Air Lift Pump - Aka Al's Lift Pump

Done it.

Make me a lift pump.  I followed You tube Video Air Lift Pump.  Did myself a sort of ISO sketch and a take off for parts needed. See below.

ISO for 2" airlift pump

After that it was a simple trip to Global and buy the bits. Got them all in Rayong except for the check valve.  Had to wait till Khon Kaen for that.  Everywhere sold out.  So conclusion is there are a lot of persons out there doing air lift pump tests....all at this time.....

Anyway got it sorted and then had my friends Steve and Phil assist with the testing.

I have two air pumps. One is a 30 litre/minute  low pressure on and the other is similar but I am guessing more in region of 100 litres plus per minute.  (label missing ! Other difference is the small one is about 30 watts and one is about 200 watts.

2" flap valve and 1/2 " riser

Bits

And more bits

And some more Bits......

Results were interesting. Not well recorded but good enough as we were covered in water !!! However conclusion is it seems pump output volume is main factor in water movement.  And smaller vertical pipe gave a bit better lift height. Not we only used the piping we had and did not go into a lot of extra cutting and splicing etc. Needless to say it worked. So whilst I expected it to work I was still very pleased with the results and need to thank Steve and Phil for this assistance.  Wait I did thank them.. We had a beer together.... :)

So I plan to stick with 2" check valve and have 2 smaller ones for sale !

I've added a video.  poor quality as I've having trouble getting my Sony camera to talk with my software. Will get it sorted eventually. its a bit long but shows you the fun we had... Not at all scientific but so what.....