Ram Pump Top Delivery Valve to Fill Pipe faster

It can take a long time to get enough water in the delivery pipe of a ram pump so that the pump cycles on its own. What would happen if a ball valve was placed at the top of the delivery pipe and then the pump cycled? Will the artificial back pressure allow the pump to push water up hill without having to press the waste valve many many time?

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[pappysproductions]

I learned of these rampumps here, on your channel. They're like magic. I love these things. Great video

[jllaine]

Rigorously scientific and through, I admire that. And the results were a bit surprising, well done.
I have a new respect for you, I had no idea it took 200-300 hits to get the pump primed, your editing on previous ram pump videos did so well on telling the story that the tedium bits slipped right past.

[reeceevmez]

I said this on a previous video, use the delivery valve on the ram pump to build pressure then just crack it open and let the pipe fill, once it does then you can open it fully, should take 15 at most

[heingosser]

Hello, here i got two more methods to solve your problem.
1. fill 10 or more litres into the destination tank, so that the hose is filled up bevore starting the pump

or
2. take off the delivery hose, open the the second ball valve only a bit, so that the needed pressure can be build to operate the pump and a bit off water can flow. Reconnect the hose and wait a while till the hose is filled up. Then open the valve completly.

Regards from Germany

[kenbrown]

A thought: it doesn't have to be open or closed on a ball valve. You should try letting the pump pressurize the delivery pipe, then just barely crack the valve open. It might restrict airflow to maintain just enough backpressure to cycle the pump. Obviously, that would take some fiddling around to see if that works.

[darthgbc]

Test for you.
* Same set-up (no need for valve at top end of hose)
* Add 2 pressure gauges for a visual ( 1 on either side of delivery valve)
* Open both valves at pump (let water fill system)
* Close delivery valve
* Start pump (let it build pressure)
* Pump most be running on it's own
* Slightly open delivery valve (if pump stops, valve was opened too much, start again)
* Fully open delivery valve when water pressure equalizes on both sides of delivery valve

[ericsnet]

I wonder if there is something electronic or if you could manually slowly release pressure but not enough to stop the pressure wave from the ram pump.

[MD]

Try this. Your hydraulischer Widder will do the work. Close the outlet valve. Prime the pump till its working . Then open the the outlet valve as minimal as possible and let the pump fill up your hose. Take a coffe and chill. If the hose is filled completely, open it full. The closed valve should stimmulate the highest pressure your pump can produce. Dont open the outlet to much, or your pressure will be at 0 in microseconds.

[Danueli]

Nice. Have you tryed like with a half closed? Not fully close on the output.

[Andrew_]

I wonder if you slowly released the pressure from the delivery pipe, it would continue running?

[philoso]

Have we encounter an experiment like this?
Controlled set up: holding tank 20m above reference elevation. Pump at minus 3m.
Experiment: relocate pump and add pipe/hose from minus 3m to minus 6m. What performance penalty / reward cat we gather by this change?

[MGmirkin]

Would still love to see you test out an idea a few of us have had for reducing "waste" water when making a multi-stop trip up a large hill or something.

The idea is that You have some water source / tank at the bottom feeding a ram pump [1], which pumps water up to Tank 2 some distance up the hill.

Then you have Ram Pump 2, pumping water further up the hill to Tank 3. BUT ... at Ram Pump 2, you put your waste valve in like a collection box / bucket [we'll call it '2' since it's at the 2nd level even though there's no such collector at Level 1] with a hose / pipe channeling the collected water back down to Tank 1 at the bottom to be "recycled" (get another chance at going back up the hill).

At Tank 3, you have Ramp Pump 3 pumping water up to Tank 4, and Waste Valve 3 situated in Collection Bucket 3, channeling water back down to Tank 2, to get another pass through Ram Pump 2 back up to Tank 3.

And so on. In theory, would this basically make it so that the only "loss" from the system would be at Ram Pump 1, since all the other pumps / tanks would basically be "recycling" their water back down to the prior tank, to be put back through the ram pump and go back up again? Would this eventually help to fill all the upper level tanks, over time, with as little "waste" as possible?

And, like maybe even "Waste Valve 1" could be put to use by like collecting the "waste" water and like diverting it to water the garden, or whatever?

Anyway, would be cool to see a system like that set up and see if it makes sense for traversing longer uphill runs, to ... eventually ... get water all the way up to the top, via several "stops" along the way.

And potentially, each of those intermediate "tanks" could have another outlet for making intermittent use of water at that level, whether watering gardens, powering a gravity-fed sink at an outhouse, or whatever. [Just thinking out loud...]

[Adam-mnwr]

cant you just close the outlet pipe valve on the ramp pump, cycle a handful of times to allow the pump to get pressure and then crack the outlet a small amount to maintain back pressure.. then after a few minutes open a bit more etc? seems alot faster solution with a lot less manual pressing.. ?

[stldiital]

I think we all wanna see the ram pump perfected. Bring some more innovation and improvements to it! Better waste valve designs and snifters and pressure tanks. For science! and... reliability.

I think it's also important to consider materials... especially if using for gardening or potable drinking water. You don't wanna be using tons of plastic, especially standard pvc..., glues, and other toxic materials that would leach into the water.

[herwigg]

how about another idea. How about closing the delivery valve on the pump side - make the bump cycle and then open the valve on the delivery pipe only slightly - so that the pump keeps cycling on its own - as soon as the water reached the output hight, open the valve fully ...

[martinoconnor]

Can you suck the air out the top somehow so it brings the water up the pipe then start the valve cycle?

[krmcc]

I built a ram several years ago one of the main problems that I had is having the right place to set up my tank and check valves not having enough head pressure for the distance I was wanting to push water to. I was wondering if you have ever tried having a tank set up at a shorter distance but running your waste valve as far as you need to get the proper head pressure would the ramming effect still be great enough to push the water where you need it? The ram I built was inlet water through pvc check valve water pipe T Going up to outlet spigot with air tank after that, water ran straight through that T was my waste valve being last if this makes sense lol kind of right opposite of what you have. What I am asking is could you set your tank anywhere in the system as long as your waste valve is the one that is getting the needed drop in your system I know in some of the places for these set ups are hard to place your tanks. The place that i had my ram was a rocky branch that when it ran it flooded like the grand canyon then dry up afterwards but it had plenty of amazing clean water springs that ran in the very bottom bank along the branch so it was hard to set up the system because you had to always worry about the branch flooding and washing everything away if what i stated doesn't make sense let me know I will draw a diagram of the ram i built. Thanks for the valuable information on these set ups.

[muddybuddys]

🎉i would love to see a pomp that brings like a ton of water like a gallon a min how big would that have to be

[pauldrice]

Might try opening the valve more slowly.

[philoso]

Can we try thus to avoid tens of manual triggering?

Begins from stop cyclic state, hold down the drain valve to continuously drain water for a few seconds then release it to see it self enters cyclic mode?