DIY crevasse cleaner, gravel pump, chupadora

[BillA]

This thread is about building a suction pump for crevasse cleaning, and then rebuilding it, and then yet again, and . . . . where does it stop?
It is a DIY thread including particularly design or fabrication novelties, hands-on experience works.
(mods, if in wrong place - move 'er)
Many names for these, manual gravel pump is descriptive, gold sucker is common, and my favorite is chupadora (sucker in Spanish).
An old-timer seeing one called it a chupadora, used for removing gold from full riffles without shutting down the sluice.

As I am in a remote, but gold-bearing, area my only option is to build from that which is at hand; PVC DWV here we come.
I took a gander at the 'net to find out what everyone else knew/offered and of course made a list:
- ovaled end of suction tube with pin (maximize size while limiting blockage)
- changeable suction nozzle diameters/lengths ?
- retention resiviour for the work product that is easily emptied
so I made one (shown is the last of the straight pumps, I use clear tubing when I wish to see what's happening)



A bit of use and it was very clear that the pump body should be offset from the suction head for comfort.
At the same time that a 45 ell was added, following the maxim that more is better, the 1 1/2" suction tube was exchanged for 2".



And in 2" exploring resiviour configurations:



So what was learned from these prototypes ?
1) the suction tube diameter and length is limited by the pump displacement (no free lunch)
2) having to discharge the sucked-up water through the same tube is disruptive as hell. No stroke is truly completed, good stuff dribbles out the tube end; terrible efficiency
3) top of resiviour should be below bottom of branch connection and resiviour needs to be translucent

Obviously a second discharge/jet tube needs to be added and the flow controlled such that the suction tube sucks and the pressure tube jets. Enter check valves, one suction and one pressure. Note that the suction tube ck valve must freely pass everything one thinks to retain, while the pressure ck valve . . . . .

comments from the peanut gallery are solicited

Phase Two will be/is the construction of a 2-tube pressure jet/gold sucker
(already done, but I want to see how others address the suction with gravel ck valve)

 

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[BillA]

a note on where this thread is going, as to the why http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/everything-else/607974-patent-not-patent.html

I - single tube suck/discharge (above)
II - separate suck/jet tubes (next, 2 ck valves)
III - alternate stroke suck/jet
IV - simultaneous suck/jet with variable output (The Irrigator, see your Dentist) (3 ck valves)
V - continuous suck/jet with variable output - hope to never make

 

[deserdog]

Built literally thousands of various gold suckers! Quit building them a couple of years ago. Here is a picture of one I called the sniper:

Inside, a 1/2" piece of pipe extends to the center line of the clear collection chamber. Anything that gets past the 1/2" pipe stays inside the sniper. Anything that falls out on the expulsion stroke is the first thing sucked up on the suction stroke. The seal for the sniper is an 1 1/2" rubber plumbers test plug. Use a different type of plumbers test plug for the seal of the clear collection chamber.

 

[deserdog]

Other end of the spectrum: a 3" super gold sucker with a 40" long barrel.

 

[BillA]

40 inches, some kinda arms

here is a 3" pump on a 2" head (but still only 14" stroke)

 

[deserdog]

Had some guys order the 3" super gold sucker with a 60" barrel. some ordered with a set of smaller nozzles.

 

[arizau]

I like Tnet member Bejay's idea that is quoted below.

"I have always used a 2 inch shrimp gun. It does not capture and hold material like those you must empty each time. Rather; you suck and shoot the material immediately into a low sided plastic lug*. Then you simply can pan or sluice what you have accumulated in the lug. The most notable concept is the suction plug; which is a rubber ball on threaded stock compressed between a washer and a nut on each side of the rubber ball. The rubber balls are available as replacement ones if needed...but after many many years, all I have had to do is tighten the bottom nut/washer compressing the ball if the suction plug gets weak. I like the handle set up as well. I can often keep up with a two inch dredge for short spurts till my lug is full.

Bejay"

*Submerge this next to where you are working.

Check this link if you are not familiar with the shrimp gun. https://www.google.com/search?q=shr.....69i57j0l5.9327j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

 

[et1955]

No No No, guy's make use of check valves, they let material go in but not let it go out, think about it, pull up, material comes in and on the down stroke pushes the material out, where possibly a mini type sluice, make it easy for you not complicated. P.S. I was making these back in the 1980's.

 

[KevinInColorado]

No No No, guy's make use of check valves, they let material go in but not let it go out, think about it, pull up, material comes in and on the down stroke pushes the material out, where possibly a mini type sluice, make it easy for you not complicated. P.S. I was making these back in the 1980's.

Agreed. Check valves are the winning solution. The winner of the commercial products is the Gold-N-sand. The cool part is they will just sell you their plunger seal or their patented check valves if you want to make your own. Do that!

 

[BillA]

et, Kevin, et all - keep the comments coming

et, would be interested in seeing your ck valves from the '80s as I am designing my own also

Kevin, some observations: Gold-n-Sand is sold out ?? (not that I am a buyer) probably sourced from China (I used to do that) and today who knows that future ?
The problem is the tooling costs which the Chinese would subsidise, and others will not, which makes changing suppliers tedious and expensive. While the customer may pay for the tooling, it is always the property of the moulder.
GnS uses a flapper ck valve to which a fine spring can be placed on the backside for mounting the valve in various positions, a more positive closure with more fragility. This type of valve is well suited for the valving of a manual pump feeding a small dredge as a continuous/variable feed - which is not my aim with this exercise.

Check (ck) valves are key to pushing water around and at this time I am using 3 different ones:
a spring loaded poppet ck valve with sufficient clearance for the solids which may pass through the discharge jet (buy at store)
a gravity operated ball ck valve for the suction line passing 100% of the solids (homemade), and
a piston with a built-in flapper ck valve (homemade, think of a churn drill)

as this is a DIY thread my only concern is that someone can fabricate the pieces, stop
am not against buying an off-the-shelf piece, I just need something different

 

[arizau]

No No No, guy's make use of check valves, they let material go in but not let it go out, think about it, pull up, material comes in and on the down stroke pushes the material out, where possibly a mini type sluice, make it easy for you not complicated. P.S. I was making these back in the 1980's.

So long as the pump is connected to a hose emptying into a bucket or feeding a sluice then that is the way to go. Using a chamber for collection limits the daily production.

 

[BillA]

So long as the pump is connected to a hose emptying into a bucket or feeding a sluice then that is the way to go. Using a chamber for collection limits the daily production.

arizau, understood, but not what I am doing
I use the collected water for a jet, with an agitator probe, and a suction tube - simultaneously.

Not intended to be continuous, but as you have suggested it I'll take a look later to feed a sluice.
(off the top of my head I would say de-water and just drop a moist slurry into a chute or flume or bucket, to the sluice)

 

[et1955]

et, Kevin, et all - keep the comments coming

et, would be interested in seeing your ck valves from the '80s as I am designing my own also

Kevin, some observations: Gold-n-Sand is sold out ?? (not that I am a buyer) probably sourced from China (I used to do that) and today who knows that future ?
The problem is the tooling costs which the Chinese would subsidise, and others will not, which makes changing suppliers tedious and expensive. While the customer may pay for the tooling, it is always the property of the moulder.
GnS uses a flapper ck valve to which a fine spring can be placed on the backside for mounting the valve in various positions, a more positive closure with more fragility. This type of valve is well suited for the valving of a manual pump feeding a small dredge as a continuous/variable feed - which is not my aim with this exercise.

Check (ck) valves are key to pushing water around and at this time I am using 3 different ones:
a spring loaded poppet ck valve with sufficient clearance for the solids which may pass through the discharge jet (buy at store)
a gravity operated ball ck valve for the suction line passing 100% of the solids (homemade), and
a piston with a built-in flapper ck valve (homemade, think of a churn drill)

as this is a DIY thread my only concern is that someone can fabricate the pieces, stop
am not against buying an off-the-shelf piece, I just need something different

It would take a lot to find my first creation, some ware under my 67Mustang that I have hidden in a garage it is but I am also using my mining and robotic engineering knowledge to create a modern and more efficient hand dredge to use on my claims in N. California, good luck on your creation.

 

[BillA]

It would take a lot to find my first creation, some ware under my 67Mustang that I have hidden in a garage it is but I am also using my mining and robotic engineering knowledge to create a modern and more efficient hand dredge to use on my claims in N. California, good luck on your creation.

and good luck on your endeavor as well, do keep us posted as you wish
as we are doing the same thing, I suspect this thread may be of interest

Kevin and arizau referred also to the GnS bucket sucker which is intermittently continuous and insufficient to feed a sluice
in my mind the difficulty lies in the quantity of water needed to provide a uniform flow of "x" depth across the width of the sluice
the intermittent pulsating flow from the sucker can only be added to the existing flow within the sluice

if you are using a flapper ck valve on your suction leg - I predict you will change

 

[BillA]

It would take a lot to find my first creation, some ware under my 67Mustang that I have hidden in a garage it is but I am also using my mining and robotic engineering knowledge to create a modern and more efficient hand dredge to use on my claims in N. California, good luck on your creation.

Ed, had to respond to the "robotic engineering"
I immediately saw a streamlined waterproof autonomous rock climbing crevasse sand seeking 'lil sucker', and it was good. lol
in that exact spirit I would offer this video, and a question - how much (more) could you accomplish as part of such a group ?



the future will be very competitive

edit: forgot to add the 2 coils, one magnetometer and the other PI so 'lil sucker'(TM) can follow the black sand
lol
ok, configure it like a big cockroach; the head sucks and all is dumped except for the gold bits
(mini conveyor, PI minus mag, drop the good stuff, excrete the bad, suck on)

ah, I can see it now . . . continents covered with these burnt orange foot long mechanical self-replicating goldroaches (TM)
hook 'em horns

 

[RTR]

years ago I made one of these and it worked good

 

[BillA]

yea Roger, most things are better with power -> which cannot be used here in CR

 

[RTR]

yea Roger, most things are better with power -> which cannot be used here in CR

Sorry to hear that

 

[BillA]

a vertical check valve for sand & gravel

The vertical check valve is simply a marble, sized to set upon a tube end, encased in a cage such that the marble can move only up or down; opening under suction and closing under pressure and at rest.
A glass marble is used for the sg difference, if more closing 'force' is desired magnetite or ss balls can be used (to operate at an angle).

not a patentable item as prior art applies; picture the float valve on a (hokey) snorkle, I have reversed it
on the left is a fancy snorkel tube with the float barely visible in the center, the right everything reversed


seems reliable but no organics; the tube shown is 3/4" IPS OD which is large even with a pin in the mouth

 

[BillA]

some DIY construction notes, my resources are limited but hugely variable as I never throw anything away . . . . yea, junk
PVC pipe and most fittings are generally available, aluminum tubing very limited here in CR - but always better if available.
(my sources for al tubing are telescoping CB antenna pieces, tent supports, gardening watering wands, etc.)
I used ss rod because I had some, with ss nuts, etc.; pricey acrylic tubing or "windows" where I wanted to observe something.
These are all prototypes intended for my edification, eventually to be gifted (hence the suction tubes must be replaceable PVC).

Design considerations can be expanded to fill the time available, but the obvious should be addressed.
In theory (only) cost is not a consideration, this is a proof-of-design prototype.
Every assumption must be noted and verified or quantified as to the practical limits.
I generally start building before doodling to keep it real.

coming up, a 2-tube jet/suck gravel pump (la chupadora doblada)