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[Ixoran]

ARGH!
Why is this NOT Generating power!

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-*.
www
WWW
* is gear assembly
- is horizontal axle
www is water wheel 2
WWW is water wheel 1
Channels here:

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...
...
_._

All can be assumed to have more than 4/7 water.

I've rebuilt this stuff three times, to no avail.

[umiman]

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.*.
.|.
www
Axle first
Then waterwheel

[Derakon]

You can attach water wheels directly to gear assemblies; I have such a setup powering the water tower I used to flood the desert in my current fort.

The important thing with water wheels is that they must be in water than is a) deep enough, and b) flowing. Among other things, this means that you can't put water wheels on top of a brook, as it's not deep enough. However, if you channel the brook's top out, then you'll be good to go.

[Ixoran]

And how is water defined as "Flowing"?
I'm dropping water into a dwarf created resovior.
I'm gonna wager that it must come from a river?
But then channeling a brook to get power doesn't make sense...

[umiman]

What?! It can?! I'm going to have somebody's head for this!!!

Anyway, water just needs movement for it to function. You can guarantee movement by having a consistent water source and water drainage.

In other words, if water is going in and going out of your reservoir, your waterwheel will function.

You can also simulate flow by having another pump powered by say... a windmill pushing water around the reservoir or through a perpetual motion machine.

[Ixoran]

FUCK!
Well, I'll try building a drain I guess, but that means I need another screw pump... and probably some complex engeneering.
I'll let you know if I run into anymore snags.
Thanks guys.
This really makes me wish we had a power source that used dwarven labor.

[umiman]

Your dwarves can power screw pumps. "q" the screw pump and turn on manual power.

[Ixoran]

I mean a machine that produces power from dwarvish labor.
Like one of those big gears with handles or something.

[Derakon]

Look up the article on perpetual motion in the wiki, specifically the second design. It's pretty straightforward. You can fill the channels with a bucket brigade, and start the flow going with dwarf-operated labor (after which point the system becomes self-sustaining). The important thing to note is that that's not a complete ring of channels; there's a wall under the pump. That wall's important because otherwise the pump will basically lift water up, then drop it back down where it was, and no flow will be generated.

[Mr. Wallet]

I've tried making a perpetual motion machine, but the wheel keeps losing power for about half a second every 5 seconds, cancelling my milling orders. Any tips on keeping power consistent?

[umiman]

Have you investigated why it does that? I suspect you don't have enough water inside the system.

[Andir]

Perpetual dwarven machine:

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prepare by channeling (from water source)
.......
###.###
~~~..~#
##~~~~#
#######

Build a pump, then wheel (may have to put the axle on the other side of the wheel, I don't remember if the pump can support the wheel or not)
...*...
###|###
~~~%>~#
##WWW~#
#######

After it's built, set it to pump manually, and it will take over from there.

[Trelack]

The best perpetual motion machine I know of (space and reliability-wise) is built on an aquifer and is used in this movie. Watch the movie on 400 FPS so you don't die of boredom, or skip to 2:30 to see the design and at 5:30 to see it in action.

The top pump is just acting as a wall and gearbox, it's the bottom one doing the work. The machine is driven more by water flowing from the space under the water wheels to the empty spot created by the pump, rather than by forcing water through the wheels (water is replenished by aquifer walls around the wheels).  Because of this, adding more water wheels to the side works poorly so build multiple modules like that and connect them if you want a huge engine room.

The design should work without an aquifer if you make sure there's plenty of water in it and that the water isn't escaping, although you may want to cut it down to just 2 wheels attached to the pump for reliability (I haven't tested this).

[Andir]

The method I posted above allows you to attach as many wheels to it as you want.  You just channel out the wall next to the wheel and add another wheel.  The pump pulls water out of the channel and into the space to the right of the wheels.  The video you posted re-affirms to me that a pump can support a wheel.  I did not however know that you could put a wheel in only two channels of water (maybe one).  So you could possibly move the wheel one tile to the right not channel out the area as much and it should still work.  I need to test this though.  This system continues filling area to the right of the wheels and then your pump is in full bore.  I'm sure there's a limit to how far the water will fill before the pump can't keep water flowing faster than the wheels use it, but if that's the case, you just drop another pump in line.  ( I have not reached this point )  The problem with this of course is that you should close this off from any other source when you get it going full stop because it raises the level of your source by 1 z-level and you could possible flood your fortress at 1 z level above your usual water line if you're not careful.  I normally set these up near a river or other water drainage source away from my fort, but a sealed system works as well... when it's running, close a floodgate.

[Andir]

hmm, I might have explained that poorly...

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Prepare:
.#################
.#~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~#
.#.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~#
................~#
.#~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~#
.#################
Final:
.#################
.#~WWWWWWWWWWWWWW#
.#^WWWWWWWWWWWWWW#
--%WWWWWWWWWWWWWW#
.#~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~#
.#################
All Wheels are north/south...

Water would come out of the pump on the north, fall into the pit and flow through all the wheels before returning the southern channel to be pumped up again and recycled.  It's kind of cheating because you're technically running water east/west, but the game engine doesn't care as long as the tile is flowing.  That's more than enough wheels to run anything you could think of (in reason!)