Coil Pump

Step 8: Ideas for Improvements...

There are various ways that this design could be improved.

Here are some ideas.

Use a single length of hosepipe for the entire device.
Increase the diameter of the hosepipe.
Increase the number of coils around your "waste-basket".
Use something larger than our wastebasket to make your pump.
Experiment with differing rotation speeds.
Experiment with differing angles of delivery of water.
Design a rotating seal to fit into the system between the waste-basket and the pipe to the collection bowl.
Design a rotating mount for the pump to more easily control and experiment with rotation speeds.

There are probably a lot more improvements that can be made - we've only just begun with our investigation of this pump.

Here's our idea for V2.0 in a short video clip (4.6Mb) .... we'll report the results when we have them.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/27008114/MOV09762.MPG

Best of luck, and enjoy!

Aziza's Place

Comments

[pbates123]

I read your challenge it's pretty interesting. I saw a couple of options that you may be interested in. The first uses a different technique but the same principal as your rotating pump - using trapped air to lift the water.

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

[chuangt2u]

Evening, 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!

[pbates123]

Thanx for the quick reply! Actually what makes the pulser work is the air being sucked in from above. The unit can be scaled to almost any size and by pumping air with a bellows down to the pipe just below the water line it then carries the water up. Actually I believe one could place an upside down bucket just below the waterline at a water fall with a pipe or tube coming out of what used to be the bottom of the bucket. When the bubbles come up into the bucket it would force the water up the tube the same way it does in your turning coil pump. For a well you would need a compressor or simple bellows to supply the air needed to work. I hope I am not wasting your time. Your task is intriguing me!