Ron MacLeod first became involved in Hydro Electric in 1977 while trout fishing in Maine. His first experience was to crawl all around a de-commissioned 500 kw site on the Kennebago River. The hook was set deep. Since that time Ron has gone on to build water turbines as small as 500 watts; and now owns a 810 kW Hydro Site in New Hampshire. Ron is the principle member of Nautilus LLC.

Nautilus first began working with local Mennonite and Amish communities in eastern Pennsylvania to redevelop former mill sites in the late 1970’s. This is a region filled with ultra low head sites. We started by evaluating and re-building existing turbines under the mills. The high cost and limited availability of new turbines led us to work with retired engineers from several of the largest U.S. turbine manufacturers over 35 years ago. We built our first Low Head Propellor in 1981. Our goal was to develop a line of small turbine designs for clean power generation on ultra low to moderate heads. We hoped to offer these turbines to fill the gap where none existed.

Over the years we accumulated knowledge, skills, and turbine designs while working on the installation of larger equipment and hydro site operations. Small turbine construction started as a part time effort as we began to climb the steep learning curve towards real turbine production. The old timers taught us to read the original pattern makers drawings and build Francis runners.This time was also used to build and test prototypes. This testing has led to many small improvements in bearing design and strong turbine gate controls.

In the last several years Nautilus has progressed to using the latest 3D Computer Aided Design techniques in the development and manufacture of the complex forms found in water turbines. These new techniques allow us to run 2D and 3D CNC equipment in our shop to provide high quality, precision turbines.

Nautilus now offers a line of miniature, utility grade Francis turbines that operate on heads of 1m (3.3ft) to 18.3m (60ft). These turbines are built from the finest materials available and are designed to operate for at least 50 years. In the future we plan to expand our product line and capabilities to encompass low to moderate head propellor designs and increase the size and power of the equipment we build.

It is our goal to spread waterpower technology around the world where our small turbines can be used to operate private homes, small workshops, schools, medical clinics and to provide village electrification.

We hope this website is an informative, educational resource, to help you understand the potential of small hydropower and guide you in the development of your own hydrosite(s). Please feel free to contact us with site specifics and any questions about our products.

Nautilus - Model 660-ULH - Ultra Low Head Turbine - Brochure

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