Hello, I am using this turbine Water Turbine Generator (5VDC) - DFRobot to power a battery and as a water flow sensor. I don't find its datasheet anywhere (any links to a datasheet end up being merely mechanical dimensions) and any other schematics I find are for three-wire turbines, which is not the case.
How do I connect this to my Arduino Nano 33 IoT? How do I measure the amount of water passing through it? And how should I use the energy of that water to power the battery?
The battery will supply power to my Arduino Nano 33 IoT board, but instead of it being a rechargeable battery I wanted to charge it with the voltage the turbine produces instead.
As for the turbine, I had read that it had a Hall effect sensor and that from there I could calculate the amount of water passing through, but I don't really understand how. Right now I'm printing the value of the pin that is connected to the turbine but don't know how to interpret it.
A generator can be used to measure the water flow as the raw output of the generator will pulse. Both the frequency and amplitude of the pulses will indicate how fast the generator is turning, and thus the water flow rate.
The problem you have is this line in the description:
The module comes with regulated power output, which provides standard 5V DC output.
There is a voltage regulator inside that generator that does its best to remove any trace of pulses from the output. This makes it great for powering something like an Arduino that would be very unhappy with a pulsing power supply, but useless for measuring the water flow rate.
What you really need to measure the flow rate is something like this Flow Rate Sensor to measure how much water is flowing.
You could connect both of them together so the water first flows through the generator to power the Arduino, then through the flow rate sensor to measure how much water is flowing.
The open circuit generator voltage should be proportional to the water flow rate, so if you can open the turbine and remove the voltage regulator, it might be usable both as a power supply and a flow sensor.
Connect a 33Ω, 1 Watt resistor to the generator's output and connect your voltmeter across the resistor. Gradually increase water flow until you just read 4.95V. The generator should be putting out it's rated 150mA. Measure the water flow rate by running it into a graduated container for 15 seconds and multiply that by 4 to get liters per minute. Or, run the water into any container for 15 seconds then weigh the container and water, subtract the container weight, the volume of water will be 1 liter per kg.
This is a water turbine generator, 5V DC output, which can be directly used as Arduino power supply. Eco-friendly energy, you can make it work together with our lithium battery charger, working as a backup energy. This water turbine generator can be used in various hydro power generator application, such as smart faucets, sensing faucets, shower room lighting systems etc. The module comes with regulated power output, which provides standard 5V DC output. The maximum output current is up to 150Ma which is enough for most light application.
