Pumping Water After the Grid Goes Down

How do you overcome the 21.51lbs of pressure holding the shaker valve closed ?

 

When you shove the tube downwards the inrush of water pushes the shaker valve open and the tube takes another 36" bite of water.

When the downward motion stops, the shaker valve closes, leaving you with a 36" taller column of trapped water.

Then you raise the tube and do it all over again.

You can enhance the inrush of water by attaching a funnel to the bottom of the tube. If your funnel has 3X the surface area of the pipe, you'd get 108" of water added to the trapped column with each downstroke--which would also be 3X harder to make.

You'd need a fatter kid on the .

 

Follow that funnel thought a step further:

With a 1/2" diameter pipe, you'd have 0.196 sq. inches of scoop, and you'd get a 36" taller column of water in the 1/2" dia. pipe with each 36" downstroke.

With a 4" diameter funnel, you'd have 12.566 square inches of scoop, and and you'd get a 2,308" taller column of water in the 1/2" pipe with each 36" downstroke. That's a 192.3 ft column of water coming out with each downstroke. And each downstroke would be
about 64.11 times harder to make.

But still easy, because 64 times not-very-hard is still pretty not-very-hard.

And the force required for the upstroke would not change, because you'd still be lifting only a 1/2" dia. column of water each time.

And instead of getting 26.277 gallons of water per hour, you'd be getting 1,684.677 gallons per hour. For the same number of strokes.

Which is distinctly not too shabby at all.

 

Um...wrong. Water weight will go up with more water. Period. Up stroke force will HAVE to increase by the water weight increase, or fat boy stops playing.

 

Beg to differ: You are forgetting that all of the water in excess of the 106' column overflows and drains off thru the flex hose as the shaker tube overflows. Which it does with every downstroke once it has filled up. (Self-primed, IOW.)

The effect of the funnels is much more drag going down, accompanied by a rapid outflow of water from the top end of the shaker tube, and a wee bit more drag coming up (from the funnel), but with only the same weight of shaker tube and 106 ft column of water being lifted--along with the funnel.

Of course, you'd need a little clearance on the funnel, so figure on a 6" well for the 4" funnel.

YMWAY: Your Mileage Will Astound You.

 

Think of a syphon. As long as there are no air bubbles to break the vacuum, water will always be in balance between two points of the same height. Raise or lower one end point, you get flow, and it doesn't matter what the terrain between the two is. Because the weight of water is the same on both legs.
When pumping water uphill, it weight will continue to grow until it reaches the top, so those first strokes, with extra water will be much harder, until the pipe is full, both because of the extra water above the water level, and because that funnel will act as a baffle, (just like a shock absorber for your car) slowing each stroke, up and down a lot more.
Also, you will NOT get that full Funnel's worth if water each stroke, because you will still be limited by how much you can force through the 1/2" pipe with each stroke.there will be increased resistance there, as well.

 

I think you're pretty much right. Essentially.

Except there's no bent hose to keep in balance. What goes into the drain hose just flows away.

As you self-prime the shaker tube (fill it up) by shaking it, it gets steadily heavier. However, once it's full, 36" of water runs out the top each time the pipe is downstroked 36".

You could think of that as leaving the whole column of water standing still (and 6ft tall above ground level) as you move the pipe down 6 ft, while stuffing another 6 ft of water into the bottom of the pipe.

Then the 6ft tall column of water falls over and drains away, and you raise one full pipe of water exactly 6 ft.

But, no matter how you visualize it, you're never lifting more than one pipe-full of water. With a total weight, including pipe but not funnel, of about 55 lbs.

Ram-scooping water into the bottom end would clearly magnify the outflow. But it's not a perfect process. Venturis work well, but not perfectly. There would be some internal losses from water friction, for example. So maybe you'd only get 187 ft of water out the top with each stroke. Maybe you'd have to stroke 67.8 times harder, at the same speed, instead of 64.

But regardless of the minor limitations imposed by reality, it's clearly a process that would work, and work well.

 

I think it will work to the limitations of metal fatigue.

 

Another real-world aspect to consider is the stiffness of the shaker pipe. If it's not stiff enough, it'll bend instead of downstroking the full 6 ft.

Like trying to stuff a piece of boiled spaghetti up a ...never mind.

It would bend.

So use a stiff enough pipe in the first place, or...

Let's say, just for example, that you had to push down with a force of 50 lbs to downstroke the 4" funnel.

Hang a 50-lb weight on the bottom of the pipe, and stiffness ceases to be a problem.

Of course, now you're raising a 105-lb load instead of 55 lbs, but that matters not at all. With either a flywheel or a 2-stage oscillator, inertia is recovered, and the energy you input to push down is conserved and refunded on the upstroke.

 

Gear it down, and met a windmill do the pumping (I know, I know, wasn't supposed to need it...) Either that, or use the squirrel cage dog walker for the pumping action.
Either way, this thing will need guides, to prevent flexing and banging about, or a large well shaft. Flexing will cause the copper walls to fatigue, and break off. It is just a matter of when, not if.
So go with a heavier pipe wall, and a larger diameter, and a heavier lever, and a heavier counter weight, and more effort.
It will work, I'm sure of that, but only until the materials fail.
(Same theory to the idea of pulling things into space from orbit, the cable had to be soo strong, and so long, that the weight of the material itself causd it to fail. No need to try it, because the numbers prove failure.)
In this case, I see deminishing returns. A massive setup for a small return. Light weight would work short term, but fail. A heavy weight set up would work longer, but cost more and be harder to move, but would work.

 

Lots of nice posts on this thread. For me it was much easier to just make my own grid power and store enough propane to pump water for 20 years or so. There are also solar powered low flo pumps out there that work great on existing wells.

 

I agree. But the thing about the 2-stage oscillator (as applied to this system) is that it takes the brute force out of pumping the water. Just a finger-poke every five swings or so keeps the water flowing.

And besides, the whole system (less funnel) would only require about 12/1000ths of a hp for 26.277 gals per hour output.

Add the funnel, keep the power the same, and what would you get?

A little more water for the same effort, I think. Making fewer strokes would be slightly more efficient.

How much? Beats me.

But all of our theoretical questions could be answered by one person, if they cared enough to build a system and run it.

Or HAD to.

 

You would do better, to build a clock mechanism, to give your "poke". Just wind the band spring, and go do something else.

 

So here is my question ...
If yall say you can pump water with out using any "power" {but a fat kid}
Y are yall spening your money on electric pumps ... do it for free its a no brainer to ...

As the people in missouri would say "show me "

Also doesnt physics also say that one of them big apachey or comanchi or ospre choppers shouldnt be able to fly...
Cant always trust physics

 

'Fraud you can always trust phyisics, it doesn't care what you or I think. You just have to know what part of phyisics apply to what you are doing.

 

i think you may be wrong on the chopper part

 

Yeah. Sometimes the physics is right on the money, other times it says something can't be done that can.

There was a big deal for decades about flies not being able able to fly, according to simple physics. It was flatly impossible--they just didn't have enough wing for the load. Couldn't happen. (Math never lies!)

Turns out the science-guys weren't applying their physics correctly. It was recently discovered that when flies flap their inadequate little wings, they flap them in a way that creates a tiny tornado above them. A vortex, literally.

The vortex sucks them upward, compensates for the inadequate wing size, and away they go.

Their flying turns out to be very efficient because, just like with a flywheel, the vortex conserves & recycles energy.

That's the basis of a "lost" technology I ran across a few years ago for a "super helicopter" wherein a few square meters of rotor area would allow the lifting of several tons of payload. Like using the prop from a small airplane as a high-lifter's rotor.

In addition, if you pumped burning jet fuel into the vortex, you created a crazy kind of jet propulsion at the same time.

(Yee-haaa! Nothing like flying around on a tornado of fire...)

Going back to earlier posts about the shaker pump, it only requires 12/1000ths of a hp to do the physical work--and that just points out out inefficient electric pumps are that require 0.75 hp to put out, say, 60 gallons an hour.

If the lifting is done efficiently, it takes little power because the actual amount of work is very small.

If it's done inefficiently, there's no limit to the power it might take to do the same small amount of work.

Dead right: that 12/1000ths of a hp I came up with ignores friction.

In reality, it might take 24/1000ths of a hp to do the job. With a relative efficiency of 50%.

TANSTAAFD: The Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Drink. (Either!)

Oh, BTW:

Every one knows that a shadouf is a pretty effective way to lift water.

There's no reason at all that the over-balanced of a shadouf couldn't drive a shaker pump.

Same kinds of force and distance. And you could fire the fat kid.

Sigh. Watching the video of the guys with the PVC well bucket is physically painful, in a mental sort of way.

Even though the well is super shallow, it looks like they're just working way way too hard.

I mean, why not hang the thing from and put a string on the checkvalve ball so all they had to do was sink the PVC bucket, raise it, swing it over the 5-gal. bucket, and pull the string to open the checkvalve? (Enough with the turn-it-upside-down stuff, already!)

Or why not install a garden hose in the side of the PVC bucket near the bottom and run it (with lots of slack) into the 5 gal. bucket?

As soon as they lifted the end of the water hose on the full PVC bucket higher than the end in the 5-gal. bucket, the water would auto-siphon right into the 5-gal. bucket. (EZ-PZ!)

Or better yet, why not make the PVC bucket a little taller, cap the top, and run the garden hose out the top?

That way, every time they shook it four feet up and down in the well, 2.5 gallons of water would come out the top and flow into the 5-gal. bucket.

Just like a ...OMG!...shaker pump!