Ram Pump Half Inch to Half Inch

[Music] exciting video from gobble Ridge Farms and today I am standing in front of about 300 chestnut trees that are for our new orchard now I put a all-cash offer on a new piece of property back in August I didn't close on it until March don't even ask me about all that it was crazy but I finally got closed on the property the only issue that I have is that I had intended to get these trees in the ground from back during the fall or at minimum the spring while they were still you know in their dormancy stage but since I just got closed and I have to kind of get the land cleared and the culvert put in on all that it's gotta be towards the end of April maybe even into the first a little bit of me before I can get these trees in the ground now that's not exactly the time of year I want to be planting them but they are three year old trees they're in pots and becoming rootbound and I don't think I can keep them watered good enough and in this tight close proximity all through another Georgia summer without completely losing them so I'm gonna make an attempt to go ahead and get them in the ground even if it's a late spring and then make sure that I irrigate them throughout the summer now the new property has a small creek flowing through it and if you saw my video on golfcart irrigation here at the home farm I put in a secondary well it was pumping in two buckets and taking an electric pump and going out water in each tray size somewhat labor intensive and with 300 trees versus a 60 I just don't think that I'm gonna be able to do that so in steps YouTube and in my video feed was the answer to what I needed and that's the where I think YouTube shines is the things that we can learn from there the things we can teach each other and the experiences that we can share because I saw a video pop up in my newsfeed for her for a hydraulic ram pump where you can pump water without the use of electricity just based on the energy and the water as it travels down low down the slope and for every foot of elevation that losses it can pump water 10 feet in elevation gain so [Music] before that video popped up of a news feed I had no idea what a ram pump was they'd never seen it and I was thinking about 12 volt battery so I take my generator over there do I dig a well with a hand auger and all so YouTube came to my rescue with this hydraulic ram pump you know basically the water flows in here you have a little flapper valve that spits water out create some pressure that shuts that all pushes it this way you got another little flapper valve here it allows water to go up inside this tube here I'm gonna put a bicycle tube in there it compresses all that air and then it pushes the water back down closing this valve and out trickles your water in the out to output line that basic basically how it works there are a lot of other great YouTube videos out there that go into very deep explanations on the principle behind this and the fact that I think the first one was made in 1897 is amazing that somebody bought this up back then without you - without the internet without you know being or Google or any of this other kind of stuff if if it blows my mind so I'm gonna go ahead and make one here start trying to use it here at the forum see how that works and what I'm experimenting with is that most of the time you want your supply line to be bigger than your output line you know so that it has enough volume to run the run the pump and push it out I have seen a channel or whatever where they have some in a half inch to half inch and most of the time people say that doesn't work according to so the videos I've seen that will so that's one of the things I want to find out is will a half inch to a half inch pumps efficiently you know for what I'm doing I'm going to kind of Nick the input up to about 3/4 to make sure I'm getting enough water pressure into that the other thing experimenting around wealth is I have a fitting here so I can screw in a garden hose which is 3/4 of an inch so I'm coming from 1/2 inch and I'm going to go up to a 3/4 some people say you know that won't be very efficient it won't work or what have you I'm gonna find that out and the other thing I've got another piece of black pipe that I'm going to put on here that's 2 feet long and if you have very flexible hose the water ramming effect the hammer effect that flexible hose will absorb some of the energy and it won't pump you know very efficiently so I'm gonna do a couple of experiments to see you know if I put some black pipe into this with 2 feet be enough to take it out to not lose so much hammer does it need to be longer do I even need it at all will it still work without the extra cost of that so I've got a few experiments that I want to kind of conduct and see for myself on this but I tell you what that's the thing I you know social media you know I feel about all that that kind of garbage and what people are you know yakking back and forth at each other and all ion but with with some of the things that we can learn on YouTube I think that is where the quote-unquote social media type stuff really really shines so I'm gonna take you along with my journey building my first ramp pump and do a couple experiments on it see if it worked and if you have a similar situation somewhere and haven't heard about these this to be is very cool so I just kind of put this together to show it to you on the on the screen I do not have any pipe tape in between these fittings definitely need some of that in there so I'm gonna go in put pipe fittings or the pipe tape in between all these fittings don't want to bore you with all that so you have to go put that in and then we'll get back in talk about a couple of little little features and we'll go start seeing if we can crank this puppy up all right let's go see what happens [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] okay just continue wrapping all the other pieces until you're done but I want to give you a couple of tips and tricks I'll go over some of them again at the over overview at the end of this part but with the teflon tape what you want to do is wrap that from the top not the bottom and what that does is it'll maintain tension on your tape it helps you tear it at the end and it helps you get a tighter wrap if you wrap from the bottom it'll spool off more tape then you really need it you'll get real loose and you'll be fighting that and so just wrap in this direction that you see me going here I'm gonna hold it up here a little bit better for you see what I'm talking about I'm wrapping basically on the outside of the spool of tape if you wrap from the inside it seems to spool off more than you need so a little trick to save you some frustration and then at the end it's a lot easier to tear off there now the union here where the where it comes apart you'll see there's the male side of the female side now the male side I'm gonna put that down towards all the working mechanisms of the pump that way if I'm actually down on the creek and I have to undo this Union all that center part will pull out if I get a fish or Twitter a leaf in there or whatever and so I always point that part of the Union to the inside and I do that on both unions now you also notice I'm putting a ball valve on the supply side I also have a ball valve on the opposite side and what this does it allows me to shut this off in that way I don't get sprayed if I'm taking the pump in and out or I don't lose the prime if I do it on the other end alright there's the finished pump now here's a JPEG you can pause it right here if you take a look and get a list of all the parts and things right there and take a better look all right now as far as using the PVC cement on some of the places where I needed to do that such as the air chamber I've got a kit here primer as well as the glue I do have some things that have primer and glue in one always make sure you use the primer otherwise it may give you a disastrous result always check the fit to make sure I have the right sized fittings you know sometimes one and a quarter one and a half look very similar but so check that fit before you start putting the glue on here you can see if you swirl it around with a primer and go around several times make sure you have it coated pretty good and I'm going to coat the inside and the outside both sides of what I'm putting together I'm of those primed and cleaned up for me now as I go to put the glue you see me shake it off the excess and kind of wiping that I'm gonna swirl that around in there but I don't want to get any globs of glue this stuff actually kind of melts the PVC and if you get a little glob somewhere it can really weaken the PVC in that one spot if you get it under pressure that's where it's gonna blow so make sure you swirl that around don't leave any globs on there and then when I put the two pieces together you see me spinning that what that does is that will really smear that glue around and keep you from having any air pockets any mist places so make sure you give it a little spin now I'm going to use this cap on the end of this there's some people that have tried using clean out valves and things of that nature but I understand that these can generate around 60 psi now I don't have a pressure valve on mine so I can't confirm or deny that but the one thing the rim does do it creates a hammer effect and it does that by building up pressure in this chamber so my recommendation is don't go that route go ahead put a cap on the top of it so that you don't lose any of that pressure you know on the bottom side of mine I put a screw down on that end with plank tape and so if you need to clean it out or do anything you can always clean it out from down there by unscrewing the pressure chamber once again using those same gluing techniques swirl that around in there make sure you don't leave any globs once again give it that twist a lot of people say a quarter turn I go a little more than that I don't think it hurts anything and I just want to make sure I've got it really smeared around now I got it capped and this is the end I've got to put the tube in now I'm getting a child's bicycle inner tube here and one of the things that happens by putting it in the air chamber when you start compressing water and air together the air molecules can dissolve into the water and your you know your tank here can't become waterlogged by putting the air inside the inner tube it just keeps the water and air separate for a longer period of time and you can go three months or so before you ever have to take this out and and open it up and make sure it's not waterlogged I put the valve stem on the bottom that way I have easy access if I ever need to refill this at some point if it does become waterlogged and I'm gonna put on just enough air in there just to kind of fill the pump of the tube up I don't want to like over inflate it because I do need to be able to compress that and then once I have that on I'm gonna put the cap back on it so that I don't get any water inside the tube and I'm good okay hydraulic ram pump and let me show you a couple of quick features that you want to do if you decide you want to build one of these and then we'll go start seeing if we can pump with it now well this intake side down here you want to make sure that you have a cutoff valve so that if for any reason you need to take it apart you need to do something that you don't want to be squirted down with water especially if it's not the dead of summer you want this valve so that you can turn this water off this first check valve here and the orientation of the flapper when gravity is going to make it fall this way okay that way when the water pressure comes in here and starts pushing up out of this valve it'll shut the valve off and then push the pressure in this direction so make sure that your flapper valve right there operates in this disorder now some people will put inline PVC valve here I went ahead went with all brass I think it'll last a lot longer that way this thing runs 24 hours a day seven days a week had about 60 cycles a minute so I wanted to something a little more substantial now on this particular valve you wanted to open it when water pressure comes this direction and then when the inner tube rebounds and forces the water down here to this tee it's gonna go both directions here well I want this flapper valve oriented like this so when the pressure comes back this way it's just this valve off so my orientation on that one is for it to flap in this in this direction once that happens all this compressed water that's being pushed down can't go this way any longer and it's forced out this direction once again we want to build up some pressure when we first start so we want a cut off valve on the output side as well now you don't have to put a bicycle inner tube in here and there are some other mechanism to let it suck in air but you know down on the farm where I'm going to be at I'll be checking this thing periodically and so but I went ahead and put a bicycle inner tube in there the reason for that is when you start compressing the air with water some of the air molecules will dissolve into the water and over a period of time the water level this will rise and it just doesn't give you the compression and it doesn't work having the air inside that bicycle inner tube keeps the air and water for mixing quite as much it will still eventually get waterlogged so you'll notice I put the water valve down here on the screw end not the not the cap end up there that way I can come back and unscrew this every couple of months drain any water that's in there I'll refill that tube with a little bit of air and won't be waterlogged any any longer and then I also put these unions here right here and right here on the end that way I can come in here and unscrew this Union and unscrew this Union and taking the center part out in the event a small minnow gets in passed my screen trash leaves debris anything like that if I need to come in here and clean this out I can screw it right here and you'll also notice I put the part of the union that's going to come out on this side so that once I haven't screw this all this Center part here will come out so those are a couple of the little tricks of the trade you know that you want to do and once again the orientation for your vows and your pressure chamber is is going to be vertical on that okay that does it for this part of the tutorial now it's time to go see if this thing will work okay I came over here yesterday afternoon got through putting the ramp up together and I brought my sections of PVC pipe and found this little pool right in here and I did not really try to dam this up too bad I just put a few rocks across there and put the pipe in right there and as you can see the water is really flowing through real good right there but the pipe is submerged and I've got you know pretty good little flow coming down from there and so I ran the pipe you know downhill ways it goes over a couple of little drops and let me walk down here hit show you the output that I'm already getting okay that's the end of my pipe where I'm gonna connect the ramp pump if i zoom in here with that makeshift dam I'm getting a really good flow out of that pipe I think that's probably enough to run the ramp up without even modifying the dam much more than I've already got it is really squirting out of there all right let's connect that ramp up and see if that's gonna do the trick and then somewhere up that hill there on my trees I got to get the garden hose up through there somehow but yeah that's the next challenge alright here's the next challenge with this water flowing through this pipe so quickly how do i connect this without getting completely wet well that's where these couplings come in I wanna screw that try to attach them while this is still open and I'll shut off this valve and then hopefully I can screw this part back in without taking a shower luckily it's good to be in the 70s today and it won't be that bad if I do anyway gotta take one shower a week anyway regardless right Wow let's get pressure in it already I'll take you down there in a minute to take a look at I'm let it build up for a second let me grab the garden hose apparently my black pipe just had the male hens on both sides so experiment one will it work with the garden hose without any stiff pipe on the output side that would be for our first experiment then we'll find out if that works now okay I've got the ramp pump pumping right now build up some pressure I've got the valve on the delivery side cracked open just a little bit I don't have a pressure gauge so I'm having to go by fill on this I'm gonna try to do the speed things up I brought something about half a gallon but I thought I'd go ahead and fill in the hose that I've run down through here I've got going up on the side of then I've got it got an old logging road up over this direction going to back up towards the house I'm just gonna kind of follow it up that logging road and cut through the woods probably a 300 feet of hose there out levels a hundred feet of hose I just put on there so let me see if I can get that first hundred foot primed up with the old trusty milk jug and in the valve being cracked just a little bit here that I'll try to open it up a little bit more alright let me go do that we'll see what happens where my hoses run to and I'm gonna fill some of this back up with water to try to build some back pressure down there looks like I've already got plenty of head pressure Wow I was surprised by that I'm on my lunch hour so this is gonna be the last of what I have to do got to go back to work on some more reports but I wanted to kind of get it started at lunch so maybe this evening or tomorrow I could actually start getting some water I'm here filling up now there we go and I've only got the I cracked it open a little bit more before I came up here so it's not not fully open down on the output side I can't say a little Trickle right there and it's not open much and the pump was still working even with that a little bit of relief pressure I've got it I've got a steady drip I've got it going right now you've run off a finger Wow I'm already getting some flow this is very promising all right let's go down there and crack it open all the way and then we'll we call it good for now and then after I get to really see what we've got now that I'm up out of the creek and getting a little further uphill he says the logging road and I was talking about and my house should be right up through there so another 100 150 feet back up through that section and I believe I'll be home free by George I believe this is gonna work go crack this thing up and run on full speed let's see if we can open the throttle a little bit more it's still running another crack bowl pilot Rudolph okay wide open on both valves ramped up it's still working so I believe that's a good sign boys and girls that's kind of neat where I've got this mystery right there because you want to make sure this is vertical to get the most efficiency out of this and any my waist is going right back into the creek my neighbor this goes all across the property line down here a little bit my neighbor has a lake on the side so we won't lose any water not be able to that'll keep that vertical and very solid I don't see the hose jumping I may not need that little piece of black pipe after all I go to use it on the other one that's good I'm in business would you look at that would you look at that that is amazing pumping water uphill to a garden hose with no electricity Wow and it's a half inch to half inch so the same sized ammeter apparently will work question is will they get it up the rest of the way up this hill to the house and that's the next part of the equation but the last mile inch time is over back to work and we'll see how this works when I get off okay that's the RAM pump at 200 feet I did run it all the way up there but I had a terrace right in there then it went up to another terrace right in there and then up to a 55-gallon barrel so the half inch to half inch is just with this elevation gain I had the hose at 325 feet and it did not that did not want to push it that far so what I did I just gradually started taking hose off to find out what the capabilities were and I probably gained at least that much if not more elevation and so this is a garden hose with no galvanized or steel pipe on the output side running up a substantial I'd probably say 20 to 25 feet gain in elevation came up out of the creek six to eight feet I've come up over to four-foot terraces and still riding uphill so it's got to be somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 to 25 feet cane in elevation it is just a constant little drip drip drip but I went ahead move the bucket down here a five-gallon bucket here last night at about 9:30 10 o'clock in the dark and then I went out hunting it's been about 12 hours and it's overflowing I saw I don't know how much I got in a 12 hour period I know I'd get at least 10 gallons as a minimum in a 24 hour period so probably not quite enough to satisfy my needs on the tree so when I go to town today I'm gonna get a 3/4 in check valves and and see what happens if I go 3/4 down to half if that gives it enough pressure to push it up here so first part of the experiment will 1/2 inch to half inch pump water yes it will how far will it pump it about two hundred feet but not real fast and it will pump with the garden hose as your output without having you know real hardened pipe not only that this garden hose is 3/4 inch so I have went up from 1/2 inch to 3/4 inch so learn a few things on on this trip and so next time next video I'm going to try a 3/4 inch to 1/2 inch and see what the capabilities are on that but for now it's a sort of wind anyway so time for the next experiment but that's going to do it for this for this one in this video I'll see all you turkeys on the next one

Channel: Gobbler Ridge Farms

Views: 7,129

Keywords: Ram Pump, Hydraulic Ram Pump, 1/2 inch ram pump, Gobbler Ridge Farms, Half Inch Ram Pump, Off Grid Water, Off Grid Water Pump

Id: 3geNpJByCfU

Length: 33min 16sec (1996 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 01 2019