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tanner0441:
Hi

A few months ago I mentioned on here I was setting up a micro off grid set up for a woman living in a modified shipping container, 450W of solar 430Ah of batteries and a 1500W Pure sine wave inverter. That set up is working fine and does everything she has asked of it.

She came to me and asked if I knew of a water pump that would lift water from her stream 40ft up the enbankment to her storage tanks. Two companies had been out and quoted hundreds of GBP to do it.

I measured the fall on the stream laid a 1 1/2 in pipe up the stream bed and  looked at what came out of the end, and judged it would be enough for a RAM pump. put one together from 3/4 plumbing fittings and a couple of swinging back check valves. coupled the feed from the stream to the input and a standard garden hose to the output and fed it up the bank and lay it on the ground after about ten minutes water was coming from the end, I cut the pipe to length and fed it into a 210ltr tank, acouple of minutes later the water was going into the tank at the rate of 225ml a minute.

Starting the pump until there was enough back pressure to hold the outlet valve closed was a bit fiddlybut once everything settled down it sat on the bank clicking away. Appart from when a branch fell of a tree and hit the pump and it required restarting it has worked without fail.

Total cost £65

I would like to be there when the rep from the company doing petrol and electric pumps calls for his follow up visit to see what she has decided.

Brian

Bruce S:
That's wicked cool!
In the past when building "little" RAM pumps , they have also been a fiddly to get going. I generally had to siphon off the air so the water flow didn't have to push the air out of the way.
Once working , they just work.

Cheers to you  ;D!!
Bruce S

DamonHD:
Yes, amazing and well done!

Rgds

Damon

tanner0441:
Hi

I used standard 3/4 hinged flap valves and all 3/4 fittings, with a gate valve on both the inlet and outlet, Shut both valves off and slowly open the inlet valve until the waste valve slams shut. Give it a poke with your finger or stick and it should again slam shut. Slowly open the outlet valve poking at the inlet valve once you get a head of water in the outlet pipe you can get to a point where both gate valves are fully open. if you are border line on the inlet head and the inlet valve doesn't slam shut, try tipping the pump over a few degrees the speed the inlet valve closes is impotant for the water hammer effect. I seem to be getting around 10:1 lift ratio though the outlet quantity is reduced at that ratio, but it pump 24/7

With a 40ft head the pressure in the outlet hose is some 17psi for head pressure multiply head height by 0.334 that is at 20C but it is good enough for most temperatures.

Lots of examples on You Tube just search ram pumps..

Brian

MattM:
I've got about 30" head on the pond to the overflow drain.  The overflow dam probably moves about 30gpm.  That would be an interesting way to use the pond for watering the banks.  If you can push > 30 feet of head I could use a 20 gallon drum on a tree that fills to a self-flushing valve to feed the sprinkler.  I am not versed on water pressure.  How much pressure does it take to run an axial-head sprinkler?

Edit:. Way under-estimated my flow.  Its more like 150 gpm.  Its probably double that.  I can fill a 5g bucket in < 2 seconds, even with heavy spillage. The overflow is over 30" wide, so not even catching but a fraction in the flow test.  Even 40 foot of head doesn't end up the flow I'd need.  I would want about 70 foot of head to actually do it by my rough calculations.  If it trickled water into the soil up on the top of the grass areas it probably will slowly transfer to the lower areas.  Its worth a try.  Probably need to stick to 3/4" or 1" on the experiment.

Does the flow have to be smooth and cavitation-free to get started?

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