~ World's Greenest WATER PUMP ~

Step 3 Button it up.

The hard part is over.

Now take the fire extinguisher and make a pressure tank out of it. You do that by screwing off the extinguisher handle and stuffing a recycled, deflated 20" bicycle tube inside the tank and then inflate it to about 5psi., that's it.

Next, assemble the pump like you see it in the parts list picture and lash it down to something strong or it will walk all over the woods. (remember that water hammer discussion earlier, well, the hammer part is for real!) so lock it down strongly, I used 4 x 3' fence bars bolted to a board and a 10" concrete block. I strapped the pump to that with copper plumbing straps and stainless screws. The feed water pipe is connected to the pump with a rubber plumbing connector.

Comments

[asafche]

not so green as you can think... the pump actually takes the pressure from, let say "x" of the water, spill that "x" right there, and with that pressure it deliver the "1-x" of the water up for some distance. if you have infinite water, that could be o.k., or if you'd like to irrigate something right were the pump is - but if you short on water- that vary bad for you...

like someone said in one of the first comments - you can escape the second law of thermo that say, basically that energy value in total is always decreasing. think about that. you'll find that it is absolutely true, within every system in nature. so how we humans have so much pretension that we think that we will do better where nature had failed...?

[cabin_boy]

I have some questions.  What size fire extinguisher is best?  Does size affect flow of water over distance?  What size bicycle inner tube should be used?  How noisy is this unit?  How does the fire extinguisher attach to the rest of the unit?  Does it run all the time or can I stop and start it at will? 

It looks like just the thing i need but I may need to get help building one and I need to be able to thoroughly explain the design.  Thanks.

[eltigre]

Tank Size will not affect flow unless you use too small a tank. Valve size and cycle frequency will affect output the most.  The extinguisher has a threaded port where the handle just screws in and I got a pipe adapter to match it and connect it to the pump. You can use any vessel of a gallon or more in size and capable of holding about 50psi pressure. For this year's pump,  I am using a vessel made from a piece of abs plastic pipe 2 feet long by 4 inches with a screw cap on one end and glued on reducing adapters to fit it to the check valve.  I would like to try the PET plastic bottle idea to see how long it will last. They are really tough and can hold over 100psi. so that might eliminate the need for an inner tube inside and will let you see the water flow.  The bicycle inner tube inside is the smallest one I could find, about a 12 inch I would guess, just pump it up to about 5 psi and stuff it in to the tank. be careful to keep the metal valve stem pointing away from the tube as much as possible so it will not wear through the rubber during repeated compressions.

The unit is not too noisy (click on the youtube video above to hear it run). It will be much quieter if you use a plastic piece for a top adjuster cap instead of metal. The one I made from plastic can't be heard from about 50 feet away.  You can stop it anytime you like by just holding the valve in the up position, I leave mine running all the time and run 2 frog fountains and a bamboo deer scare fountain when I don't need  the water for garden irrigation.   There are many design explanations available on the net if you need to explain it along with my video and the still images in step 4 above showing exactly how a cycle works.  As for building this one, just print the pictures and a plumbing shop will be able to get all the parts for you from that, except for the valve stem assembly. Let us know how you make out... ;)

[wilmadan]

i have come up to a solution by putting a diaphram with a  spring  to help in pumping the water. make a hole on top of the tank to install the diaphram.tightly fit the nuts to air tight the tank.

[eltigre]

Can you explain your idea a bit more or post a drawing, I am not understanding how your solution works. Is it designed to replace the inner tube inside the pressure tank?

[GordieGii]

Hey, could this hammer effect be converted into a pile driver? Just thinking out loud... Gordie.

[eltigre]

Not likely using the effect directly. It would be quite possible to accumulate the weight of pumped water and use that some how. E.g. use the pump to fill reinforced thick bottom buckets then slide them down a long wire repeatedly. Not very practical but loads of fun... just wear your raincoat and a very good hard hat!