Windmill

[Rsteeltje]

Couple of years ago I saw an old fashioned (John Wayne movie type) windmill in Kanchanaburi. It was pumping up water from the river.

Does anybody know where they can be bought and how high they can pump.

Thanks

R'steeltje

[garyh]

Don't know where to buy but if setup right they can pump to very high heads, however suction from the pump is limited to about 20 feet.

[slapout]

Not knowing what the op's requirement is for volume/consistency, etc, a windmill may not work real well with the dead calm days we experience here. The stroke is only about 10 inches so they are relatively low volume even on a windy day.

[lannarebirth]

There's a place in Bangkok that makes them, It's located between Soi Samakee and Djurakhipundit University. About 200,000 Bt for the 12 footer as I recall. They also have 14 and 16 foot models. Here's my question. Does one need an iron well casing in order to use one of these as opposed to tyhe crappy PVC well casing generally supplied by Thai well drillers?

[garyh]

Depending on what you are doing but you may want to consider solar pumps. These are being used a lot now in Australia, for 200,000 baht you could set up solar. As mentioned in a previous post there is not a lot of wind around here but the sun shines a lot when it is not raining.

[sezze]

A windmill for pumping can use different techniques . The windmill is by itself nothing more then an engine , making power to drive something .

Standard well known use : it drives a generator or alternator to make elect . If you want to drive a electric pump with it , it is possible but expensive .

Basic homemade pumps made out of plastic and other cheap available materials are the most used . I think the most used of the 2 types is a basic waterpump like this type . http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hand_pump . It is nothing more like the same system used by a pump to blow up a balloon or something like that . It works best with low rev's and can be made easy from scrap and basic plastic pipes .

2nd type with possible higher output of volume but low head is the Archimedes screw . http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archimedes%27_screw. It does require more detail in the fabrication but very high volumes are possible .

[Rsteeltje]

Thanks for the feedback. When I'm in BKK I hope to be able to check out the windmill shop but Garyh has a good point. More sun than wind here and when there's wind it probably raining so don't need it anyway. Solar makes sense!

Thanks

R'steeltje