Thanks so much for posting your DIY project John, you explained everything slowly, clearly and with good clean English! So it was easy to understand what you were talking about and you explained how the suction dredge works. This is the best suction dredge that I've seen, as I've looked all over the internet trying to catch all of the other designs. Tomorrow I'll head on over to Lowes with my shopping list of parts you mentioned and assemble one just like yours. It's gonna be fun to practice on a mortar tub full of water, sand, rocks! Cheers! :)
Hey John...Got it figured out and corrected!This nozzle suck it up fast man!My problem was a hose barb I used to connect the suction hose to the nozzle. It was creating backpressure because it went from 1.5" down to 1.25". That .25" was the problem. I took it out of the system and now the nozzle works fantastic!Like you I used heat to bend my PVC to get a nice even bend on it.My prospecting partner was super impressed when it threw a 1" rock 16" out the end of that 8' hose!Thanks for the help!Terry
I absolutely love both the 12 volt and the manual pump ideas. Making it all portable is one of the biggest things. A container to catch all the classified material while you are going from place to place in the water, and letting all that excess water escape. I can see it being attached to a sluice box. Where I go, you always have to stack up rocks and then balance your sluice and let water flow through it. The water flow by itself to be able to put it anywhere is awesome. Have you ever tried to build a ram pump? it would allow for even more pressure to be used for your idea you got here for the clean water flow side. They always have 1/10 efficiency with water escaping but the thing is the pressure. With a river or lake, you don't have this problem with water flowing back into it. Its the pressure your after. The more pressure, the more material you can process. The system can be build to the size you want just to get a 10th of it. Starting the ram pump is the main thing. But once it is started then it keeps going. Just don't want material going through it other than water. But, since that is the plan then it could work. May even not need the 12 volt battery if it works good enough.
12:28 "Its hard to do this: film with one hand and suck with the other" Best line of the video lmao! Seriously though, that is a great idea and I am going to be building a version of it but with a larger 12v pump than you're using. The sediment I need to dredge is up to 8 feet thick so I really want to get as much suction as possible out of it. I have 3 days now until our trip to prospect and a dredge will up our game significantly! I will try and get video of it for our new channel about our family adventures out prospecting! I'm taking my 9 year old son out for his first time on Tuesday!
Fantastic video!... i plan on making this to suck up material downstream of big boulders as well as using this and a crevice tool...me and my wife can backpack this out in the rocky shallow river...
another great video.the thing i noticed was that your pool water level was down at least 6 inches.this means it works out of the water.it should work even better in a stream, as the head pressure should increase as it doesn't have to lift the water up.thanks again
+bill bailey Yep, I agree bill, and it does. I set it upstream so that the head pressure is at its maximum. I'm also contemplating adding more water flow access into the pump itself by opening up the bottom of the pump and covering it with a mesh. Thanks.
hey, good video. went the power jet way where my jet is close to the sluice and works perfectly. so I just drag a 1.5 hose. but never thought of adapter for creavesing. I'd like to create a video like yours someday explaining how I built dredge. anyway. thanks for the ideas.
Very nice buid , i didnot wanna go this way on mine nozzle becouse the pvc loop is in your way when you wanna suck bottom of hole , thats why i made the loop as small as posible so it would not by in the way , you should use the plastic funnel like i did :) , great video thanks
Good job. I like the nozzle. Looks to work great. The two I built do not have much lift. I see you also ran yours very near flat also. I built two. One is 3/4 and the other is 1''. Both are made of metal. They did not work as well as I had hoped using a 2000 gph 12 volt pump. I will still use them with my highbanker gas pump. I made a 5 gallon bucket dredge with the pump. Hope it works better. I have not tested it yet. Goal is to put the wife on the bed rock to clean the cracks after I clean off it with the 4'' dredge.
I made the same thing you did in the spring cause I didn't want a gas power motor dredge and that's all they had when I stared making my 12 vote and its nice to see someone else that thought of it too thanks for showing what you made and I got one from poor mans nozzle made from stainless steal it is better cause It is metal and for 85 bucks I bought one and I am making 4 to sell . mine are all in one unit and they should go fast I hope . ( next year ) oh and good luck getting that yellow stone thanks for your movie
This great, and I'm going to try making one. I been wanting a high banker but that money I don't have to spend.ni do have the bazooka mini, and a small suction dredge that I don't have to bust my arm pumping would be better.ni too own a gold n sands, but it has been backfiring water at me. Maybe I should drill it a top hole. I do have a lot of PVC pipe, going to try and make one. Thank you.
when you put your cone for the jet cut it so it is a 3/8" nozzle and you will get better suction action and also leave your end flow at 1 1/2" and it will work great
Very nice. One comment/question is do you find that the curved part bumps into things a lot? I would think making it shorter where it comes in to the "sanitary T" section would have less PVC pipe sticking out in front, and make it able to get into smaller spaces.
How much static suction are you generating? Have you checked with a vacuum gauge? The ones I build are similar, but yet different. Two venturies, up to 12" of vacuum using a similar 12Vt pump. Great job! 👍
what if you put a longer hose onto the vacuum end where it sucks up the material? will it still work good? it would be easier of you could add a hose to work with
I'm not certain. I built mine this way because a normal suction nozzle is made with this type of bend. I've also seen others who have built 12volt nozzles without the bend. Thanks
have you tried an aquarium pump like a mag drive? they handle head pressure alot better than those bilge pumps and they are also very light on the amp draw. you would need ac/dc converter but i think it would be better.
will the flexible pool hose will slow the flow with all the ridges or is it smooth on the inside? if it's not smooth id maybe pool backwash hose from amazon is $20. for 50 feet and might improve flow rate a bit more.i hope you get a chance to use it again before the cold sets in and take a video maybe.
+bill bailey Bill, I thought of that also. The pool pipe I'm using is fairly smooth on the inside, but any resistance reduction will help. Thanks for your input. Much appreciated.
What is the purpose of the pvc 90*? Can you just loop the hose/continue the loop with the hose and do without the pvc altogether(until the Y and Venturi input of course )? Just wondering if the solid 90* increases pressure or does some rad magic. We highly enjoy your projects and gain inspiration from your videos. Take care.
Hi John,Very informative video! I am trying to build one but not having much luck...NO SUCTION! I'm really hoping you can point me in the direction I need to go with this...I'm using a 2000 gph pump that has a 1 1/8" outlet. The closest sized hose I can find that has a relatively smooth inner wall is 1 1/4" I.D. It is 8' long and I've reduced it to a 5/16" jet ( I've also tried a 3/8 which threoretically should have been the perfect size) and a 1/2" jet) inside the 1.5" plumbing "Y" as you have done. Of course the outlet of the nozzle is 1.5" and the hose is 8' long also. The set up you show in the video appears to be longer that that and yet has very good suction...I know your pump is larger @ 3750 gph but still I would think I should be getting at least a little suction. I've been after this for almost 3 weeks and I'm lost...any suggestions???
Terry l, look up my vid for where i made it work with 12v 1000gpm pump , its really diferent with every pump , the jet size have to be mached to your pump , the best way i found to do it is to run your pump with the hose u want to use , and test diferent sizes until the streem of water from the jet sprays the farthererst , and its a smoth streep of water , i have my smal pump with barly any presure spray over 10 feet distance with my funnel made jet .
Thanks, I have it figured out. I can throw a 1" rock a full 2' out of an 8' hose now. Only problem Inhave now is getting the material to settle out of the hose to go over the riffle in in the sluice box. To that event I think I will need to make a crash box header I think I will add a short section of garden hose to make a pressure nozzle for flushing out cracks. Then it would work on dry land too!!! This is a killer backpacking set up!
Michael Leeper. For some reason I can't respond to you, so I thought I'd put this in the comments for you to hopefully see. There is a dredging season specified in Idaho...mid July thru mid August. I would imagine that this falls into that category.
+Jamie Burke I'm using a 30" sniper in the video. When I bought it they only came with this package. My 36" prospector has the larger, heavier grizzly and material.
+John Jacobs Yeah coolness. I mean the .25in screen mod over the grizzly bars. To keep even more rocks out of the catch. Bleh, ordered mine like 2weeks ago.. still no word!
The gold down here is so fine and flat, so I'll be going to lowls and getting some mesh. The dude I saw it from said that by doing so, he can run longer without cleanout and that the larger rocks won't displace the fines as easy.
Wouldn't it give you better suction if you didn't have your flow necked down to about only 1/2 inch where you used your calk tube end? If you made that a larger volume of flow wouldn't it give you greater suction? Or is my understanding of physics and water flow all upside down?
Hello, can you buy such a nozzle somewhere? I would like to build something like this myself, can I ask for more construction details? I don't know if I can handle it. Regards, Syla.
The sand was used to control the heat and to keep the pipe integrity while I was heating the pipe and bending it. I removed the sand after the pipe was bent. Thanks
I called Keene from Keene Enginerring. He stated that a 3500 gph would not have much suction with one of his 2 inch keene suction nozzles. Anyone have a different actual result? Im planning on using a 3500 gph 12 volt pump with a 2 inch keene nozzle. Thanks for any help!
Yeah, I agree with them. I have a 3" nozzle and use a Honda 125 gpm high pressure water pump to power it.I use my 3500 gph for my small nozzle in this video and for my small and medium highbankers. They work fine in these applications, but won't be sufficient for 2"-3" suction nozzle.thanks.
Here is my ring in a tub test. A bit more to complete my project but very happy on the performance so far. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-4GNFdvgE3ig.html Cheers, #SeattleRingHunter
hey john, looks awesome. I think you have a pretty sweet design that Im going to try and replicate in some sort of way. Just wondering if you have tried the de laval nozzle? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Laval_nozzle
That 3700 Rule .... does a lousy job.. It has no PSI.. you need PSI to make a good suction nozzell. Try your house pressure garden hose at 80 psi, you will see, oh and mostly you would have a head pressure problem too at any depth
