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How to make a very simple hand-operated water pump using components easily found around most properties.
This instructable is a guide to constructing a simple coil pump... and it is also a challenge.
We will show you a method of construction and operation - the challenge is... using a similar pump, can you get better results than we did?
You will need:
Build Time
2 hours including testing.
Tools
a gas blowtorch or similar heat source
scissors or a sharp knife
a stepladder (optional)
wire clippers / pliers
Materials
X meters of hosepipe
a plastic waste-paper basket
a large bucket - ideally twice the diameter of the waste-basket or bigger
a long bamboo stick or similar
electrical or duct tape
wire to make securing ties - or zip ties
a large bowl
a water supply
We collected all of these things around our house and didn't spend a dime on anything new. This is also a part of the challenge - make your pump with things you can find around your property. With the exception of hosepipe, if you buy anything to construct this project, please list the items and costs - less bought new is better.
So... our results
We lifted the water through a vertical distance of 3.1 meters and at a rate of just over 2 liters in 3 minutes.
There is plenty of room for improvement !
*edit Saturday 03 September 2011 - Coil Pump V2.0 completed and tested - 21.7 liters pumped through 3.1 meters vertical distance in 3 minutes
If you try this out, please leave a comment detailing your results... a link to pictures or your own instructable would be brilliant!
Good luck from everyone at Aziza's Place, Phnom Penh, Cambodia
http://www.azizafoundation.org/projects_aziza.html
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Azizas-Place/339342099551
http://www.instructables.com/id/Coil-Pump-V20-testing-rig/
Looking forward to hearing from you........
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Signing UpStep 1
Beginning at the top of the waste-basket, coil the hosepipe around the basket in a spiral. Secure the pipe on both sides of the basket every 2 or 3 turns using a twist of wire. We used magnet wire as it's what we had and it's very soft and easy to use.
As you can see, we joined small sections of hose together... it's what we had available at the time.
As you can see, we joined small sections of hose together... it's what we had available at the time.
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http://www.youtube.com/frytvnow#p/u/24/hJAUTjURjEY
I've looked into this one a little more, and think that the airlift pump is not what we need.
To work well, the pump needs a length of pipe extending below the surface of the water that at least matches the height above the surface that the water will be pumped to, and the air must be introduced in a specific way at that depth. To get 68 feet of lift, you would also need around 68 feet of pipe or more below the water's surface. This is called the submergence ratio of the pump. Google search link.
Airlift pumps are also not capable of transporting water horizontally away from the well/pump head at angles of less than 60 degrees, which further moves this type of pump from our requirements.
Appreciate your comment and time taken, but it's not for us I'm afraid.
It'll be a while before I have a working pump built, but I'm pretty sure I've cracked the main design problems and will put an Instructable up here when I get a pump up and running...
A couple of thoughts.
1. You could increase the production by adding a very simple transmission so that the coil rotates on both the forward and back movement.
2. Also with the energy generated in the swing you could also make a piston pump using two pistons one for pumping on the forward swing and one one for the reverse swing - It can be made entirely out of bamboo
3. You were concerned about submersion when we first spoke. Have you seen the comment from Shasho on gaiatechnician's challenge regarding the geyser pump? - also the link include there?
http://www.airliftpump.com/index.htm
I found this link which to me described the pump so I could understand it better and figure out how the geyser pump works - but I feel it would require a more powerful pump than the airlift while it requires less submergence it "seems like" it offsets the submergence by creating more air pressure.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r18kG_I7AeY&feature=related
Don't know if you had seen this.. But anyway Great work keep it up!
.
Thanks for the links, hadn't seen that geyser pump video before.
Yes, we got the drag problem minimised by lifting the main pump body out of the water and having a single, larger inlet coil that dipped into the water with each rotation for input... however, we were restricted by the size of the water jar that we had - a larger storage jar would have been better.
Once the drag was substantially reduced, the pump didn't rob so much momentum from the swing. We didn't implement our design for powering the pump from both directions of swing, but I'm almost certain that the drag reduction would allow for powering on both forward and backward swings - with the proviso of weights added to the swingseat for lighter "operators". This is something that I'll be looking into again this year.
Your point 2 is the area I'm focusing on right now. I'm almost through designing a swingset that can compress air - air that can be used to feed an airlift pump. Initially, I'm looking at a slow airflow rate of around 0.8 cfm for a single piston pump, but when I've got that one built I'll be adding as many more pumps as the swing will power, and will be trying both airstone and geyser type airlifts. The idea is to supply well water to above ground for the V2.0 pump to then move over a distance.
Will be doing this over the spring and summer and will post the results up on Instructables when I have them.
Cheers
Rob
You mentioned using an airstone. I've noticed a few implementations with them included. Although, I am not convinced that adds anything to the design other than maybe improving oxygenation for aquariums. Because the air must recombine and form a big bubble to push the water up the pipe. To me it seems like a bubbler would only add a restriction to the airflow. Also it appeared to me a bellows like is used for a blacksmiths forge might work really well in this application and it would be really easy to implement.
Till Later,
- Phil
Remember:
1. Add more coils to the pump to send water higher
2. Use a larger diameter hosepipe to pump more water
Let us know how you did?
Aziza's Place
I have a video about "airlift pump nano". It is a "challenge" like your instructable. This is not a typical airlift pump because it uses "plug flow" instead of simply using the lower specific gravity of bubbly water to do the pumping (which is how a normal huge airlift pump works). Because of the different flow type, it does NOT need huge submergence to work!
For instance, in my tiny demo model, I used an aquarium air bubble pump to pump water to 13 ft high. AND submergence was only 2.5 ft and max pressure was only enough to pump air 3 ft under water. So far, reaction to this has been really muted. I imagine bundles of these tubes powered by a simple foot pump and pumping water out of wells maybe 30 or 40 ft deep. (Nobody knows how high it can pump!) I did 13 ft just to whet people's appetite and I didn't check efficiency because I used several tubes joined together. I also did the pulser pump over 20 years ago, which is like a low pressure airlift pump. This also uses plug flow. BUT please note that it can also work (probably not as efficient) using "slug" flow. Slug flow pumps water up a slope quite well. I used it with the pulser pump to pump to just over 5 meters high and to about 8 meters high. Your pump is great and hopefully you can get funding to try it and various other low tech pumps. I am sure we need several different types. Brian
Brian
Our hosepipe was really lots of pieces of hose joined together, but most of it was 12mm across the hole in the middle, and around 16mm across all of the pipe.
12mm inside diameter
16mm outside diameter
We used around 8 or 9 meters of hose in our first pump.
I hope that helps...
http://www.notechmagazine.com/2011/06/how-to-build-a-spiral-pump.html
Hi, ragena. That's a good question :D .
A large number of people living in the countryside in Cambodia don't have household plumbing, or access to a mains water system; they have a large pond that acts as a water reservoir, and in the 8 month dry season they get all of their household water from there. This includes water for personal washing, washing clothes, washing dishes, etc - everything that one would expect to do with water.
Basically, this coil pump would make it possible to have water storage at height, and/or transport water easily over a distance, and would greatly help with small-scale water management and distribution, either to the home or to a small crop garden and any stock kept... all without using any fuels or electricity and all with a very simply designed construction that most anyone could build.
We're currently working on a way to power our pump V2.0 that doesn't use fuels or electricity either, that is built from readily available materials, and that can be operated with minimal maintenance by anyone.
We'll be publishing our proof-of-concept for the motive power in the next 2 weeks.
Build a pump and try it?
If you can't get the height - add more turns to the coil on the basket.
If you can't get the volume in 3 minutes - use a larger diameter pipe and/or increase the rpm of the pump.
Enjoy :D !
The second instructable is a novel approach that wouldn't require a lot of precision which I noted was one of your concerns in some of the comments.
I don't know if you have seen these, hope they help.
I also had an idea to help improve the "pulsar pump" the input requires some air be introduced into the system to work so the inlet side needs to be at just the right depth to suck a little bit of air. If you have a floating bucket that moves up and down with the water level then put notches in the rim to regulate the amount of water it would be less sensitive to changing water depth?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOn7Zu3CCxo&feature=related
http://www.instructables.com/id/Rope-Pump-Elephant-Pump/
Good luck Great Challenge!
- Phil
Thanks for the links and your time taken to reply, much appreciated.
Yes, I've seen the pulser pump drawings and concept on the 'net before, but dismissed the idea on the grounds of it being simply too much literal groundwork in preparation and on our lack of facilities to build and test such a large, immovable device. It also requires a certain amount of water head to function, which is something that most of our target group of users just don't have - in fact quite the reverse in a lot of cases. It does look good, but not for our purposes.
With the rope pump - it's a known and well-proven technique, but the target demographic for this product is a rural population with little formal education. We're aiming for a self-build pump and are trying to keep things as mechanically simple as possible. I think that if not set up correctly, there may be room for more mechanical losses in that system than we can carry... this will be a human-powered pump when all's completed and we're aiming for a minimal operative effort.
Having said that, we haven't built, tried or tested one, and after seeing that clip and searching a little, the rope pump concept is something that we will certainly bear in mind.
Thanks again!
Many thanks to the Instructables team for their gift of a Pro membership account.
Awesome!
http://www.riferam.com/river/index.htm
http://www.animatedsoftware.com/pumpglos/gl_sling.htm
The tapered design looks to follow the same principle as our pump V2.0, only our taper is split to return up the center of the pump - this gives more coils and more lifting capability.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/27008114/MOV09762.MPG
The taper is a really important part of the pump. If the inlet initial coil circumference is, for example, 1 meter, then that coil contains 50cm of water and 50cm of air. As the pump turns, gravity pulls the water and air to the next coil, and so on and so forth.
The coils gradually reduce in size until the last coil, which for this example would have a 75cm circumference.
As water cannot be compressed, and 50cm of water and 50cm of air won't fit into a 75cm pipe, the air becomes compressed and powers the lifting of the water. Well... that's the idea.
We're already looking at our "next step" design, but can't really look in the direction of river powered pumps just yet.
Cambodia has a dry season of around 8 months each year, and most rural families here have a large water storage pond near their home for that time. People use that stored water for pretty much all of their needs during the dry season. How to move that still water to the house or to the stock and vegetable garden is the goal for this project. We now know that a waste-paper basket sized pump is big enough to lift water to the required height, and are looking at improving the pumps distance capabilities.
Yes, I'd heard of the Archimedes Screw but didn't want to work with the fairly close tolerances that that would need.
I'm looking for a way to raise water from standing pools, and this is based on the Wirtz / spiral pump detailed on Lurkertech's webpage - some very good information there.
http://lurkertech.com/water/pump/tailer/