The Breurram is a type of waterram pump that was developed by a WOT volunteer in the 90s. There already is an elaborate manual on how it works and how to build one. In addition to this we decided to make an instructional video about this great pump.
The video shows the pump in action, it explains how it works exactly and a timelapse of the assembly process is made. Also the yield of the pump at different heights is shown.
For more information about the Breurram please go to this page. The manual you can find here in multiple languages.
As WOT members we love making things playing around with all kinds of different tools and materials, since we are not able to collectively do that at our terrain we decided to do it separately.
For this reason we organised the Epic challenges every week we work on a different small project.
-Challenge #3 For this week’s challenge members were asked to create an instructional video to explain how to build a marble pump. The video of the winning team would be placed on the youtube channel of the WOT.
Only two submissions were entered and since they both elaborated on a different type of design, it was decided that both videos would be put on the Youtube channel. You can check out the video’s at our youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCD9iM7XU_iuZWsFQ9A_F2kg
-Challenge #2 We are making bird houses, but not just any bird house contestants are encouraged to make their birdhouse as comfortable and luxurious as possible, and of course creativity and originality are very welcome in this mini project.
On Wednesday 10-3-2021 we voted and birdhouse #3 won, of course hugely due to the Bob Ross television, now we just have to wait and see if the birds like our creations.
-Challenge #1 Contestants would fabricate their own unique coffee mug to be used in the kiwanda, for this members used all kinds of techniques, from electroplating and welding to turning and 3d printing. These are some of the resulting mugs that where produced:
On Wednesday 3-03-21 we voted to determine the winner, and although it was a close call mug #4 won! A mug shaped out of wood using a lathe, a chisel and probably quite some time.
As a duration test the plastic pump system which is currently tested at the WOT is placed under the Kjito windpump in the second half of 2020. During the last couple of weeks the pump was struggling with pumping water, only delivering during high wind speeds. This made the foot valve the suspect of the problems. However, during the period of low temperatures of the last couple of weeks all the windpumps where shut down to prevent damage due to freezing of the pipes. This gave a opportunity to remove the pump from the Kijito and investigate the pump in more detail to find the actual cause of the problems.
Kijito well
The well under the Kijito windpump consists of a well which is dug out. The sides are reinforced with concrete and there is no bottom in the well which makes it dependent on the level of the ground water. The well is around 4.5 meters deep with at the moment (February) water at 2.5 meters. During summer and high winds the well be pumped empty which is not good for the longevity of the piston.
Cause of the problem
As mentioned above the pump showed signs of a bad foot valve, however the foot valve was in great condition! the part that failed was the outer pipe of the pump, the piston had so much friction that the wear on the pipe was so big that the wall thickness decreased resulting in:
First pressure point (teared wall)
Second pressure point (worn down wall)
It is remarkable that this problem occurs only after a couple of months. This pump design is already used for multiple years without maintenance in South-Africa. However, the main difference is the well or borehole used. The boreholes in South-Africa are mainly 10″ holes of tens of meters deep, sometimes even over 80 meters deep. These deep and narrow holes force the plastic tubes of the pump to be straight and therefore easy operation.
The well of the Kijito is very shallow and wide compared to these boreholes. This results in the tube not being straightened properly and therefore creating two point of high pressure on the outer pipe (at the point of the piston and where the inner tube changes to the solid plastic rod). When the pump was removed from under the windpump the tubes where still not straight:
Solution
Since the cause of the problem is not found in the design of the pump but the way the materials are used, the most important lesson to be learnt is: Make sure the pipes are straight. In case of the Kijito well, which is shallow and wide this is not a straightforward job. For now there will be ordered a new outer tube and a way to straighten out the the pipes will be found.
At the end of 2020 a group of students from the TU Delft contacted the WOT because of a project they were working on for their minor. They were to work out and implement a system to provide water for a company and a community in Sierra Leone. When researching they found out about the rope pump and decided they wanted to build one of these. The WOT has provided a course in the making of such a pump.
During the workshop parts of a rope pump were made. The students wanted to take these along to Sierra Leone. They would however, built more pumps with the local people. This is important to insure a greater degree of autonomy and sustainability.
The workshop
Because of the corona measures and limited capacity of our workshop only two members of the group could attend the course. Making a whole pump in one day was too ambitious and since the students had very limited welding skills, we decided to only create the parts that could be made without welding. Some welding was done by WOTters beforehand and in Sierra Leona as there also was a skilled welder available.
Metal forming as well as PVC forming were discussed. Also a part of the rope was made and the campus rope pump was removed and installed again.
The implementation
The students decided they wanted to go to Sierra Leone to install the pump. They did so successfully. Two more pumps were made over there, together with the locals, which will be installed soon.
At the beginning of this year several irrigation systems have been tested in the vegetable garden at the WOT. The aim of this project was to find a low cost but efficient method to irrigate crops. Three systems were tested: a bought transpiring hose, a system made from terracotta pots, and a system made from plastic bottles or jugs. To read more about the setup please read the previous blog on this project.
The garden has a relatively small area (approximately 4m x 4m) and multiple crops were grown in it. Therefore a quantitative analysis cannot be justified. Instead of looking at the crop size, the practical considerations are tested. Below is a table that summarises the findings.
Effectiveness
Cost
Complexity
Irrigation hose
+
+/-
++
Ceramic pots
++
+/-
–
Plastic jugs
–
++
+
Irrigation hose
The irrigation hose was off the self and installation was simple. With a conventional garden hose the tube was connected to the water tank. The hose was buried at 20 cm so it would hydrate the ground below the surface. Often, however, the ground at the surface was dry. In general this is an advantage because moisture on the surface may evaporate. Also, weed growth is less. However, when seeds have just been sowed or the crops are still small, they cannot reach the water and thus spraying the surface with water was still necessary.
It should be noted that the pressure in our system was low (0.1-0.2 bar) because it was connected directly to a water tank. If the irrigation hose is connected to the tap (2-3 bar) maybe the water will reach the surface of the ground.
Ceramic pots
The installation of the ceramic pots required much more work. Pots needed to be sealed together, unwanted holes had to be sealed and a system had to be made to connect a hose to the pot. Then the pots were buried and connected with T-joints to the water supply. The price of such a system is comparable or higher than the price of an off-the-self irrigation hose.
The pots did however perform best with irrigation. Because they have a large height they distribute water deep in the ground as well as near the surface. This irrigation setup is therefore also suitable for seeds or young plants.
Plastic Jugs
The plastic jugs are the cheapest solution since waste materials can be used for it. The performance is however not consistent. The working principle behind this system is that because the holes in the jugs are small and the lid is on the jug, air can’t enter the jugs easily. Because of this water also can’t flow out easily. We noticed however that air quickly entered the jugs and thus water quickly flowed out. This is probably because the ground in our garden is loose sand through which air can move fairly easily. In dense clay water will likely disperse much slower. Of course, the holes could have been made smaller to decrease the flow, but the holes were already small and making them smaller would be technically challenging.
Furthermore opening and closing the jugs everytime you water is a tedious task.
Air quickly entering a jug
Conclusion
If you want to irrigate a small patch, irrigations with ceramic pots may be interesting. Especially if you can get a hold of specially designed irrigation pots. Connecting such a system to a water storage for continuous supply is rather complex and expensive. If you prefer a more cheap and low tech solution the plastic jugs could be a good option. It is a good idea to first do some tests to see if the holes are the right size and if your ground is suitable.
If you want to irrigate a larger area, the self irrigation hose is a good option. Be aware that if you connect it to a water storage the pressure is generally low and the hose might function less well.
In the future, the WOT might research irrigation methods that are low tech and cheap but also easy to manufacture locally.
During the last working weekend at three and four october progress has been made with the new gearbox design test setup.
This new gearbox design has a couple of unique features for windpumps which have a gearbox between the rotor and pumping rod (to slow it down and increase the pumping force). These type of wind pumps are widely used in South Africa. The following text is from my internship report on the design of a new wind pump which was mainly focused on the rotor but also adresses the gearbox shortly:
Gearbox of a Climax windpump
To ensure starting at low wind speeds and deep boreholes a gearbox is needed in these wind pump. Together with the new rotor design a new gearbox was designed which is simple in design and can be maintained easily.
Current gearbox design’s like the Climax and Southern Cross windmills consist of cast iron housings which cannot be welded when broken. Furthermore, there are two sets of gears which have to be synchronised to work properly. The use of solid pumping rods leads to ’knock’s’ in the gearbox which are described in the instruction manual for southern cross.
The new gearbox design
These knock’s are caused by the speed of the pumping rods during the upward stroke. The rod pushes the gears up which results in knocking over of
the gears. To prevent this a gearbox with cable is designed since a wind pump doesn’t have to push the pump down in normal operation. To make sure the pump rods will go down springs are added to pull the rods down. Furthermore, only two gears are used with a ratio of 3.2 : 1 which requires 3.2 rotations of the rotor to perform one pumping stroke. The casing consists of welded sheet metal instead of cast iron to make it possible for people with a welding machine to repair it themselfs.
Experimental setup
Since this type of gearbox has never been used before a test-setup is designed to be able to see if the gearbox is working without building a complete windpump. This setup will simulate the rotation of the rotor using an electric motor. The same will be done to simulate the yawing of the windpump. This is expected to be one of the major challenges with this design since the pump will not rotate, but the head of the windpump will. using a stiff pumping rod is not a big deal, but the cable that will be used in this design is not able to resist against torsion. It can be assumed that the windpump will yaw an even amount of times clockwise and anti clockwise, but it is still usefull to know how much rotations the cable will resist without problems.
The bracket around the gearbox is used to make sure that the power cable going to the motor which simulates the rotor rotation doesn’t get strangled up. Furthermore, ball bearings are used as yawing bearings which happened to be quite a challenge to install. So in the final design friction bearings will probably be used since they are much easier to install, allow for less tight tolerances and are more resistant against dust and moisture. But for this proof of concept it won’t affect the results.
Besides this there will be a couple of other things be tested during manufacturing and testing:
Effect of yawing on the cable
Easy manufacturing without expensive precision tools
Oil consumption of the gearbox (how oil tight can it be?)
Failure modes
Maximum load
Currently the frame of the setup is tagged together, the gearbox itself is tagged together and the different bearing housings are finished. The big gear is machined, only the teeth have yet to be touched with an angle grinder to make it ready to use. The next step is to manufacture a new ‘rotor’ axle since the current one turned out to be bent. Furthermore, manufacturing of the axle for the big gear which has some tight tolerances.
Last weekend several members of the organisation Happy Green Islands visited the WOT terrain to look at all the demonstration models and to discuss a possible collaboration.
Happy Green Islands is an organisation that focuses on the waste problem on small islands in the moluccas. On these islands there is no well organised system to deal with waste and most of it ends up in the ocean.
Although waste management is not something the WOT has much experience on, we think it would be interesting to see if our practical knowledge could be of use to help HGI. Furthermore already existing technologies on water and energy supply could prove useful on the islands in the moluccas as well. We hope to start one or more projects based on this collaboration.
During the last few months there were problems with the safety system of the Kijito windmill. The breakpin snapped much more frequently than usual. Last year the Diever had the same problem, then because of rising sand level in the well. Sand clogged the pump and caused frequent snapping of the breakpin, which was solved by dredging out the well. We assumed that for the Kijito the problem would now be the same and that dredging would solve our issues. This turned out not to be the case.
After removing the pump we noticed that the piston could get stuck in the higher range of its movement. This was a bit hard to spot, it is normal for the cups to sit quite tightly. In this case it was the support rings that got stuck; we noticed it because of some wear on the brass.
In 2017 the pump under the Kijito windmill had been removed for replacement of the cup leathers. Back the cylinder was quite stuck and we used a lot of force. This caused the cylinder to become very slightly oval shaped on the top. It is likely that this is what caused the piston to become stuck. Over time the brass of the cylinder was damaged and a small rim was formed.
Sanding down the rim proved quite difficult, but some efforts were made (professionally cylinders can be “honed” to make them perfectly round again). To be sure that the piston would not get stuck again, we used the lathe to shave a few millimeters off the cup support rings.
Our advice: when the safety on a windmill fails repeatedly, you will find yourself tempted to use a heavier breakpin. Always first inspect your pump. The safety is there for a reason. Should you see damage to the piston, expect damage to the cylinder as well.
Several weeks ago, just before the wot had to close due to the effects of the coronavirus, a working weekend was held. A lot of people were present, a lot of work has been done and the atmosphere was great. A new method of airlift drilling was tested, the cubicle of the outside shower was replaced, maintenance was done for the bicycle rope pump, the lustrum tiles were put on the wall of the indoor solar shower and work has been done for an experimental irrigation system.
You can read more about the airlift drilling here.
Solar shower cubicle
Now that the solar collector of the outdoor solar shower has been renewed, the rickety shower cubicle could not be left behind. This was made clear on a stormy day when half of the stall was blown apart. The working weekend was therefore a good time to pick up this project thoroughly.
The concrete foundation, in which a drain pipe was poured, was still perfectly usable. The plan was to make the walls of recycled fence boards. The underside of the walls would be made from bricks to prevent the wood from being in constant contact with water. Besides, the expectation was that this would give a good looking result.
Wooden posts were placed on each corner of the booth, which was attached to the foundation using a U-profile. With the base frame in place, two teams could work simultaneously on the masonry work (Allard and Kasper) and on the planks and crossbeams of the walls (Joost, Victor, Michelle and Willem). This was no easy task for a cubicle measuring just under a square meter!
At the end of the weekend, the stall stood proudly in front of us. The water tubes and the shower tap were also reinstalled by Willem. The masonry still needed mortar joints, but for this the masonry had to harden for two weeks. Also, the door was not yet completed and the shower lacked a roof. Joost finished the door a day later and Kasper later added the mortar joints. The roof is still missing, but the old door can possibly be reused for this.
Bicycle rope pump
Also the bicycle-powered rope pump was provided maintenance. With a new bracket to hold the pump and the return tube. After this the old paint was sanded off and a new layer was applied to help this pump stay rust-free.
5 WOTters watching, 1 WOTter works
Tiling of the indoor solar shower
Previous year, as a lustrum activity, tiles were decorated by the WOT-members so that they could add some flair to the walls of the indoor shower. It did take some time however before they were also actually placed on the wall. This weekend the task was finally started with. At the end of the day this resulted in a beautiful wall, to which a lot of members contributed. Only some finalising still has to be done.
Of course no working weekend would be complete without a campfire
