Hydraulic Ram Pump

[michael collinson]

Hi,

After watching Cody's videos I went ahead and built myself a Hydraulic ram pump to pump water from my stream. It pumps about 50 feet vertically and over 300 away from the stream to a holding tank to supply water for my garden

If anyone is interested I have a couple of short videos showing it being constructed and in use.

Please take a look at https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLRIQ5NuSfVrn4U05rtsdbNm2vUkRKH2-x and subscribe if you would like to see other projects I am undertaking.

[BrutusBuckeye]

what is the run down from the stream to your pump? If I understand the mechanism correctly, there would have to be some "run" to power the pump. I've been curious if there is a formula on this, haven't found one yet...

[michael collinson]

what is the run down from the stream to your pump? If I understand the mechanism correctly, there would have to be some "run" to power the pump. I've been curious if there is a formula on this, haven't found one yet...

There does have to be a minimum run and there is a formula for this also there is a maximum, I found that once I got above about 120 feet in length with my 1.1/4 inch pipe the pump slowed down a lot.

My own run is about 90 feet to the expansion tank, ( which effectively becomes the new source ) and then another 100 feet to the pump, I needed this length to get a decent, 5 feet approx, head of water.

A formula for both of these and other good information can be found on the Clemson University page here http://www.clemson.edu/irrig/equip/ram.htm

[BrutusBuckeye]

the clemson page won't load for me,
says it is forbidden
but if I understand correctly, 100ft with a 5 ft drop results in the ability to pump it vertically 50ft?
awesome!

[michael collinson]

the clemson page won't load for me,
says it is forbidden
but if I understand correctly, 100ft with a 5 ft drop results in the ability to pump it vertically 50ft?
awesome!

That is odd as it says the same for me but it was fine when I looked yesterday, most odd! Anyway as they say there are more ways than on to skin a cat I took a look at the web archive "waybackmachine" and came up with an archived copy
https://web.archive.org/web/20141217143030/http://www.clemson.edu/irrig/Equip/ram.htm
This gives you all the detailed info you need.

Yes, a 5 foot drop should give you about 50feet vertically, mine is just about that and gives a steady trickle 24 hours a day as you can see in the video.

Good luck

[ruiter]

look at this

http://youtu.be/wfgnvyLiboU

[michael collinson]

look at this

http://youtu.be/wfgnvyLiboU

It looks a good pump, but as it needs compressed air which means a motor I don't see this as a application such as the ram pump which only needs the gravity/head of water to operate

[DuxDawg]

The original Clemson link works for me. Interesting project, thanks for sharing!