Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi SC! Really, really neat idea...........

Our regular borehole (well) uses the Archimedean screw principle in raising water to our tanks for the house - all on the electricity power grid.

I want the AP system off this grid. Costs keep escalating and service is not always reliable. With the horizontal positioning of this coil pump it is easy to drive it by wind... or pedal or anything really.... as displayed with the Sling Pump and its use in flowing water..... I have been looking at so many options to get river water up to tanks for irrigation. With the AP system pumping would become even more important. The horizontal water wheel I liked so far is very expensive. I have lost a number of pumps due to sudden rising of the river levels and didn't want to invest in something at such risk. I had then got into discussions with a guy who knows a lot about plumbing and thought we could use a funnel in the river to drive a modified ram pump. I would have needed quite a bit of help in getting something like that going. But this looks so very much simpler and far more adapted to my conditions!

Thank you! A very valuable bit of info.

Check this out SC!

Water wheel using coil principle.... gets the imagination going!

The outer part of the wheel is the coil..... very simple.... paddles in river drive wheel... or place in sump and windmill drives wheel.... HEE! HEE! I love simplicity.....

actually you can do much better if you inverse the sense of rotation of the coil to counter current: then the current will help fill the tube and the cube will scoop up much more water

but you would need a little more wind or leg power to get it started

frank

Hi Frank.

Not sure it would be better. More wear and tear on parts - and fluctuating strengths of flow in the differing seasons could cause stalling due to increased resistance in turning against the current. I have a strong river flow that can turn to racing white water on occasion after a very hard downpour. If the job can be done efficiently in simplicity I find it preferable.

I found this article which you might find interesting:Spiral water wheel delivers dreamy supply... http://www.earthgarden.com.au/waterwheel.html

Frank,

Facing the inlet of the coil up stream will allow more debris to flow directly into the coil. Facing the inlet down stream most of the debris will be swept past the coil inlet.

Nothing is perfect, but mounting the coil pump on a floating platform may allow for changes in the water level relative to shore...self adjusting so to speak.

Check out a coil pump My 4H-er's built last spring....
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=3411&start=0&st=0&sk=t&sd=a

It worked well.

Matt

Cyara,

The coil pump goes back to about 1670 or so, but may be older. The water from a coil pump will have lots of extra O2 in it. As the trapped air is compressed by the water when the coil turns, and some of it will disolve directly into the water. The fish should like that.
Ram pumps really need a steady head of water to work well, so I don't think just a funnel in the river flow will produce enough energy. A long piece of pipe laid on the river bottom might, but you will still need a steady head.
I have worked with a guy to build a self starting ram pump at a spring where the flow was much too low to operate an ordinary ram pump. The design used a Flout tank to collect water from the spring, starting and stopping the flow to the ram as needed. When the Flout sinks, a charge of water is diverted to kick start the ram pump, which then runs until the Flout tank is empty. The Flout was just low enough to be filled by the spring and the ram pump was a good 21' (7Meters) lower then the spring. So far so good.

I wonder what the effect is of several rounds in the coil instead of just one or two?
can't quite grab it
does that produce more head?
if so, why?

frank

Frank,

Each turn you are trapping a slug of air then a slug of water. If you do it for 10 turns, the water will flow to the bottom of the coil, and advance one coil per turn pushing the air ahead of it. If the coil gets smaller with each turn, the air is compressed by the weight of the water because there is less total space in the coil. The air pushes on the water ahead and the water behind, but can only compress like a spring. The compressed air gets forced into the middle axle where it can expand, forcing the water slug ahead, being much lighter than the 10 coils of water behind it, and out the end of the lift pipe.

You can increase the compression of the trapped air by adding more coils. That lets you push the water higher. You also increase the load the wind or water it takes to turn the coil. Too much and it will stall, no turns for you....
You increase the amount of water moved by using a larger ID pipe as the coil. That also increases the load, too much and it will stall, too.

You can also add coils of the same length side by side to move more water per turn. Again the load is increased but it is more predicable and you can adjust the water wheel or windmill as needed to add more turning power.

Its a balancing act to get it right....

A coil pump might just make a good airator within a tank too. Use the coil pump to force air directly to the bottom of a tank. No oil, no valves, and no heat from a compressor. Damn, now I have something else to build.....

Matt

well explained, thanks

frank

the fact that each gulp of water acts as a piston makes it a positive displacement pump
that would make it very efficient
the swivel (rotating) joint is the weak part
that must be readily accessible for easy maintenance
CHIFT PIST is the way to go to avoid soiled water attacking the joint

frank

Hi Matt,

Neat spiral pump your youngsters made!

Yes. Adjusting on a river is vital. Mine can rise 10 meters on occasion... not regularly... but needs to be accomodated in the design for when rains are heavy. If I floated it.... nice idea cos would be self-adjusting.... it would travel....goodbye.... so much else has already. Took me ages to finally cut up one huge tree that was toppled one year and lay across the frontage.

I really fancy what this guy did to solve this problem....
http://www.earthgarden.com.au/waterwheel.html


I would set up a winch that I could manage and pull her out of the river completely should flooding threaten. My primary use would be to fill a tank for irrigation down there. From there I could travel water using a ram pump - first tank gives initial head required - up to wherever I needed it on the farm. In the dry season it could just keep pumping away day and night filling tanks all the way to the top of my hill to one big holding tank and from there gravity fed down to different tanks that could be triggered to irrigate different sections that now take time and effort to manage.

I would keep the AP system on my borehole (well) water..... clean. Don't know what is in the river....... besides the yellowtail and catfish! Got to learn how to catch me some....

resting the waterwheel on a float would make it self adjusting

make part of the float hollow with a small hole in the bottom and you can adjust the dipping level into the water by raising or lowering the air pressure in the hollow part of the float

still keep the winch that allows to pull it out of the river completely should flooding threaten

frank

loved the sketch, very creative, joshua 1 .9

loved the sketch, very creative, joshua 1 .9

Keeps getting better! Need the coil pump in the sump for sure!

This is really interesting. Do you have a diagram or somewhere I could "see" something? Ram pumps are wonderful things. Self-starting would be great for what I have in mind....