OT-- The hydraulic water ram

[Pitchy]

Here`s another invention that is pretty neat, its called a hydraulic water ram.
This one is a original one i bought locally and was used in a resort to pump water up to a water tower . The pump was fed by a spring.
They operate on nothing but the down hill flow or current of water and will pump great heights and distances.
The pump has to be at least three feet lower than the supply water unless your using forced water through a pipe from a dam.
Best to do a goggle about them but the short of is the weight of the water in the drive pipe flows freely under the air chamber and out the valve until the velocity of the water slams the valve shut. At that point the water enters the air chamber through a hole with a one way valve and compresses the air. It then has no where to go but out of the air chamber through another pipe.
Very cool pump and can be easily made from PVC pipe and fittings.
They work very well in the mountains , i seen one in Washington where a guy had one down the hill from a spring that pumped the water back up the hill to his cabin.

[Hobie]

I thought you had made one... These are ingenious. I understand that properly made, they will last forever (in practical, your lifetime terms).

[Pitchy]

I thought you had made one... These are ingenious. I understand that properly made, they will last forever (in practical, your lifetime terms).

I did make a small one back in the day i was going to threashing shows, had a display of three of them running.
They still use them in third world countries i believe. They will run in the winter i`m told because the water is moving all the time but i`ve never tried it and find it hard to believe that it would not freeze up here at -40
I wish i had a place to run one i`d have it going in the summer for sure. A old timer friend told me they had one on a farm that was supplied from a creek that was a mile away that pumped water to they`er house.
I have a book that shows three pumps in a river down stream from a dam, the water came from behind the dam throu 16 inch pipes and it delivered water to a town miles away.
Neat invention

A good link about them.
http://www.lifewater.ca/ram_pump.htm

[2ndovc]

Thanks for putting that up. We've been having a difficult time lately getting water from the stream that runs
past our cabin.

When it's been raining the flow is decent but in the dryer months it can be just a trickle.

Gave me something to ponder!

Here's another link on making one from PVC and brass fittings.


http://www.clemson.edu/irrig/equip/ram.htm



Pretty cool! You engineering types always amaze me.



jb

[Charles]

During my time in Ecuador I new some folks that had one. It took water from a spring, with a short fall and pumped it into a tank that feed by gravity into a couple of homes. It has been going day and night for ten years when I got there without any any work on it.

[perry owens]

Back in the '60's some hippy friends bought a small farm in south-west England and asked me to take a look at the lump of cast iron that was lying in their stream. Turned out be a Green and Carter hydraulic ram. We resited it and cleaned it out and it has been pumping their water to the farm ever since. Green and Carter started making hydraulic rams in 1774 and still make their original model. Nice thing about their products is that they are guaranteed forever.
Perry Owens

[Mike D.]

I know where one of those is sitting high on a hillside near what once was a large rock quarry. Long abandoned, the pump hasn't seen use for nearly 75 yrs. Last time I looked it was in great shape. There is also a Douglas hand pump along the same ditch but farther from the dried up spring. No water has flowed up there for decades. Too heavy for me to mess with, both will likely remain there for the duration.

Our Sierra cabin's water comes from a natural spring. It flows from the spring 250' down a steep hillside to a 1100 gallon tank and from there another 500' to the cabin below. Huge amount of pressure developed from the long gravity feed.

[Twodot]

I always thought these were kind of like a perpetual motion machine
..

[Pitchy]

Great replies and info guys, thanks.
If i get real energetic before freeze up i`ll hook mine up to my outdoor shower tank and shoot a video

[Borregos]

Another interesting post, thanks Pitchy, what's next I wonder

[adirondakjack]

There's a feller around here that lives "off the grid' because the power company quoted ridiculous numbers to string lines to his cabin. He's on a hillside, and his cabin is on the only buildable spot, upper corner of his property. A stream runs across the opposite corner of his land, below the cabin at even the highest point of the creek where he owns the land. Yet he had enougb vertical drop on his property to install a small wooden dam, and dropping water 4 feet through a sluice that runs two little turbines to generate electicity. That same water could probably be run up to his cabin using one of these deals, so he could run a clothes washer off creek water instead of his very low flow shallow well he pumps by hand now into a storage tank on the kitchen wall..... Neat how it's almost like electricity (ohms law comes to mind), the way messing around with pipe diameters and velocitiy of flow can use drop to get enough pressure to raise the water higher than where ya capture it.. Very cool indeed.

[Rusty]

So what if you had two water reservoirs, an upper one and a lower one. If you let the water run from the upper one to the lower one and just before it hit the lower reservoir it went through a turbine/ water wheel that made electricity. Then you drain the water off of the lower reservoir through a water ram that pushes it back to the upper reservoir and so on and so on. I wonder if that would work? Now that would be a perpetual machine.

[Rimfire McNutjob]

Here I go, off to Wikipedia to learn how this works. Pitchy's posts certainly keep me busy in that regard.

[6pt-sika]

I did make a small one back in the day i was going to threashing shows, had a display of three of them running.

Back when I still messed with steam traction engines there was one fellow that hung around with us at the shows and his thing was the "Water Ram" !

When I got out of the steam engine thing I think he had upwards of 40-50 of the darn things in about 12-14 different sizes . More then one I took a ride with him somewhere and he'd say "the farmer told me the spring house was about here " and he'd take a metal detector and look around a bit , then start digging and 9 times outta 10 he would dig down and get one . Then in about a week he'd have it going again . He had one I think that was well over 3 feet tall if my memory serves .

[Pitchy]

Cool guys

Rife was another company that made rams, here`s the four in the river i was talking about.

[AJMD429]

So what if you had two water reservoirs, an upper one and a lower one. If you let the water run from the upper one to the lower one and just before it hit the lower reservoir it went through a turbine/ water wheel that made electricity. Then you drain the water off of the lower reservoir through a water ram that pushes it back to the upper reservoir and so on and so on. I wonder if that would work? Now that would be a perpetual machine.

Actually, the power to raise SOME water is derived from the energy derived from letting the REST of the water fall, so only some of the water would be returned to the top reservoir.

[Rusty]

So you could add more rams to make the system work then, right?

[Pitchy]

You would run out of water, the rams waste valve dumps a lot of water on the ground. When i had a display i had to use a electric pump to return the wate wate back to the uper tank.
They really only work well where the water would run off normally anyway.

After thought, if it worked you could use the electricity produced by the turbin to run a electric pump to return the waste water to the tank. But then why use the ram at all

[O.S.O.K.]

Talk about a salient post! Thank you Pitchy for puting this up. We need one of these rigs for our new place!

We have a couple of springs that we could tap into for this - they are down-hill from where we want to place the house = this would allow us to pump the water with no need for electricity - outstanding!

And I found this site which manufactures these pumps: http://riferam.com/sorder.html#ecwid:ca ... ort=normal

Rife still makes their pumps!!!

Look - they are very similar to the Humphry's one you showed in the OP:



IMHO, this is an amazing "something for nothing" proposition. I know that the thing simply uses the gravitational force and multiplies it and pumps at a reduced rate - kind of a hydrolic "block and tackle" arrangment, but it is still an amazing thing to me

Again, thanks!

[O.S.O.K.]

Something just occured to me as I was thinking of my friend who has a well on his property that he's not using right now... he could dig a hole - three feet below where the water is drawn from his well (which is only about 12' deep) and place-use this pump to put water in an elevated holding tank too, and have free water.

[O.S.O.K.]

OK - Pitchy, you really started my brain to working... Let's say I've got this rigged up to pump water 24/7 to my holding tank, elevated above my home to create the needed water pressure.

There's going to be a need to allow for water to spill-out of the tank as the pump runs continuously... right?

Why not put an in-line hydro generator so that the over-flow generates power as it falls out of the tank?

Wait, this idea is growing in my noggin.

Picture this:

A row of say, 10 of these pumps placed below a pond's levy - with water pipes placed so that there is a constant flow of water draining off of the pond and running through the pumps - which pump the water to a nearby elevated water tank with a drain pipe below - of a diameter 10 times that of the ones bleeding off of the pond... and have a sizable hydro generator hooked up to the pipe - down flow of course... the water goes through the generator and back into the pond!

This is in effect using the hydrolic power of the water flowing off of the pond and focusing it so that it can be run through the generator... viola' "free electicity - 24/7" so long as the pond's water level is high enough.

In our case, the overflow of our home's water tank (fed by the spring) will go into the pond- to help ensure that it remains topped-off.

The hydro generator would run to a bank of batteries and a converter - just like a solar power system uses and the house would run off of that. ETA: No - actually, now that I think about it more, the pumps and generator will be running 24/7 - even when it gets below freezing (Mississippi isn' that cold) - so, no need for batteries... in fact, we could probably sell the excess power back to the electric coop! Now that's what I'm talkin about!

Wow.

We are talking about maybe $15K in total material expense to get free electricity. The pay-back on that would be something like 4-5 years...

That's assuming 10 of the pumps would be needed - if "only" say 4 of them would work.... then you're talking $6-7K

Imagine, no water bill, and no electricity bill. Never a power outtage from storms.

Anybody see any holes in this "plan"?

Pitchy? What do you think?

[2ndovc]

Now I'm obsessed with these things!

I'm going to start putting together the necessary parts and try it out. I think it will be the perfect fix for my cabin water problem.

There's plenty of water up there just getting it inside consistantly is the issue.


jb

[1894]

Just some food for thought . Our neighbors at camp have taken a 12 V pump from like a camper or trailer and get 12' - 15 ' lift out of it from their well . One charge covers sink water ( dishes , washing ,cooking ,etc ) and also a 30 gall water heater - shower for a few guys for 3 - 4 weeks use on a single car battery without recharging it.
So , in the apropriat places , a small solar trickle charger to keep the battery topped off and a float switch ( like on a sump pump ) and a small pool ( 55 gal food grade barrel ? ) to lift the water back up to above the hyd pump(s) from, could come close to at least keeping running water even durring some dry weeks for a back up ???

[O.S.O.K.]

2ndovc - What do you think about the power generation thing?

[2ndovc]

2ndovc - What do you think about the power generation thing?

I think that's a cool idea. Especially the living off the grid part.

If our creek was a deeper a and flowed faster I would definately try some type a water driven generator.

jb

[Pitchy]

I`ve always thought a water wheel in a creek would be the cats meow.

You guys are a lot smarter than me, my memory is getting so bad i get lost on the way to the shop

All i know is ya can`t get something for nothing in this world and perpetual motion has been tried and failed for many years.
All your ideas sound neat, it all depends how much time and money you want to put into it.
Use caution fellas, if it`s too good to be true it usually is.

[Pitchy]

Something just occured to me as I was thinking of my friend who has a well on his property that he's not using right now... he could dig a hole - three feet below where the water is drawn from his well (which is only about 12' deep) and place-use this pump to put water in an elevated holding tank too, and have free water.

Your welcome, just remember the waste water that spills from the pump, in a pit it would be a problem.
Other wise, at least three foot drop and ya got it going.
You guys are getting me fired up now, can`t wait to see what ya come up with.

[O.S.O.K.]

Well, I don't see this as "something for nothing", it's just a very clever use of existing hydrolic power. It takes the energy from the water drop and at a reduced rate, converts it to energy to pump the water up to the tank.

I don't think that the water flow from one pump from my spring would be enough to generate any significant power.

However, if you multiply the volume times 4 or 6 or whatever is needed, it most certainly would create enough to turn a small hydro generator. The pond set-up would allow for as many pumps as you care to purchase and hook up... and therefore, it's just a question of how many would be needed.

Now, if the electricity would be enough to power my house? I don't know.

But I figure that it's definately worth looking into!

Really, if you think about it, it's no different than tapping into the wind's power with a wind generator - only with this set-up, you'd have a steady and continous flow that you could count on 24/7.

I can't believe that I've gone this far in life without hearing about these pumps. They are just so ingenious and efficient. Amazing! I mean, I can't see how there is any loss of energy in the system - or a very very small amount if there is.

[O.S.O.K.]

So what if you had two water reservoirs, an upper one and a lower one. If you let the water run from the upper one to the lower one and just before it hit the lower reservoir it went through a turbine/ water wheel that made electricity. Then you drain the water off of the lower reservoir through a water ram that pushes it back to the upper reservoir and so on and so on. I wonder if that would work? Now that would be a perpetual machine.

I didn't see your earlier reply until just now as I was reading back up the thread - but obviously this is the same exact idea that I had.... only I was picturing my property with it's arrangement...

This does seem too good to be true, but I can't see how it would be any different than pulling from a stream or spring.

Especially if you use multiple pumps to increase the flow.

[O.S.O.K.]

OK, some smarty engineer types on another site answered the question about using the continuous loop for the generation of electricity - won't work using a hydro turbine type generator - just no where near enough water flow. You only get about 22.5% of the water going into the pumps delivered at the container and looking at the capability of the pumps, just not feasible at all. Not to mention that the water ram gushes water every time it pumps... so you absolutely do need some kind of inflow to the water source to make up for that lost water...

I have asked now about pushing a water wheel - figuring about 15 gal/minute water flow using one of their larger $3400 units. The idea is to take the much lower electrical generation and store it in a bank of batteries with a converter - but I have a feeling that it still won't work.

[Pitchy]

Yep buddy, they work good for there intended purpose of moving water cheaply

I should explain what i meant when i said you can`t get something for nothing, i wasn`t saying anyone was cheap.
What i meant was it takes power to make power, it has to come from something, there is no perpetual motion.
Ya gotta give up something to get something.

[BigSky56]

OSOK if you know the gpm of your spring with the right size pipe and fall you could put in a low head low pressure water turbine and the waste water from the turbine could be ram pumped up to your holding tank, a net search would put you on to those turbines. danny

[O.S.O.K.]

Hey Danny - the springs are very low flow - maybe 2 or 3 gallons per minute, so that's not an option really.

I think I'm barking up the wrong tree with this idea - other than using them as a cheap pump = which is really good inand of itself.

[pwl44m]

I remember visiting one of My Aunts in Yelville Arkansas back in the mid to late 50s. They had a pump in the Creek that fascinated Me to no end. It pumped water into a tank in the attic and gravity flow was all they had. All I remember it being called was a Ticker Pump. All U would hear is a "tick" every few seconds. It must have been the same idea although it didn't look like the one U pictured. I have a coupl hand operated Pumps that look pretty much the same.
Perry

[Pitchy]

Wow that might be a rare one, never seen one like that, cool.

[O.S.O.K.]

That is cool! Amazing the longevity of these things. Bet with a little cleaning that'd work just fine!