A new youtube video has been published on our youtube channel.
The video shows a custom made well drilling method called rotary jetting. It combines a rotating drill head with a water jet. If you are interested also have a look at the experimental setup of airlift drilling and the motorised airlift drilling setup.
You can watch the video below. Don’t forget to also have a look at the other videos at our channel
The WOT will host introduction activities every Wednesday and Thursday this September.
You can sign up for these activities using the following google form: Sign up via Google Forms
These activities will be organised like our weekly association nights (normally every Wednesday) so we’ll gather at the wot around 17:00 and have dinner at about 18:00, afterwards we would normally work on our projects and end the night around the campfire, but for this introduction period we have some activities planned.
Introduction evening, we will give tours of our terrain and workshop and we will be making marble pumps
*A manual for the marble pump (you don’t need to prepare anything) can be found here.
We will host a lecture on well drilling (using manual methods that can be used in development countries), and of-course if you missed the tour on Wednesday there will be an option to be introduced to the terrain.
After the well drilling lecture of the previous week we will now actually drill a well using the “Mzuzu” or the “Emas” method.
*these methods will be introduced and explained in the lecture on Thu 9 Sept.
We will host a presentation on some of the wot’s most prominent projects from the past and discuss our various currently ongoing projects afterwards we will split up into groups and work on some small projects around the terrain.
We invited happy green islands to host a lecture on low-tech plastic recycling techniques.
Two people from happy green islands came to the wot and presented their work and goals, they showed us the website ekoMaluku and discussed technical innovations to localize plastic recycling (so it can be done on small islands).
We will divide the group into teams to play a pubquiz on mostly wot related topics (development techniques, climate, mechanical engineering etc.)
We will continue working on small projects and there will be the change to get involved/help out/watch over some larger projects.
We will be giving workshop courses to our new members to introduce them to and familiarize them with the various machines and tools in our workshop.
(Welding, grinding etc.)
On all these days we will be eating together at the wot, and ending the night around the campfire.
You can sign up for these activities using the following google form: Sign up via Google Forms
If you have any further questions please don’t hesitate to contact us.
Want to have a better overview of the wot from the comfort of your couch? watch this video that we made last year:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAGf125aG0I
*The dates and activities at the end of the video are outdated.
This June, the WOT organized its first physical activity in a long time! In light with the start of producing a Mzuzu well-drilling set, Henk Holtslag from SMART introduced enthusiastic WOTters to the Mzuzu drilling method in a 1-day course.
With regard to an information request on drilling holes through small rocks and thin layers of stone by the Afundisen foundation, the WOT will built and test its own Mzuzu drill set, suitable for this purpose.
Core auger in action
The method consists of 3 different kinds of drill bits and a bailer. Drilling the well starts with the core auger, drilling through layers of loose dirt and clay. The auger can be emptied by pushing the contents on a stick dug in the ground. The drilling speed in this process was about 8 meters per hour.
Once the dirt becomes too wet to use the core auger a spiral auger is used, which is cleaned using a special tool to fit in the spiral. Drilling speed was difficult to measure, but a lot lower compared to the core auger.
The spiral auger in use
Once the mud becomes too viscous for the spiral auger a bailer is used. This bailer is used within the well casing which will sink deeper into the ground by applying some weight while using the bailer. This is different from other drilling methods which generally place the casing after drilling has finished, using drilling liquids in the process to support the well during drilling.
Start of bailing
The bailer that is used acts as a small bucket with a valve at the bottom, filling with sand by a vertical pounding movement. The bailer is suspended in the well casing on a flexible pipe and is emptied using a bucket of water. Once more drilling speeds were difficult to measure, but were even slower than while using the spiral auger.
As a last part the bottom of the well is sealed by dropping a small plastic bag filled with cement into the casing.
During drilling with augers a stone punch, fixed on the same pipe as the two augers, can be used to disintegrate small rocks and thin layers of stone to reach the water aquifer. However the soil on the WOT terrain contains neither, so this has not been practiced.
A big thank you to Henk Holtslag for displaying the Mzuzu drill method to the members of the WOT! Once we have finished building our own Mzuzu drill set we will start with more tests to get experienced and find more accurate drilling speeds, depths and the possibilities of using a stone punch.
A new video has been posted on our youtube channel. The video shows how to construct an amanzi water pump. This is a pump made from HDPE pipes. Therefore it is flexible and lightweight.
You can watch the video below. Don’t forget to also have a look at the other videos at our channel.
Since the last post about the new windpump gearbox a lot of progress has been made. In this blog, we will discuss some of the findings during the process. Also, some important changes are made to the design which will be discussed. Starting from the last blog post about the gearbox the test installation is finalized from the first design.
One of the first major changes to the design is the type of bearing used. At first normal bearings are used for which a housing is made and welded to the gearbox casing. As could be expected the alignment of the bearings was rather difficult. When the bearings were installed it was not possible anymore to change the distance between the two gears.
Both problems are solved by making use of flanged bearings which have a couple of advantages:
In the video below the first rotations of the gearbox are shown including the counting of the strokes. The transparant window is only for inspection purposes during the test phase of the gearbox.
Now all the main components are working the gearbox is painted and the last details are worked out such as preventing the weight from rotating during yawing.
At first a steel cable is used to transfer the rotating motion of the rotor into a translating motion. A 6mm thick steel cable is used, however this cable snapped after 59.535 strokes due to the small pully (60mm diameter) used to guide the cable. According to the steel cable manufacturer, a pully of a steel cable should have a minimum diameter of 20x the cable diameter. This would result in a pulley with a minimum diameter of 120mm, within the gearbox there is no space for such a pulley.
A smaller steel cable of 4mm in diameter is used in combination with a slightly larger pulley (85mm). This cable snapped after only 19.334 strokes, a final test is done with the 6mm cable in combination with the larger pulley. This helped a bit, however the cable still snapped after 69.591 strokes.
Another problem with the steel cable is that if the tension by the weight is released it will immediately ‘jump’ of the guide pulley. Whenever the gearbox is started after that the cable is damaged, which is not preferred if the gearbox is up a windpump.
Solution: Instead of the cable, a chain is used in the newest improvement of the gearbox. This new configuration has done over 120.000 strokes without problems.
Based on the previous blog post about the gearbox several things where tested and monitored during the manufacturing and working of the test setup:
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.
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.
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:
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:
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.
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 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 | – | ++ | + |
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.
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.
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.
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.
