Water-powered dredge

[Sorehands]

Has anyone ever built or know of a portable,stream driven dredge that is powered by a water-wheel?

The set-up would likely be a complete pain unless the waterwheel could be easily placed at varying angles/distances from the dredge site. It would also make sense if the wheel size/depth/width could be adjustable to take maximize the suction power for any given stream size....

I could not find anything when I searched the forum or am too dense to know what I was looking at.

I doubt that it would pass any banned dredging criteria, but I really prefer the absence of a running motor when prospecting ( but am getting too lazy to dig all the time).

 

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[kazcoro]

I would guess that by the time gear reductions were taken into account, the wheel would have to be about twenty feet tall.

 

[dustytrails123]

close as your going to get would be a gravity dredge try searching for that many things will come up

 

[simbad42]

I can think of a way to do it in a divincian way of only water power, but it would take a few devices. First one would lift water up to a storage tank/ pond.( done by a ramp pump. Or a water wheel driven water screw.) The pond would then have to drain down a pipe that compresses the water by reducing the diameter of the pipe. Then after a far enough drop it will have the pressure to suck up the sand with a dredge setup.

Or you can make a water wheel powered drill device that scoops the gravel out by friction.and a cloth bag to strain out the water. This would be less effective than the first.

But the legal definition of a machine can be touchy for example in the boundary water area. a sail boat is illegal because of the pulley turning it into a machine.

I should add that both are not going to be efficiently portable.

 

[jog]

[h=3]Non Motorized Dredge ?[/h]

 

[Fireline]

Here is an interesting paper on A Spiral Tube Water Wheel Pump I came across a while back. Water-powered Water Pumps