revisiting the gravity dredge

beekbuster

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would it work to take a 100 ft roll of corrugated 4 inch pipe to use as the pressure line and use a power jet configuration, using a smaller diameter suction hose with a nozzle, granted the pressure line had the appropriate elevation drop. i would guess using a smaller diameter hose for the suction line and larger diameter for pressure line would have a better chance of working. anyone have experience with this. its going to be a while before the courts hash out the motorized rule, and theres a good chance no change will come to this great state of confusion.
 

NeoTokyo

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I believe there was a post about that on here a while back and it didn't create enough suction to be useful.
 

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beekbuster

beekbuster

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not enough head ????
 

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beekbuster

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what would i use that has a smooth bore and wont cost 3 bucks a foot? the corrugated wont hold up to the abrasion, and its corrugated. big pain to clean out.
 

NeoTokyo

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Well if you want to experiment with it, I have 50' of light duty 4" pvc hose, its smooth inside.
I can let you borrow it or head out with you seeing that you are so close.

I don't exactly know the details of his setup but I would suspect that there was not enough pressure.
 

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NeoTokyo

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I remember that video, great little loophole that they used there. :)
Thanks for sharing that one, its been a while since I last saw it. I know a couple area's where that would work great!
 

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beekbuster

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looks to be about 1000 dollars worth of hose, but it works great. thanks neo ill take you up on that offer, might be a few weeks though, im on baby watch.
 

spaghettigold

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would it work to take a 100 ft roll of corrugated 4 inch pipe to use as the pressure line and use a power jet configuration, using a smaller diameter suction hose with a nozzle, granted the pressure line had the appropriate elevation drop. i would guess using a smaller diameter hose for the suction line and larger diameter for pressure line would have a better chance of working. anyone have experience with this. its going to be a while before the courts hash out the motorized rule, and theres a good chance no change will come to this great state of confusion.

with the proper head it shure does work.did,nt the oldscool miners use gravity to run theire powerful monitors ?
According to wikipedia, s drawing of waterfilled cylinders Meter Wassersäule ? Wikipedia (found it only on german for now ,sorry) the pressure on the bottom of a waterfilled cylinder is the same in all the three jars when jars have the same height...regardless of the bigger intake of the third cylinder in the drawing..wth? is there a t-Net mathematician around here?
 

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spaghettigold

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looks to be about 1000 dollars worth of hose, but it works great. thanks neo ill take you up on that offer, might be a few weeks though, im on baby watch.

If you later decide to buy your equipment,to keep it affordable you can buy 2 shorter pieces of flexihose and connectable pieces of pvc tubing.One short flexihose section attached to the sluice,then a oversize-rigid tubing line,rigid tubing should be oversize to reduce the probability of a rockjam that can split the rigid tubing when running higher pressure setups and because you can,t see blockages in the tubing to clear them.Then again a piece of flexihose for dredging maneuvarability.

emilio
 

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beekbuster

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i know the head is the same if the elevation of water is the same no matter the size of the cylinder, but a hose running 75gpm will not run a 4 inch suction hose for the purpose of dredging, but it will run a 2 inch hose. this is my logic. if the pressure line is larger there will be an increased gpm. my garage is packed with toys and i cant justify spending hundreds more on another project, especially with a high fail potential. so insight from those who have succeeded or failed is what im looking for. or someone who knows hydraulics very well. thanks
 

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beekbuster

beekbuster

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it seems i may have sparked a light in neotokyo's head, less than 24 hrs after my thread he found 100 ft of 5 inch suction hose for 30 bucks on c list. i scour that site regularly. im happy for him but damn it how did i miss that?
 

principedeleon

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Cant you use a regular hose then attach a layflat hose by connecting a male pipe adapter to a piece of pipe. .

You could save or run it longer for the same amount of money invested.
 

principedeleon

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Well i will be trying this ..im about to pick up a bunch of free layflat hose from all different sizes up to like 5" in diameter .
 

spaghettigold

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Tests are the best!Thanks for taking the efforts and increase practical knowledge.This year i,m too busy with my built (financially)to do some experiments.

If it doesn,t work we still learned something.
 

mike(swWash)

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Here's a site I use for pressure conversions Online Conversion - Pressure Conversion
From their calculations 70' of drop (70 feet of head) will get 30psi so a power jet would be very difficult to use unless you have lots of hose and a tall waterfall above you nearby. A 20' drop will give 8.6 psi of suction at the upper end of the hose, making it doable using the standard 1 hose set up that dumps onto the sluice. However using gravity as a supply for a highbanker is doable, since pressure isn't the issue, only supply gph.
I'm curious about how the layflat, vacuum or pressure thing will work. Good idea for running a highbanker in non-motorized/non-mechanical areas :thumbsup:
 

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