

[Michael Ballent]

My shop does not run on any alternate energy, but it does interest me as well. I saw something on DIY network that showed solar panels that were put up like shingles so they blended in pretty well, but still shiney. There are municipalities and utilities that may help with some of the costs. Also if you generate more electricity than you are consuming you get to sell it back to the utility :D Good luck on your search.

[Charlie Velasquez]

Dev, not sure where you live, but you may want to visit an Amish community.

I went to look at a table saw an Amish woodworker was selling and he had it running with hydraulics. He had no electricity anywhere in his shop. Pretty interesting.

[Lee DeRaud]

Am I the only one who expects this thread to get moved to the Neanderthal forum? :cool:

[lloyd morris]

Dev, not sure where you live, but you may want to visit an Amish community.

I went to look at a table saw an Amish woodworker was selling and he had it running with hydraulics. He had no electricity anywhere in his shop. Pretty interesting.

Charlie, I would be really interested in how he ran a table saw with hydraulics.

Lloyd Morris

[Adrian Rogers]

The amish in TN mostly run one long shaft the length of their shop, then use belts and pully's off that shaft to run their machines. The shaft is powered by a diesel or gas engine outside the shop. Not the kind of alternative energy you're looking for, but I thought I'd throw it in.

-Adrian

[Jason Richer]

Although much smaller in size than what would be needed for a shop, I run an Air-X wind generator on my motorhome while on the beaches of Cape Cod.

It provides more power than my wife and 3 boys can use.

I have a beaver pond at the rear of my property. I would love to find a way to use the water flow for power generation.

[Dev Emch]

Jason...

The beaver pond may be ideal. If you can run a PVC pipe from the beaver pond down a hill to develop head, you can go micro hydro.

Most likely a pelton wheel will work. Here a plastic or bronze pelton wheel of about 10 to 12 inches in diameter will hooked up to say an alternator. By alternator, I am refering to the one out of your car and not the ones that weigh a few hundred pounds or a few tons.

The alternator is then hooked up to the standard samo samo. Batteries, inverters, etc.

Such a system is the system I am looking for back east in the rumors I have heard. Clearly this system can almost supply your house but what about the larger woodworking machines. Am I going to have build Niagra or Grand Coolee or Glen Canyon to run my olivers? That is the question to ponder.

[Dennis Peacock]

Very interesting thread. We could all benefit from this thread when enough info is posted. :rolleyes: :D

[Kurt Forbes]

I have an uncle in California that has one wind turbine that actually produces enough power over the year that the power company usually sends him a small check at the end of the year.
He does not run a WW shop but has several green houses Jacuzzi and plenty of other pretty good load devices. Helps to be on a mountain side over a freeway though always a gale blowing through that valley.

[Chris Padilla]

My shop does not run on any alternate energy, but it does interest me as well. I saw something on DIY network that showed solar panels that were put up like shingles so they blended in pretty well, but still shiney. There are municipalities and utilities that may help with some of the costs. Also if you generate more electricity than you are consuming you get to sell it back to the utility :D Good luck on your search.

Mike,

I caught that on DIY as well! My boss has a reitirement home he is building up in Northern California and he is 100% off the grid...all solar including panels, batteries, inverter, the works. Pretty impressive and a model to follow by. For a start, I'm looking into solar panels to heat my pool water.

[Charlie Velasquez]

Lloyd,
It was a Jet 10" 2hp cabinet saw, except obviously it wasn't 2hp as he had it set up, he had removed the electric motor and installed some sort of a , ummm, ahh, I don't know what it was, just had a high pressure hydraulic hose with a bunch of fittings and such. I am driving near the Amish community on Saturday, I will ask if I can take pictures.

[Steve Ash]

Well this was years ago....but my Grandpa powered his sawmill/shop with a 1926 Huber that my dad still owns today (and just restored) It looks identical to this one.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v229/GardenBay/1926_Huber_25-50_tractor.jpg

[Dennis Peacock]

Been doing some thinking......
I checked into Solar for my shop lighting and with the cost of the setup alone? I could pay for on the grid power for my shop lights until I'm 100 years old and just start to break even. I also checked into getting my home off the grid and just my home setup was going to be $40,000 or an equivalent of paying for on the grid power for roughly 20 years. That also didn't include system maintenance, battery replacement for the power storage, etc, etc,etc.....There's a lot to think about when going alternate power. I'm FOR alternate power....but the cost in a lot of the cases can be very cost prohibitive.

[Lee DeRaud]

Lloyd,
It was a Jet 10" 2hp cabinet saw, except obviously it wasn't 2hp as he had it set up, he had removed the electric motor and installed some sort of a , ummm, ahh, I don't know what it was, just had a high pressure hydraulic hose with a bunch of fittings and such. I am driving near the Amish community on Saturday, I will ask if I can take pictures.Ok, I'll bite: what was he powering the pump with?

[Pete Rosenbohm]

Charlie they use compressed air for all their power tools, that are all run from one large diesel engine that supplies the compressor for the whole shop. Took a tour a few years back in Penn., they also burn propane for their lite source in the late evenings. Very nice people the Anmish (sp). We were able to take pictures of his work but he asked us not to take any pictures of the family.

[lou sansone]

interesting topic.

I would have perfered to have built my shop next to a nice new england stream and have a water wheel as a power source. There are several "grist mills" up in the N E Connecticut area where I live, but they are really expensive now. Many of the older mills that I have worked in had water wheels as their primary source of power.

lou

[Charlie Velasquez]

Charlie they use compressed air for all their power tools, that are all run from one large diesel engine that supplies the compressor for the whole shop. Took a tour a few years back in Penn., they also burn propane for their lite source in the late evenings. Very nice people the Anmish (sp). We were able to take pictures of his work but he asked us not to take any pictures of the family.
Pete,
Returned from my trip - just found that out. He has a big Duetz diesel engine that supplies his power. It does run a compressor that he uses for his smaller tools (router, drills, finish sanders, nailers) but he uses hydraulic pump and oil for his big tools. He said many of his friends use air for everything, but he said it gets pretty loud when it is going full blast and he prefers the hydraulics

I have some pictures here:
http://www.machlink.com/~mulberry/pinecrestwoodworking.htm

Asked if anyone used water to generate power (electricity) and he patiently explained the various factions of Amish communities. - Short answer was none in our area use electricity, but some he knows in Wisconsin do. A few more hills in Wisconsin probably factors into it, also.

[Jim Dalton]

Dave,

Many of the Amish and Mennonite shops use a water wheel to power jack shaft which runs down the center of the shop. All tools run off of this shaft with individual belts. It would be just as easy to power a hydraulic pump with the water wheel.

[Norman Hitt]

Boy, he's got that Hydraulics thing down to a Science doesn't he? Looks like he has appropriately used different size motors on the different tools, but I'll bet he still doesn't have to worry about "bogging down" any of his tools, (depending on the ratings of the individual motors), because those things will sure put out some torque.

Is he running the diesel engine on Diesel, or is he using disposed cooking oil or other cheap/free fuel? If he's running on Diesel, at today's prices, I'll bet it is much more expensive to run that shop than what our electricity costs us, however, the Lister Diesels I used to deal with on Hydraulic power units, were fairly fuel effecient.

[Glen Kenney]

My shop is not powered by alternate energy, but I stayed at a Holiday Inn once so I can reply.

Actually, I became very interested in alternate energy, especially wind power, 12 or 13 years ago. I studied everything I could find on the subject, finally realizing that I was not going to be able to tell the electric company goodby.

Wind and solar (sunlight powering photovoltaic cells) are very fickle. You can’t depend on them being there when you need them. Water power, depending on the source stream, may be more dependable, but very few people have access to a source with enough flow, and enough elevation drop to make even a small generator worthwhile. Actually, the alternate energy that looked the most promising was a methane gas digester with an internal combustion engine using the methane produced to drive a generator. This method is actually used by several cities today, burning the gas produced in landfills. Think rotting sawdust and grass clippings.

If somebody wants to use alternate energy, it is more feasible to use the power produced to SUPPLIMENT the power from the utility company. Let’s say your home/shop uses 2000 KWH of power each month, and the cost is $0.10 per KWH. Your electric bill is then $200 per month. Now, you hook up some kind of generator to the system to supplement the utility company. During the month, your generator supplies a total of 200 KWH. The utility company now had to supply only 1800 KWH, so your bill is only $180.

It is interesting (sometimes vital) to know when your system is supplying power. If you have a wind-powered generator, and the wind blows during the day when your home is using more energy than is produced by the wind turbine, then both your power and the utility power are supplying your home. You are merely supplementing the utility company. However, if your system is producing more power than your home needs, then electricity flows into the utility grid and the electric meter spins backward, reducing your costs by the amount of excess electricity produced.

That’s the beauty of having a system tied into the grid. You don’t have to build one large enough to supply your every need. The utility company is your storage system. However, there are strict rules concerning a generator tied into the utility company’s system. The generator must either shut off or disconnect from the grid automatically if there is a power failure on the grid. That’s a safety regulation to prevent someone from getting electrocuted by someone’s home generator.

Charlie posted about his generator on his RV at the beaches of Cape Cod. Beachfront property is ideal for a wind generator, for the wind ALWAYS blows at the beach.

Systems large enough to supply all the needs of an average home or shop would be very expensive, as Dennis found. If utility power is available, it’s always cheaper to just buy the power. However, if you’re determined to live a long way from a power line, the technology is available at a price.

Still tied to the grid in Southeast Texas,
Glen Kenney

[Tim Leo]

I visited an Amish wood shop in Indiana a few years ago and I was amazed at the power that guy had available to him. He had the biggest diesel engine I have ever seen running a hydraulic pump. The hydraulics are plumbed all over his shop to run the machines. And he used 12-volt car batteries to power the lasers on the saws.