How to Move Water?

Give up while you are still ahead.

Use wicking. Cover the wicking material with a moisture barrier.

And maybe prayer.
What have you come up with?
By the way, if I tell you how to do it, and it works, I am the inventor, not you.

There was a thread about this a couple of years ago...it was some kind of perculation method using air. I'll never be able to find it. The guy was bubbling water out of a little creek, and it was very cool.

Anybody remember that one?

This is similar:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plSqyQGuwWc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&v=b2kv8BUVy6E&NR=1

This may be what you need. Commercially available.

Wicker basket.

No, wicking basket.

A three foot long wicker basket placed a half foot into a large bowl of water. I expect the water will slowly wick through the capillaries in the plant material the entire length of the basket. I expect no more than a few drops of water to be present at the far end but the OP said nothing about quantity or time.

I fail to see how any of this relates to ELECTRICAL engineering...

Probably why it was posted in "General".

Electrical activity of the BRAIN......

Very comprehensive circuit layout....

Don't get 'stuck' just by thinking of common "technical(!)" solutions, be open to the not so 'usual'.....

It depends how fussy you are on the definition of 'wicking'. Are trees allowed ? There are many fun ways to do what you seek.

#1........

I want to turn water into wine.........no luck with that so far either

Pour the water on the roots of the grapes! Duh!

I knew the leaves took in CO2 on the underside of the leaf, I wasn't sure what they liked to drink

Of course. I am a vegetarian and I like to drink, too. :)

My wife can turn a breath of air into wine a whine. Does that count for anything good?

2' higher and 4' horizontal and 45^o?

Wicking doesn't deliver any fluid if the discharge end is higher than the source.

Fluid would be nice but wasn't asked for.

I'm still surprised none of us pointed out until now the geometry error. At a 45° angle the elevation change equals the horizontal change. There are too many things unstated and wrong in this poser. Is the water in a liquid state? How much water is available? Must all of this water be moved uphill? Is the sun shining on this water? Why must the mode of transit be by surface tension wicking or was this also in error? Is the two foot rise just part of the journey?

Darn it, I really thought water was a fluid, and I did question the geometry.

'....Wicking doesn't deliver any fluid if the discharge end is higher than the source.....'

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I think we may have different definitions of 'higher than the source'.....or have I been looking at candles and oil lamps up-side-down my entire life?

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I think it is fair to say that a wick won't typically discharge higher than its source, but wicking and capillary action can deliver fluid higher than the source.

Now thats wicked!

designing and making one of those that was my senior project in college....

A ram pump can do that for you.

Try a tree.

does the sun shine in your location?

Ask congress to pass a law stating that water must run uphill upon demand.

Actually it's the Department of Natural Resources and the Department of Energy you need to contact to get exemptions for this.

Why bother with a wick. A geyser moves water without a wick or any help.

getting just the right underground formations at just the right depth are always a tad tricky for mere mortals to get right with any degree of consistancy

True, but it certainly is easier than getting this OP to fill in any useful details.

The fiberglass wick is coiled in the water.....

Flowrate?

This will determine whether you go for Hendrik's Ram Pump, or Kramarat's Bucket.

(Kramarat's Bucket has a certain ring to it. I like that!)

Is that where Schrödinger's cat is?

Despite the finite improbability he turned up at the vet.

Yes, but bucket or box?

Alive, or dead?

And, what was the color?

Archimedes' Screw?

No.

This screw:

Del,

I didn't do it. OK, I thought about it. Laughed even.

K R I S S

d i d

i t.

BUT (no play on words) I didn't yell, "keep turning, keep turning" when the stabilizer is about to go home.

1. drop version: a black hose and lots of sun.

2. solar panel radiator with hot out up.

3. water catapult.

4. automatic pee man.

all registered.

There have been a number of flippant comments on a genuine question. Capillaries have the property of apparently working against gravity, by making the liquid inside the capilaries to raise. But I have not seen any drop of water falling off the tube at a higher level. Some time back, in India there was quite a commotion saying that a Ganesha Idol drank milk from a spoon. We all tried the trick, and found it working. Obviously, due to surface tension, some water/milk that wets a surface, tends to flow through, giving an impression that the milk/water in the spoon is getting emptied on its own accord. The problem addressed has really many possibilities, provided the principle is applied in a proper application. To begin with, one could try a bunch of capillary glass tubes dipped in water and then, may be some one would come out with an idea, as to how to bring the water out of the capillaries !

How gets a 8 meter high papaya tree papayas of 8 kg and lots of water inside? Better, a coconut tree. The coconut has between 0.5 and 1.5 liter water in it. And those blue prunes as big as a goose egg?

Movement of water or sap within a tree against gravity is also a capillary property, since there is apparently no compressor working in the roots of tree ! One could cut off a Papaya and take water out of it and then wait for another papaya to form before harvesting the water sent up by nature. None of us know, but perhaps some one would come out witha device that works on capillary principle and brings water up against gravity.

Transpiration.

Transpiration - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Transpiration is exhibited by leaves of plants that are not Xerophytic. Palm trees have leaves that have almost xerophytic characters, but the roots do carry water to the crown of leaves, which are atelast 10 to15 metres above ground level. Hence one cannot ascribe raise of water from the roots to the leaves to trnspiration. We need to accept that capillary action has to do something. Anyway, the point is that there should be concerted efforts to use this property to raise water from ground level to above, Andreas one of our members would have a workable suggestion, hopefully.

Possible but requires a lot of adjusting and perhaps a four leaf clover might improve its effectiveness:

Take an appropriately sized pipe, tube or hose and submerge the lower end below the water level. This will probably be small in diameter but not minuscule. Take an air compressor and bubble air through the pipe from the bottom up. Adjust the air flow until you have a sufficient amount of water segments travelling up with the air. Don't stand at the upper end of the pipe because some of those water segments are nasty and will slap you in the face. Better to use an elbow, tee, or modified vent fitting at the upper end to stop this assault on your body. It works unless you use a compressor that requires water cooling, then you need to get some water into the compressor. I have seen it done in a college physics lab. Efficiency near zero, amazement extremely high but don't try to impress the girls with this. They get quickly bored with these things!

Personally I recommend prayer. It too can be effective if you are not real naughty. Probably has a higher acceptance rate than the air driven reverse siphon unit also!

Good Luck, Old Salt

To raise water 2 feet, you require approx one lb/sq in minimum. A suggestion for an automatic pressure source is as follows:

Have a large sealed metal container in the sun. The sun's heat will increase the pressure internally. A rise of about 40C will give you about 1 lb/sq in. Connect this to the water source.

At night a one-way valve allows air to enter the container, if the internal pressure falls below atmospheric pressure. A one-way valve is also required to ensure the air line between vessel and water cannot reverse at night.

If you have two vessels, one in the sun, one in the shade (connected between the heated vessel and the water), with one-way valves between vessels, and between cool vessel and water, you could design a system to continue operation at night.

Built a house 30 years ago that used a Trom Wall system , a French design. 50 gallon drums were painted black, stacked in vertical rows, behind a south facing glass wall, filled with water , and the heat gained would force the water up and thru under floor copper piping for heating purposes. If I remember, the lift gained was about 3 feet--The rest of the extension pressure under the floors was accomplished by 12v pumps, in line, solar powered with battery backups. The pumps were only needed to move the water to the farthest rooms in the upper levels. The lift was done strictly by hot water pressure forcing up. I did not do the install, only the building, from foundations through cabinets and final finish, but do remember very cold days, with a nice warm floor to walk and work on. Maybe there is further info on this type of system..

Solar evaporator. Immerse a glass-roofed container in the water. Evaporating water will condense on the inside of the top of the evaporator and then you can let the water trickle off to where you want it.

additional information : the amount of water is about a quart is located in a can and is used to water a plant gradually.

You make a glasshouse with a pitched roof, or you have a tall, very large glass container with water in the bottom and a sheet of glass covering the top, set at an angle. Water condensing on the plate/roof trickles down to one side and is collected in a gutter that runs to where you want it. I assume you want a quart of water per day. If so, you will require bright sunlight on the floor of the evaporator and the roof area will need to be at least 2 square metres if I remember correctly. The water to be used will be in a thin layer on the floor of the evaporator, which should be painted black. You could use an automatic feed arrangement from a bottle, similar to a bird water feeder, to maintain the water level.

I suspect you don't have the room for this idea.

I suggest you research evaporators. The one I remember was used in the Atacama Desert to supply fresh water for miners from sea water, I think in the late 19th century (Check Scientific American paragraph back 20 years or more).

You might be able to draw it up, but you can't do anything with it without supplying energy to get it out of the wick. If it just dripped out of the top, you could put a waterwheel underneath and have a perpetual motion machine, which is illegal in most universes.

Employ either a ram pump or a dosing siphon......

Neither requires electricity.

What transfer rate of the water (gallons/hr., gallons/minute, gallons/day, gallons/month) are you looking for from your system? Metric rate are also usable.

This additional information would probably be helpful to repliers so they can give you more usable answers.

Just a suggestion.

Good Luck, Old Salt

a quart every 6 hours

Just let the stupid plant die. It's better off dead anyway. Problem solved!

Why do you want to do this? What problem are you trying to solve with this solution?

You might consider a pipe with a compressed airflow into a bubble injector as a means to raise the water by bouyancy effects.

Don't use wicking, use a water wheel.

Perfect, A Watermill would work without a pump Good Idea !

If the lower water source is moving, then your idea makes perfect sense. If that water supply has no current, then the OP might have to try an archimedes screw (or a bucket wheel) that is powered by wind (if there is wind on his part of the country), I recommend a tilted single shaft system (if he opts for the screw lift) that does not depend on wind direction, and will spin even in low wind. If he opts for the bucket wheel lift, there might have to be a spindle and cog (90-degree gearbox) to couple a vertical axis wind turbine to the bucket wheel.

Solar option: use a fresnel lens to focus the sunlight on the pipe with water in it (there will have to be a water tight box allowing the sunlight to be focused on the pipe below the water level in source water), and as long as the pipe is connected to a foot valve, the boiling percolation effect with shoot water up and out to the destination.

Or a mule...

Incidentally, since this is considered prior art there is no patent required.

Or a governor....

BTW, a US quart is about one litre, 1000 ml.

one drop of water is 0.05ml, so 1000/0.05 = 20,000 drops per litre.

6 hrs is 3600 X 6 = 21,600 secs.

So the flow rate is about 1 drop per second.

Per capillary, one drop per second. Good. If we have 'n'capillaries in a bunch, then we have n drops per second, and as every one knows or was told, drops make an ocean. We have a potential system which can move water uphill, without any external source of energy. Good luck to all thinkers.

evaporation rates require no hills up or down

Yes. Evaporation has no downhills: only up hills, since water vapour is lighter than air. But we do require a condensing surface at a lower temperature than the ambient for condensing and collecting water. Evaporation takes place at all temperatures. All very good. But what we are talking about is to move water physically up to a few feet, using capillary force. Any info about this most welcome.

Buckets...

I am still partial to artesian well.

You drill it once. Water comes up under its own pressure.

Throttle it to the watering rate desired.

If more, than one plant is there, distribute it into different hoses.

It works only in a valley, but glasshouses are usually built there.

Now that some of the critical details have finally been brought forth I believe that a covered wick might be able to provide a quart of water per hour to a plant 2 ft uphill of your water source but only temporarily. You see unlike the transpiration of a plant your wick and sleeve will not be alive. As such organic debris and eventually organic life will fairly quickly clog the capillary paths of the wick. A fiberglass wick will work nearly indefinitely in a kerosene lamp because kerosene will not support life. Water will obviously support life. Ironically if you bury the upper end of your wick close to your plant you might even get the root hairs of your plant to clog the wick.

I recommend you drop this idea of irrigation by capillary action and investigate the well researched and documented approach of drip irrigation. Drip irrigation can easily meet your goals. Without knowing the nature of your water source, I will not guess how to fill this irrigation system.

If we could get the roots to enter the capillary and follow the water to its source, that would be more elegant yet.

If we were a plant we would simply grow where the water source is rather than depend on silly humans to figure out how to water us. :)

Just lower the plant at least 2ft?

or make the roots longer!

Instead of "wicking" try using osmotic pressure. Make sure the starter solution in the membrane bag (with a tube extending upwards to the area where water is to be delivered) has a higher concentration of solutes than the source water. You may need to have an evaporator pan to produce the initially salty water. By the way, the OP mentions nothing about the desired quality of the water, so this will work, and it has something to do with how trees can lift water such tremendous distances.

Why not move the plant?

Plants do it all the time.

Didn't read my #7

how about using a watermill to lift depending on the depth of the lower basin to allow for the removal on the upper basin that is higher . just a thought that came to mind. Waterwheel height would have to allow for discharge into this upper basin.

Will it be possible to have ‘U’ shaped capillaries so that water rises in the capillaries due to capillary action and delivery due to our well known gravity ?

Anyway glad that this topic is resurrected after 7 long years .

Only the shadoof knows.

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