The 'ORIGINAL'
Build it yourself manual
"All  About   HYDRAULIC   RAM   PUMPS  
How and Where They Work"
About the ATLAS RAM PUMP
About the book
Ordering Information
From the publisher....


One of the first, and still the best!! Galvanized fittings, brass check valve, weight/gravity clacker.    THIS IS THE ONE YOU WANT!
In print for over 20 years! Updated regularly!
DON'T BE FOOLED BY IMITATIONS! They can't answer your questions.
This is the ORIGINAL Atlas Ram Manual, for the unique and widely used Atlas Ram Pump, designed from the ground up to be easily home-built but well made.
The Author is the inventor and designer of the Atlas Ram Pump. The book has his personal e-mail inside, for answering all your ram pump questions.

     One of the first! Galvanized fittings, brass check valve, home made spring clacker. Photo from www.yin-yang.com/   Water ram of the plastic kind . Moderately expensive water system for the homestead.   Atlas Ram Pump. Most efficient ram pump available today for low flow / fall conditions. Ram pump, home cast aluminum alloy, gravity clack, traditional design. Beautiful+expensive! From Folk Rams Very unusual configuration. Stainless steel and aluminum alloy. Very expensive. Photo from www.gravi-chek.com/                                               
                        
                                                         
Ram pumps come in all sizes, shapes and materials.
They  ALL do the same thing...Pump water for free!
They ALL do it the same way...utilizing 2 common physical laws.
    'Using only the power of gravity, these ram pumps can pump water uphill. Only a portion of the water piped to the ram arrives at the end-use area (about 10%-15%) but it arrives 24 hours a day. Even a trickle can provide immense amounts of water for your use.'  from 'All about HYDRAULIC RAM PUMPS  How and where they work'.
           
•   WHAT IS A RAM PUMP?
        The hydraulic ram pump is a reliable, old-time water pump that works just as well today as ever. Often called a water ram or rampump, one of these simple devices can pump water from a flowing source of water (spring, creek, river, etc.) to any point above the source, and this without any power requirement except the force of water moving downhill, contained within a ‘drive pipe‘. Water can even be siphoned out of a pond, as long as the drive pipe heads downhill after it reaches the bottom of the dam.
    Invented before electric water pumps and rural electrification, this rugged and dependable device is usually installed today at remote home sites and cabins that are off the power grid and would otherwise be without a water supply. Sometimes a ram is used as a backup water system, or for watering livestock, gardens, decorative lily ponds, water wheels or fountains. The simple fact that a ram uses no power opens up a world of possibilities for using water that would otherwise flow on downstream.
    All that is really required is the surface water source. The water has to be moving, have a flow to it..not much, but some. The creek need not be large either - 4 gallons per minute is the minimum.

•   HOW CAN THIS BE?
    The 2 laws that allow a ram to pump water are *inertia, and the *incompressability of water.
Water flows downhill--it is moving. Contained within a pipe ('drive pipe' ) it is incompressable, almost as if
it were solid. As far as physics is concerned, it is solid.

    Think of a hammer. It weighs so much...but simply laying the head on a nail does no good. Swing the hammer--it is moving. It strikes the nail with far more force than its mere weight. Inertia, object moving, stopped suddenly. Force.
    Or think of the old battering ram against the castle gates. Weight of log, movement by warriors, stopped suddenly by the gate. Force. Pillage and looting.
    The drive pipe, full of water, moving downhill, stopped suddenly by the 'clack' valve closing. Force against the 'check valve' (one-way valve), opens it against the pressure  in the 'high pressure' side of the ram pump. A small amount of that water (about 10%-15%) gets through and eventually ends up at the end-use area.
    
    So actually the drive pipe is where the real energy comes from, and the set of valves at the bottom of the drive pipe (usually referred to as the ram pump) is really just the tail end of the ram pump system.
           The configuration of the valves makes no real difference except that valves, if laid hoizontally, tend to wear out their bushings REAL fast.

    There has to be a certain amount of 'fall', which is the VERTICAL distance from the water source to the ram. The minimum for this is about 5 feet. The more fall, the greater the VELOCITY the water in the drive pipe may attain. Greater velocity means more force (pressure). Fall can be increased by the use of an 'intake barrel' or collection barrel, and source supply pipes going up to 200' upstream.
    
    There is an optimum drive pipe length, arrived at by math, but it is generally around 100 feet in length. This can vary quite a bit; generally a longer drive pipe gives a slower rythm, but more force per cycle. A shorter than optimum drive pipe length gives a faster rythm, less force per cycle.
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A typical ram pump setup (not to scale)
                                                
               Typical ram pump setup. Water enters thru the drive pipe, exits thru the clack valve on the pump.        

A. Water source (can be a river, stream, spring, or pond.)
B. Supply pipe. Goes from the source to the collection barrel downstream (below the source).
C. Collection barrel. The water is collected here. Water level stays at the level of the source.
D. Drive pipe. About 100 ft. long; brings the water to the pump and provides the power to the
    pump, somewhat like a battering ram. Probably the least understood part and most
    important part of the ram pump system. Typically black plastic pipe, 1" to 2" dia., generally       
    matched to the size of the clack valve (gold colored) on the pump.
E. Ram Pump. Starts and stops the movement of the water column in the drive pipe. Also
    redirects a portion of the water to the pressure tank through the internal check valve
   (one-way valve) This portion (about 10%-15%) leaves the pump and rises to the end use
   area through the...
F. Delivery pipe. Goes to the storage tank, garden, house...wherever the water is needed.
   Typically of 1/2" or 3/4" black plastic pipe.
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The ram pump sequence

As you can see in the diagrams below, this process repeats itself about every 2 seconds. About 10% to 15% of the water entering the pump is forced past the check valve or one-way valve into the 'high-pressure' side of the pump and on up to wherever the delivery pipe takes it...to the storage tank above the house, to the barn, pond, etc.

             


              





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©2001 Atlas Publications