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RichardW

water pump

I need to come up with a solution to a water problem. I have one field that has an abundance of water & one that does not. I would like to pump the water from one to the other. I think the head is about 5m max but the distance would be about 200m max. I was thinking that a 12v water pump powered by a car / lesuire type battery with a solar panel to reduce the amount it would need to be recharged as max use would be in the summer when max solar power is avaliable. Has anyone tried this? Would a wind powered water pump be better? What about controls so the pump is only running when needed?

I would use a large storage tank so with the battery storage & the water storage it should last a while even with no sun light.

Failing that I though about a petrol powered pump that copuld be manualy run to fill a large storage tank as & when needed.

Justme
Treacodactyl

I'm not sure if this is any help but another option might be a ram pump, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydraulic_ram
RichardW

Have thought about a ram pump as there is a stream to power it but the head would then be about 50m & the flow 4-500m. The extra install costs would make it to costly let alone the ram pump costs. But they are cool how they work.


Justme
Shane

A ram pump will be no good for your application, as you will have a very low suction head and ram pumps cause a high acceleration at the pump suction which needs a high suction head to overcome.

You'll have more luck with a diaphragm pump.

Don't forget that as well as pushing the water up the hill, the pump will need to push it down the pipe, and 200m of pipe causes quite a back pressure (although this obviously depends on flowrate and pipe size).

This one looks pretty good, but is petrol driven so maybe not very downsizerish. It should work for your application, but worth checking whether it has any minimum suction head requirement. With its stated head of 26m you'd be looking at around 250 l/min with your 5m discharge head and 200 m run (assuming 2" hose).

The biggest solar-powered pumps I could find were here, but I don't think they'll give you enough oomph to get up the hill and down the pipe, unfortunately. Coupled with that, they'll probably need to be submerged in a good couple of feet of water.

If you find a pump you're interested in and tell me what size pipe you're intending to run, I can do a quick calc to see if the pump is likely to work - but you'll still need to confirm it with the supplier.
tahir

Are you pumping up hill?
Shane

I'm guessing what that's what the 5m max head was a reference to Question ...
RichardW

I can either pump from a collecting tank near the top of the slope & only have about 5m head & aprox 200m travel or can use stream water but have a much bigger head & treble the travel. The feeder tank is about 2m deep (under ground). Flow can be slow as it wont matter if it takes all the day light hours to fill the upper storage tank as that would last a few days at least. I was thinking of using one of the 2500L ex orange juice tanks & expect it to last 2-4 days minumum. During the winter I doubt that i would need the pump as the roof of the building will keep the tank full & there are natural sources of water too. The demand will be from a few cattle (estimate 10 max).


Thanks for the offer of advice.

Justme
tahir

Justme wrote:
I can either pump from a collecting tank near the top of the slope


If it's near the top of the slope why do you need to pump?
dougal

Justme might well be interested to see this 2005 thread...
http://forum.downsizer.net/viewtopic.php?t=7836

Navitron do offer a suitable small solar powered pump kit
http://www.navitron.org.uk/photovoltaic_solar_cell.htm (and scroll down)
for a 10m lift, it is claimed to deliver a maximum of 80 litres per hour...
for £375 inc VAT plus delivery
piping and installation not included

And yes, its going to deliver less to a higher head...
dunno how strong light it needs to deliver a single drop to 15m, but there is going to be a considerable "stall" to be overcome before anything comes out the other end...
By paralleling more panels, you should reduce the strength of sun required to get it going, but the maximum throughput ("in good light") is going to be limited by the pump, not the panel...
And note that little control box...
RichardW

tahir wrote:
Justme wrote:
I can either pump from a collecting tank near the top of the slope


If it's near the top of the slope why do you need to pump?


Cos its only near the top. So I need to get to the top then down a little then over the field under a road (already has a suitable pupe to use) to a new cattle shed. Total raise will be about 5m.


Justme
Shane

Is the destination tank at a lower overall elevation that the supply tank? Cos if it is, you'll need to watch for syphoning - it will be great for filling the tank quickly, but not so great when it continues to fill and then overflow until the source tank is empty!
RichardW

Shane wrote:
Is the destination tank at a lower overall elevation that the supply tank? Cos if it is, you'll need to watch for syphoning - it will be great for filling the tank quickly, but not so great when it continues to fill and then overflow until the source tank is empty!


Nope there is still enough head for that not to be a problem.


Justme
Brandon

a wind driven pump, as used often in oz, or the prairies, and on the essex marshes, and locate it at the upper tank, it will gladly pump when there is any wind, and any over flow you can run back down the hill to the storage tank.

and they look cool as F**K...



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