Author Topic: pump water up from spring in Congo  (Read 12193 times)

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gg

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pump water up from spring in Congo
« on: December 16, 2010, 10:23:14 PM »
I just finished building a training center in the Congo and we now need to get water up from a spring box. The vertical height is about 60 feet and the run about 300-400 feet to the tank.  I will pump to a tank -- 200 gallons day will be adequate. I could use some help figuring out what kind of pump to use. The pump will be powered by a 12 volt hybrid (wind and solar) system. I plan to power the pump directly with 12V, no inverter.  Is there anyone out there who could advise??

Basil

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Re: pump water up from spring in Congo
« Reply #1 on: December 16, 2010, 10:50:04 PM »
Need a lot of more information for some one to help.
What kind of drop do you have from the spring? Maybe use a ram pump. No power needed.

The pump will be powered by a 12 volt hybrid (wind and solar) system.

How much power? Can not help without more information on this.
All depends on the pump you use.
Look up a pump that will do what you want and then you figure the rest out ( power wise).

hydrosun

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Re: pump water up from spring in Congo
« Reply #2 on: December 17, 2010, 12:30:39 PM »
The simplest solution is a small 12 volt RV style water pump. They would pump 2 -3 gallons per minute. So it would take about 2 hours to pump the 200 gallons.To get highest efficiency you would pump during the day when the solar panels are putting out power. They use about 5 amps.  The downside to the inexpensive rv pumps is they have a rubber diaphram that wears out after 2000 hours and has to be replaced. You would want to have a replacement part on hand.  In your application that might be every three years or so. I used a Shurflo pump like these for about 10 years at my house without any breakdown but I was using less water.
The higher cost solution uses a positive displacement pump head coupled to a 12 volt motor. It needs finer filtering to keep the wear down. In the US a company called Sunpumps makes them.
Any pump that uses a belt coupling to the motor can have a 12 volt motor of comparable size substituted.
Be sure to use a large enough pipe to keep the pressure loss small to use less power.  A 1 inch pipe would be best.
Chris

gg

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Re: pump water up from spring in Congo
« Reply #3 on: December 18, 2010, 04:57:35 PM »
Thanks very much for the excellent feedback. I've just looked at Shurflo pumps--the 3.5 and the 2.8-- and the 2.8 looks good; mainly it can pump a fair quantity of water even at higher PSI and the extra amp isn't that significant. The one issue is start up PSI. Given the vertical lift, the 'resting' pressure that will remain in the line when the pump isn' working may be more than 25 PSI, in which case the pump will not want to come back on....correct? I'm thinking that I could make a bleed off section of pipe down close to the pump which would have a valve; the valve would close when the pump isn't working. That section would have a very small bleeder hole in the pipe which would bring it below 25 PSI. The pump would 'read' that section and then be willing to come back on.  Does this make sense?

scottsAI

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Re: pump water up from spring in Congo
« Reply #4 on: December 18, 2010, 05:32:41 PM »
Since your filling a tank a float switch is better than pressure.
The pressure switch cant tell when the tank is full unless using a pressurized bladder tank.
Different pumps have different pressure switches.

BTW, I use RV pump as backup. Electric fails use 12v RV pump for showers works great.

Scott.

gg

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Re: pump water up from spring in Congo
« Reply #5 on: December 18, 2010, 06:43:45 PM »
Thanks.  Just got handed two float switches. Looking forward now to getting back there and putting it all together. I'd also like to take parts to try an hydraulic ram pump though I'm not sure the amount of drop I have for the drive side is enough to lift adequate amount of water on the delivery side. Any suggestions for good plans for a ram pump?

Basil

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Re: pump water up from spring in Congo
« Reply #6 on: December 18, 2010, 07:21:59 PM »
Here is basic information on how it works. You can see if your site will run a ram pump here.
http://www.thefarm.org/charities/i4at/lib2/hydrpump.htm

Here is a parts list and so on.
http://www.clemson.edu/irrig/equip/ram.htm

hydrosun

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Re: pump water up from spring in Congo
« Reply #7 on: December 18, 2010, 10:33:46 PM »
Since the pump is far from the tank it might be cheaper to use a float valve at the tank and a pressure switch on the pump. When the tank is full the valve would close and the pressure would build up enough to shut off the pump. That would eliminate the wire needed from the tank to the pump. Depends on where your power source is located.
Chris

Rover

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Re: pump water up from spring in Congo
« Reply #8 on: December 19, 2010, 09:22:28 AM »
gg,

One thng I have seen mentioned is the location of the power supply in relation to the pump

"The vertical height is about 60 feet and the run about 300-400 feet" hopefully they are not 300-400 ft apart?
Rover
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gg

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Re: pump water up from spring in Congo
« Reply #9 on: December 20, 2010, 01:22:35 AM »
Vertical height and distance are those from the spring to the storage tank.

Basil

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Re: pump water up from spring in Congo
« Reply #10 on: December 20, 2010, 05:38:44 AM »
Here is more reading on solar water pumping.
http://www.backwoodssolar.com/catalog/pumps.htm

gg

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Re: pump water up from spring in Congo
« Reply #11 on: December 20, 2010, 11:13:26 AM »
Thanks. Correction to the earlier response regarding distance between power source and spring--it's about 250 to 300 ft. I'm taking materials to build a ram pump but if it doesn't work because of available flow-distance-lift-drive side dynamics then its going to be use of DC pump. A serious consideration though is the size of the wire needed to run the distance.......any feedback?

Rover

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Re: pump water up from spring in Congo
« Reply #12 on: December 20, 2010, 04:41:37 PM »
250-300ft is going to be an expensive wire run for 12V. At 3A you're looking at a voltage drop of ~1.2V  or 10% if using 8 AWG . You'd probably want to go with 6 AWG or less.

Around here direct burial stranded 8AWG-2 goes for around 1$ a foot

I have no idea on your pump draw 3-4A is just what my bilge pumps draw.
Rover
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Basil

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Re: pump water up from spring in Congo
« Reply #13 on: December 20, 2010, 06:24:19 PM »
You still have not gave much infomation.
"The vertical height is about 60 feet and the run about 300-400 feet"
Vertical height and distance are those from the spring to the storage tank.
Your power source is about 250 to 300 ft from the spring.

The chart in the link should have told you if a ram pump will work.
I may have missed it but What is your head =Water Vertical drop to the
lowest point for a ram pump.
With that the chart will tell you the rest.
Good luck with the project.

WindriderNM

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Re: pump water up from spring in Congo
« Reply #14 on: January 17, 2011, 11:05:46 PM »
Can you move the solar closer to the pump.
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