F.E.Bear

Member
Do any or many of you all know what a Ram is. We have one at our hunting camp that is 97 years old and still pumping water 24/7-270 days all by it self. NO electric, just water to pump water aprox. 200 yards horizontally and 60 feet verticle. Quite amazing to say the least. We bought it about 65 years ago from a horse & buggy Mennonite on the condition that we take him to the camp to set it up. We think he wanted a long auto ride. We do a small bit of maintainence on it when it needs it, but that is it. Quite close to perpetual motion.
 

Forty years ago I was looking into one to water my garden from a nearby stream. Our household well didn't have enough.
 
I remember a lady showing me the remnants of one about 55 years ago, it used to pump water from a creek up into a tank under the hay in the haymow, and then there was a line run to the house. There were about 4 collection basins that fed the ram that was a little ways downstream. A truly remarkable machine, I wish we had a location to put one. But both of our wells are artesian, the one at the house I call high pressure, 12 ft of static head.
 
Grin, get into the hobby of live steam. Ram or displacement pumps are quite the norm for water in on a locomotive.

You would be surprised at what is available for putting water into a pressure vessel. Single cylinder pumps, double cylinder pumps, eccentric driven pumps, double acting pumps (more than likely what your ram pump is), rotary pumps. There are even injectors.

If you want I can post pictures of several pump varieties used on scale locomotives. I will post this one for giggles. The pump is the vertical brass cylinder near the front of the locomotive.
37147.jpg
 
About 30 years ago there was an article in the GEM - Gas Engine Magazine about water rams. They mentioned in that article that the water rams were used to pump water to the top floor of buildings. Every time some one used water it pump more upward to the holding tank. Eventually that system would run out of water since the return line has to be half the size of the main supply line.

In the cases everyone here is talking about is that the water ram has a main supply source such as a creek that constantly supplies the ram and makes it pump a smaller amount of water to a holding tank. It seems like perpetual motion but actaully it takes more water to make the ram operated than what is pumped to the tank. But they work and that's all that is necessary.
Water Ram Images and Cutaway Views
 
Rife has been making water rams since 1885; still making them. Seems like with an artesian well that you could use the well as the input to the ram and get it to pump to a much higher level. Would of course waste some water.
 
There have been many of these reliable pumps used in New Zealand hill country farms. They are extremely reliable and operate in remote areas unserviceable by electricity, wind or engines and need minimal servicing usually only a rare bleeding of excess water build-up of water in the pressure dome. They will pump to an incredible height 24/7. We used one on our farm for some years till it was sold three years ago but I rather doubt if the new owners and managers have the nouse to keep it going
 
About 25 years ago there was a fellow selling a water ram made out of PVC pipe and a couple check balls people said it worked good.Biggest thing is a ram needs a lot of water and a good amount of fall to operate.The fall is where it gets its power to lift the water.
 
My dad used to tell of having to clean the weeds or bugs
out of the "spitter valve" when he was a lad in the 1920's.
 
Read up all I could find on them years ago before I built my first one. One story I remember is a big city put in some huge rams to pump water from a river to supply the city. The huge valves slamming shut would break up the rams and the foundations they were set on. Can't remember what city it was.
Richard in NW SC
 
(quoted from post at 04:13:49 06/21/16) About 25 years ago there was a fellow selling a water ram made out of PVC pipe and a couple check balls people said it worked good.Biggest thing is a ram needs a lot of water and a good amount of fall to operate.The fall is where it gets its power to lift the water.

I was under the impression that the operation of the ram and it's ability to pump uphill was the result of the difference in the weight of the water in the intake side versus the weight of the water being pumped by the much smaller delivery side which works with very LITTLE fall. :?:
 
In my reading about rams 40+ years, I learned the water hammer effect was discovered in France.
Someone piped water into their house from a stream up on a hill. All they had were lead pipes. When a crude valve was closed on the pipe, the pipe would burst. The solution was to tee in a pipe up the outside of the house so the water would have somewhere to go when the valve was turned off.
After lengthening the pipe a bit they discovered the exhaust water was spurting higher than the source of the water. Thus the water hammer effect was discovered.
I think this was in the late 1700's.
Richard
 
(quoted from post at 08:37:04 06/21/16)
(quoted from post at 04:13:49 06/21/16) About 25 years ago there was a fellow selling a water ram made out of PVC pipe and a couple check balls people said it worked good.Biggest thing is a ram needs a lot of water and a good amount of fall to operate.The fall is where it gets its power to lift the water.

I was under the impression that the operation of the ram and it's ability to pump uphill was the result of the difference in the weight of the water in the intake side versus the weight of the water being pumped by the much smaller delivery side which works with very LITTLE fall. :?:

The fall is actually called HEAD. Yes the beauty of the ram is that it requires almost none, which was why I was looking into it.
 
This is from a website article on water rams Instructable.co.hydraulic/ram/pump
"The level that the pump can raise water to depends on the water's head (total drop the water will make)" In other words if you want to push the water
up a hill you need more drop top push it 50ft up than you do to push it 10ft. I think they used to say about 1 ft of drop for 10ft of lift.Now as far as weight running
the ram that's true but a pipe full of water thats 100ft long weighs 10X as much as pipe full of water thats 10ft long.The weight of the water plus speed it comes down the pipe
creates force.You get hit with 20 gallons of water being poured out of a bucket no big deal you get hit with 20 gallons of water coming out of a water cannon it'll knock you flat.
Same principle as a power washer.
 
(quoted from post at 00:52:28 06/22/16) This is from a website article on water rams Instructable.co.hydraulic/ram/pump
"The level that the pump can raise water to depends on the water's head (total drop the water will make)" In other words if you want to push the water
up a hill you need more drop top push it 50ft up than you do to push it 10ft. I think they used to say about 1 ft of drop for 10ft of lift.Now as far as weight running
the ram that's true but a pipe full of water thats 100ft long weighs 10X as much as pipe full of water thats 10ft long.The weight of the water plus speed it comes down the pipe
creates force.You get hit with 20 gallons of water being poured out of a bucket no big deal you get hit with 20 gallons of water coming out of a water cannon it'll knock you flat.
Same principle as a power washer.

That's why the delivery pipe must be much smaller than the side that provides the 'head'; less weight of water to push. :roll:
 
I use one on my veg farm for irrigation. It runs 4 to 6 100 + ft of drip tape as long as I have the pump on (more maybe but I haven't tested it as I only needed this much). It will do this day in and day out. It makes about 30 to 40 lbs of pressure. Pump is a 1 1/4" size. It's cheep and it make my watering so much easier. Here is a YouTube site as well as his web site on these pumps. His name is Seth Johnson and if you have questions he has tested it and can answer it. Great guy.

https://www.youtube.com/user/landtohouse

http://www.landtohouse.com/rampumpsales/
 

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