1.

0 Introduction
As days goes on more problems arise on climate change and green house gas emission.
The world is looking into an alternative energy source as we currently are depending on fossil
fuel to produce most of the energy today .As we know, generating energy from fossil fuel has
many disadvantages, mainly it produces large amount of carbon emission which leads to green
house gas emission and climate change .Apart of that fossil fuel is a non renewable energy which
means it will deplete or run out one day .A solution for this problem is to switch to renewable
energy.
In this project we have build a self renewable energy generator .This DC generator works
in the principle of electromagnetism and able to produce alternating current which is later
converted to direct current to charge up a battery or other kind of storage device.
A DC generator is quite common and is easily available in the market. In this project we
will explain and show how to maximize the usage of a DC generator in a house hold and how we
can save energy and produce a self generating energy devise. 1 St lets see what is a generator and
how it works .

2.0 Generator
Generator is a system which converts mechanical energy to electrical energy . Generators
are available in different electrical and physical configurations for use in different applications.
In the following sections, we will look at how a generator can help us save and produce electrical
energy .
It is important to understand that a generator does not actually create electrical energy.
Instead, it uses the mechanical energy supplied to it to force the movement of electric charges
present in the wire of its windings through an external electric circuit. This flow of electric
charges constitutes the output electric current supplied by the generator. This mechanism can be

understood by considering the generator to be analogous to a water pump, which causes the flow
of water but does not actually create the water flowing through it.

2.1 How A Generator Works

The modern-day generator works on the principle of electromagnetic induction
discovered by Michael Faraday in 1831-32. Faraday discovered that the above flow of electric
charges could be induced by moving an electrical conductor, such as a wire that contains electric
charges, in a magnetic field.

A generator works by a magnetic field inducing a voltage into a coil of wire. Important
points to note are that the voltage increases as the number of turns of wire on the coil, the size of
the coil and the strength of the magnetic field increases. The magnetic field (or the coil) needs to
be in constant motion to produce/induce the electricity into the coil. This can be done by moving
the magnet or by moving the coil - the effect is the same.
The coil (or the magnet) needs to move in such a way that the coil continually passes
through the magnetic field. The Iron nail is also important in our simple generator as it tends to
concentrate the magnetic field. As the coil is wound around the nail it tends to draw in more
magnetic flux into the area of the coil which boosts the overall efficency of the device and
increases the voltage that is produced.

The type of wire in the coil is also important. For example, thick wire means there will be less
power loss, but the down side is that the coil will get very large when a great number of turns is
needed. In a practical generator some trade off has therefore to be found between the size of
magnet, coil and the wire.

2.2 Direction of current

The direction of the magnetic field and the direction of the wire will determine the
direction of the current through the wire. By convention, the direction of the magnetic field is
from N to S. Also by convention, the current goes from plus (+) to minus (). But note that in
reality, the negatively charged electrons move in the opposite direction than the current. They
move from () to (+). You'll just have to remember that the electrons move in the opposite
direction than the convention for the direction of current.
Moving wire through a magnetic field generates electrical current. Electrical generators
rotate a coil of wires through a magnetic field. The difference between an AC and a DC
generator is that the AC generator uses slip rings to transfer the current to the electrical circuit,
while the DC generator uses a split-ring commutator. Very large generators create electricity for
the community. An electric motor is very similar to a generator, except that power is provided to
turn the rotors.

2.3 AC and DC
This simple generator is called an AC generator. This means that the voltage appearing
at the two wires alternates between + and -, and - and + each time the magnet makes a complete
revolution. As a result the generator can light a bulb or an LED without you having to worry
about which way round the connections need to go (as they are effectively reversing all the time
anyway). The generator in this project produces AC which is later converted to DC to suit our
application .

3.0 Design Consideration

In this project , rare earth magnet is used to maximize the output of the generator . Rareearth magnets are typically two to three times stronger than ferrite or ceramic permanent
magnets. In electric generators , the use of rare-earth magnets enables greater performance to be
obtained from a smaller, lighter generator . This magnet is chosen in this project because of its
size and ability to produce more and stronger flux . With this magnet , the design and size of our
generator is small and able to fit in to our suggested application .
In this project we have chosen a two pole stator design to maximize the output power .
Each pole consists of 500 turns on coils. The magnets are attached to the generator rotors . A self

designed and constructed propellers are attached to the rotor .This propellers are designed to
capture maximum water flow to maximize the rotor speed .The rotor speed in directely
proportional to the output power produced .
We have attached a full bridge rectifier to convert the alternating current produced by the
generator to direct current in this project . This is done to charge up the existing battery or
storage device . The full bridge consists of four diodes and a capacitor. The main advantage of
this bridge circuit is that it does not require a special centre tapped transformer, thereby reducing
its size and cost. The single secondary winding is connected to one side of the diode bridge
network and the load to the other side as shown below.

Figure 1 : The Diode Bridge Rectifier

The four diodes labeled D1 to D4 are arranged in series pairs with only two diodes
conducting current during each half cycle. During the positive half cycle of the supply,
diodes D1 and D2 conduct in series while diodes D3 and D4 are reverse biased and the current
flows through the load
A capacitor is added in parallel with the load resistor of a the rectifier to form a simple
Filter Circuit, the output of the Rectifier will be transformed into a more stable DC Voltage. At

first, the capacitor is charged to the peak value of the rectified Waveform. Beyond the peak, the
capacitor is discharged through the load resistor until the time at which the rectified voltage
exceeds the capacitor voltage. Then the capacitor is charged again and the process repeats itself.

Figure 2 : Stable DC Voltage

4.0 Application of the Project

The idea of the design is inspired from water mill. Water mill uses water as the power
source. Same idea is used in hydroelectric dam. The difference with hydroelectric dam and this
concept is merely the scale. Hydroelectric dam used river as the water source but in this design,
water source here is the common water flow found around us.
The DC generator in this project can be install anywhere which has a water flow. Two
main example to be discuss is rain gutters used to redirect rain water flow and pipe flow from
water tanks in households.

Malaysia said to be raining throughout the year but there is no much effort to use this
climate to our advantage. During rain, water will be rushing to ground via the gutters. The
working principle is the turbine the design is to be place within the gutter where the rain water
flows downward facing earth and gravity as shown in the figure above. With the water rushing
the turbine and the rotor of the generator will turn and thus generate electricity. Apart from this,
the generator design can be placed within the water supply pipeline in the house. This is more
appropriate via the pipeline from water tank placed on top of the houses. Since the tank is placed
on top, higher water pressure is gain and thus fast flowing water. Same as the rain gutter, placing
the turbine of the generator within these pipeline could turn the turbine to generate electricity.
With the working principle of generator with rare earth magnets, the output gain when the
shaft is turn is between 6-15V with current between 1 to 2.4 Amperes. This is of course
depending on how fast the shaft turns. In other word, the more forceful water runs through the
gutters or pipeline the higher the output. However, the electricity generated will be waste if it is
not used at the time of power generation. Therefore, electricity generated can be stored in a
power bank like device. Users can use this as a charging station similar to power point within the
house to charge the electronic devices such as phones or tablets.
Not only that but this generator can also be installed in drains which has water flow. We
are able to get energy from a process which occurs naturally. This generator has many
application and can be installed in many location in a house hold. For a better energy

management, all the energy produce from several parts of the house can be channel to a storage
device .This energy can be reused to power up our appliances.
One thing to keep in mind is that the energy produced is continuous, free and selfsustaining. Whether we like it or not, water will flow in all the pipes in our house as we use the
bath room or use water for any other purposes. Why let water flow for our usage only when we
are able to generate energy out of it . We dont have to pay extra our water service provider if we
use water to generate energy, but we will pay lesser to our electricity provider.
One point to be mention is not, the idea increase the usage of clean renewable energy
efficiently. It does not cut ones monthly electric bill significantly. However, this idea does utilize
the simple flow of potential energy in from of water flow around the household in which if not
will only go to waste. This is a small step toward more steps that could one day make the world
run in clean renewable energy.