Mark Parsons
21st March 2008, 15:30
In my quest to find a natural powered water pump to supply my cottage with pressurized water I ran across the Hydraulic Ram Pump.
A good reference: http://www.clemson.edu/irrig/Equip/ram.htm
How it works explanation http://www.clemson.edu/irrig/Equip/ram4.htm
A friend and I have the same goal for our recreation properties so we cobbled up the unit shown in the photos on a Sunday afternoon. Photo 2 shows a close up of the waste valve and check valve and plumbing. Now that we finally have some water flowing locally as spring is barely arriving we had a chance today to go out and test our contraption. It worked better than anticipated! We found a small local stream (roadside ditch) and set up our unit with 20 feet of 1-1/2" ABS drive pipe with 14" of drive head (measured with water level). After very little trial and error the unit was pulsing away. It produced over 30PSI from 14" of drive head. That is over 60 times pressure amplification!! The flow test for 5PSI outlet pressure indicated about 0.25 GPM. Simple robust technology.:cool:
The waste valve appears to be the only tricky part. A 2" plastic check valve purchased from Princess Auto for $20 with the spring removed and some washers for dead weight serves the purpose nicely. I'm sure further tuning will provide more GPM and PSI. Having this test rig work first hit was definitely a plus.
This test rig my friend is going to use in his application where he will have about 3 feet of drive head. Not sure what he is going to do with up to 90PSI. He will need a pressure relief or face the ABS snubber section blowing off. My application will have about 1 foot of drive head so will need to tweak the PSI to top out over 35PSI to provide a nice cottage water pressure. I am also considering ways to make it freeze resistant so will have year round pressurized water powered by the creek. :D:D
A good reference: http://www.clemson.edu/irrig/Equip/ram.htm
How it works explanation http://www.clemson.edu/irrig/Equip/ram4.htm
A friend and I have the same goal for our recreation properties so we cobbled up the unit shown in the photos on a Sunday afternoon. Photo 2 shows a close up of the waste valve and check valve and plumbing. Now that we finally have some water flowing locally as spring is barely arriving we had a chance today to go out and test our contraption. It worked better than anticipated! We found a small local stream (roadside ditch) and set up our unit with 20 feet of 1-1/2" ABS drive pipe with 14" of drive head (measured with water level). After very little trial and error the unit was pulsing away. It produced over 30PSI from 14" of drive head. That is over 60 times pressure amplification!! The flow test for 5PSI outlet pressure indicated about 0.25 GPM. Simple robust technology.:cool:
The waste valve appears to be the only tricky part. A 2" plastic check valve purchased from Princess Auto for $20 with the spring removed and some washers for dead weight serves the purpose nicely. I'm sure further tuning will provide more GPM and PSI. Having this test rig work first hit was definitely a plus.
This test rig my friend is going to use in his application where he will have about 3 feet of drive head. Not sure what he is going to do with up to 90PSI. He will need a pressure relief or face the ABS snubber section blowing off. My application will have about 1 foot of drive head so will need to tweak the PSI to top out over 35PSI to provide a nice cottage water pressure. I am also considering ways to make it freeze resistant so will have year round pressurized water powered by the creek. :D:D