Waterwheel Pumping

[divebuddy]

I designed and built this water wheel for pumping water from a creek up about 100 feet. My friends live in a remote area 3500 feet up in the mountains of northeast Washington State. The creek runs year round and should provide enough water to thier cistern.



The wheel is 30" in diameter, the buckets are 8 X 4" wide, 3" deep. This was made as cheaply as possible. Yes those are wheel chair rims!









The bearings are plastic self aligning with stainless steel housing



The pump is made of 1" brass pipe, it has a 1.125" bore with 4" stroke. which gives around 4 cubic inches of water per stroke. As you may have noticed the pump rocks back and forth on the lower bearings. No need for wrist pins on the piston.

[harrie]

Hi Divebuddy, very nice looking setup, Wheelchair wheels,  good idea. Did you make the pump? can you share how it was done? Looks like a female copper adapter with some holes drilled in it on the top of the pump, Im assuming you used some kind of leathers or rubber on a piston huh? Thanks for sharing.

[divebuddy]

Harrie, yes I made it from 1" brass pipe, turned it down to fit loosely in a 1" to 1/2" male pipe thread adapter. The one on top I soldered in a plug and then drilled it for a guide/support for the piston rod. the whole pump rocks back and forth as the crank goes around. The piston rings are o-rings lubricated with silicone grease. I will take it apart in a few days and get more pictures of the pump and buckets.

[thirteen]

how far will this pump?  That probably depends on the water supply. I was wondering about the durability of the pump in cold weather. Will this be in a small building.  Looks like a good working idea.

[thefinis]

You might find this link interesting

http://www.lurkertech.com/chris/eco/pump/tailer/

I like the design on yours but wonder if it will pump against 100 ft of head with that size water wheel.

Finis

[divebuddy]

I kept the pump area small so that I could use a smaller wheel. I will only need 50 psi to reach 100 feet. Only 1 square inch of piston area gives me around 50 pounds of thrust to achieve the height. I calculated out I need around 12 pounds water weight at the bucket diameter. When it was bench tested just pulling on the spokes I actually got 180 psi on the gauge. Of course I wont get that from the operating wheel, but it did show it would do my fifty pounds. My next step is to rig it up with a flume to adjust the water angle and alignment.

[treetops]

Thanks for posting this. It's great! Could this concept be used to pump water uphill from a dam to a tank 100 ft above it? (poss using the pressure of water coming down from the tank to begin with?