Blog Post #3

Over the last week, our team has finalized the dimensions of the water wheels,

the gear reduction dimensions, and the AutoCAD parts. In an effort to counter the drag from the flights rotating with the belt, the surface area of the water wheels should be as large as we can afford. Considering that the wheels will be made using the University of Houston’s 3D printer, the width was chosen to be the maximum height available, 11 inches, as shown to the right.

The gear reduction system had to fit between the belt and water wheel axles, so the gears have diameters of 9 and 5 inches, as seen below. The smaller gear will be on the same axle as the belt so that the belt can rotate faster than the water wheels.

After three weeks of discussion with Intralox customer service, we received a quote yesterday. It is $3,270 for the belt, flights, sprockets, retainer rings, and shafts. This price is far out of our maximum budget. So we must look at other, cheaper, options for the belt. One such option is to buy a belt on Ebay and 3D print the flights. The available belts are not the dimensions we selected but they should be suitable regardless. 3D printing the flights and sprockets, and using PVC pipes as the shafts would make the overall price of these components be around $150. Another option is to 3D print the belt by section and assemble it ourselves. However, this would be very time consuming for both the printing and the assembling. Lastly, we can contact more belt companies for lower quotes.

Next week, we will determine what will be done about the belt. Once that is done, the Bill of Materials and budget can be finalized. We will validate our designs for the water wheels and gears by performing finite element analysis on COMSOL. We will also continue work on the design review report due at the end of the semester, as well as the presentation that accompanies it. As we complete the Bill of Materials and Budget, some materials could be out of stock or too expensive causing our team to look into other options. The belt is the largest challenge we will face this next week, as it dictates most of our project. We need to find a substitute that is within our price range.