Automated Aqueduct for Rural Community

Projects General Guidance
1

Hello everyone, let me introduce myself. I'm Nico and I'm running an educational center in a rural village in Santa Fe de Veraguas, Panama.

We are starting an organic farm, and we teach people how to grow their own food in a sustainable way, store their own seeds, and so on.

We also try to fix the problems that we encounter, and our number one problem right now is the water supply.

Currently there are about 45 houses (including our own house) where water is gravity fed from a dirty hole located some 2 hours-trail uphill. We analyzed the water and, sure enough, is full of dangerous bacterias.

Also, when it rains, the PVC get clogged up with dirt and organic materials. So it either is brown water, or there's not water at all. Someone has to hike 2 hours in the middle of the rainforest to get the PVC pipe fixed or replaced.

BTW we are in a tropical region, which means it rains a lot, which means we have to fix the water supply over and over and over again (up do 3/5 times / month).

Let me tell you this: it is a nightmare. In this community we've got plenty of children and old people, and we are all drinking either nothing or poison, depending on the weather.

So we (the team at the educational center) decided to fix this problem and build a new aqueduct from the ground up. The plan is as follows:

  • install a submerged water pump + motor into a nearby river. The pump is a DAB S 46 D 21. The river is close to our house, which makes it manageable without hiking 2 hours.
  • pump the water 430 feet (130 meters) uphill
  • install a brand new 1,700 gallons (6,500 liters) water tank
  • purify the outgoing water with chlorine
  • distribute the water using the already installed PVC tubing
  • inside the water tank there's a water level sensor: when the level is high, the pump stops. When it's low, it starts again.

So there are no major issues you would say, but here is the catch: this river or course gets full of sand and organic material too when it rains!

The DAB pump we selected can manage up to 120 g/m3 of sand without falling apart. So we can still install the pump, but we thought that maybe we can come up with a system which could help us manage the whole system in a more "automated" way, protecting the pump, the water tank, and finally the people who drink the water. And here's where Arduino comes into place.

Let me explain what we envisioned. I'd love to get some opinions and ideas from some of you, because we actually have ZERO experience with Arduino (but we are willing to study a lot to make it work together with your help).

STEP ONE

We want to use this Turbidity sensor: Gravity: Analog Turbidity Sensor for Arduino - DFRobot
The idea is to install it as close as possible to the submerged water pump, inside the river.

Then we would find a relationship between the NTU (the turbidity level) and the quantity of suspended solids (g/m3).
As an example: let's say that after our tests, we know that a turbidity level of 450 NTU, means that there are approximately 120 g/m3 of suspended solids.

What are we going to do? Well we program the Arduino (with a relay I guess) so that it automatically stops the pump main circuit if the turbidity sensor measures 400 NTU.

With this solution, we would be able to protect the pump so that it exclusively pump water out of the river only if the water is not critically dirty, with always less than 80-100 g/m3 of suspended solids.

STEP TWO

Maybe this Arduino set up could automatically send data to a self-hosted website where we can monitor the NTU level. It would be great to study how much time it takes for the water to get nasty.

Here in our farm we have weather station. We could match weather data with the turbidity data in order to better understand how to properly run the water pump.

STEP THREE

We would love to install 5 water level sensors inside the water tank, such as this one: Gravity: Photoelectric High Accuracy Liquid Level Sensor for Arduino (5V) - DFRobot

Then it would be great to have the measurements automatically sent to a self-hosted website where we can monitor the water level.

How would that be useful you ask? (apart from the excitement of remotely monitoring the water level of course!)

Well let's say that the whole system sends data to the self-hosted website, and we have this situation:

  • the water level inside the tank is low
  • the NTU level in the river is low

...so why is the pump not working? We are now able to immediately be alerted when something is wrong, and we would not leave 100+ people without water (or with dirty water, which is actually worse).

So there's that. I know it's a complex idea, and I know it could take weeks to set it up, but I can assure you that it's definitely worth it.

As you may guess, water is the most important "thing" in the world. Our current aqueduct is a pain in the ***, and it's also dangerous. We've got to fix it.

During the summer (which thanks to climate change is getting longer and longer each year) most of the time we have no water at all, because our natural spring's level goes down.

Now you may think that this is bad because you cannot drink! But it gets worse: no water means no crops, which means no food, and 100% of people here practice what is called "subsistence agriculture".

What they eat depends on what they grow.

So...sorry for the long post.

Hope you guys could help me understand if this project is feasible, and if anyone is willing to help.

Bye!

2

If you run into trouble people on this forum will help you work out where the problem is. If you want people to do the work for you (and maybe get paid) there is a Gigs and Collaborations section on the website.

My first thought on this is that pumping water 130m up a hill is going to require quite a bit of energy. Have you worked out what your daily water consumption will be and calculated your energy needs to do the pumping?

You should also separate your needs for human consumption from your needs for agriculture because presumably you are not going to use clorinated water on crops.

It might be an idea to post a link to the pump you intend using. Although pumps might cope with a certain amount of grit most don't like any. Screw pumps can cope with grit and stones, so maybe you could use one of those to pump the river water into a settling tank before the big uphill push?

You might want to consider an ultrasonic sensor or a pressure gauge to give you tank water level, with some float switches as a backup.

It sounds like any kind of clorination will be better than what you have at the moment, but bear in mind that good clorination depends on several factors. Among these are how dirty the water is, its pH, its temperature and how long the water is in contact with the chlorine.

It is not obvious how you have arrived at the size of your holding tank. You need to do the calculations on consumption and then work out the tank size to ensure the water stays in contact with the chlorine long enough to be effective. It might make sense to add the chlorine at the water inlet rather than at the tank, and then measure how much chlorine makes it to the tank. Also don't forget that chlorine does not kill all the nasty things that can be present in water e.g. cryptosporidium resists chlorine and is small enough to make filtration difficult, and of course chemical pollutants can also be a problem.

3

Consider biosand filtration - it seems a popular method for getting better filtration than chlorinization alone & you can find plenty of examples on-line showing diy builds.

4

You don't want to reinvent the water wheel so take a good look at what people have already done.
This might meet a lot of your agricultural needs and be a way of extracting river water into a settling area for onward pumping;

Last year I did see a very old mechanical water powered pump. A channel had been cut from a river and water diverted along the channel powered an overshot water wheel which then pumped water to a higher level. A penstock on the channel meant the waterwheel could easily be taken out of service for maintenance etc. and it was a distance from the main river so not at risk of damage when the river was in flood.

5

A single pressure sensor at the bottom of the tank is all you need to measure the water level in the tank. Water pressure increases directly with the height of the water column.

You can also install the pressure sensor anywhere in the outflow pipe, even at the bottom, but if you do, measure the pressure only when no water is flowing. Any water flow will lead to incorrect measurements (pressure too low).

6

The current proposal is for a 6,500l water tank 130m above the river.
1l of water has a mass of 1kg, so the gravitational potential energy of the full tank would be;
mass x gravity x height = 6,500kg x 10ms-2 x 130m = 8,450 kJ

If you has a 100% efficient 1kW pump it would therefore take about 2.5H to fill the tank.

I think some calculations need to be done on the rate water will be consumed, the contact time required for chlorination and the energy requirements needed to keep the tank topped up.

7

Thank you all for your interesting replies!

In my original post I didn't want to bother you with all the details about the hydraulic-part of the system, I thought that I was going to get replies such "this is arduino forum, not a water pump forum!".

But I guess all those details are needed to figure out if the "automated system" is feasible, so I'll go ahead and address all the points from your precious replies.

RE: ardly

I originally posted this here because I’d like to understand if it’s feasible, before actually starting to buy all the hardware and get it going.
I’m sure I’ll have to post this into the Gigs section so that I can find someone who can help me make this a reality.

Regarding the consumption:

In the past weeks I’ve been installing 3 water meters into three different homes:

  • n.1: our home, with 5 people from Europe
  • n.2: family of 5, campesinos (local farmer)
  • n.3: one retired campesino

I specified European people and local farmers because different cultures means different water consumption (mainly in cooking).

The average consumption rate that I get is around 180 liters (47 gallons) per person per day, all included (drinking, cooking, showers).
The community is made up of 18 homes and around 40 people, which means that each day the whole community uses around 7,200 liters (1900 gallons).

So we’d like to buy a 6,500 liters (1,700 gallons) water tank, and we consider that we’d have to fill it two times a day.

The idea of separating human consumption and farming is good on paper, but it would actually be a nightmare to implement. The issue is that all water comes into a single water tank. From this tank water is then distributed by gravity.

If we wanted to divide the water, we would have to install new PVC tubing in all homes. People would have to pay it, and that’s not gonna happen anytime soon. And we don’t have the money to do that either. We have a limited budget and plenty of money will be spent on the water pump, the tank, the PVC tubing from the river to tank and so on.

It’ something we can do in a couple of years if we are able to collect money from the government or something like that.

Regarding the pump:

We selected the DAB S 46 D 21: http://bombasa.com/files/mce/files/BOMBA-PANAMA-SUME-S46.pdf (sorry, could’t find the English version).
The pump has 5 HP. It pumps around 90 liters (24 gallons) per minute 130m uphill. It will fill the tank in about 80 minutes.

Note that the real difference of altitude between the river and the tank is 100m. Then we calculated the loss of efficient due to the water viscosity, the length of tubing between the river and the tank (500 meters) and the PVC tubing diameter. The loss is 6 meters for 100 meters of tubing. So we added 30 meters of altitude, that’s why we consider 130m as opposed to 100m.

We studied the idea of implementing this:

  • “Trash pump“ from river to tank 1 (15 meters uphill)
  • Submerged water pump into tank 1
  • Water goes uphill into reservoir tank (130m uphill)

The issue is that here in Panama there’s no big market for trash pump, to they cost a lot of money. For example the pump we wanted to use (DAB Drenag 1400) costs around € 700 in Italy, and about $ 2,200 here.

So we decided that we are going to install a single submerged pump + motor directly into the river, and protect it with various layers of steel mesh filters. We will clean them often. But this is where the Arduino part is important: with a turbidity sensor we could protect the pump and let it work only when the conditions are good enough (less that 100 g/m3 of sediment).

Regarding the clorination:

We are doing this job alone, but the government will have to the sign a piece of paper where they allow us to install the new water system. They provided us with a project which was rubbish. Like they wanted us to build a little house (2,5m x 2,5m x 2,5 m tall) INSIDE the river, just to protect the pump. Maybe they forget that when it rains, the water level goes up and sometime entire trees float downstream…

So we are not going to do any of the stuff proposed by the government, but sure enough they want us to do AT LEAST the clorinization part (like they care about health…). We would implement a clorinization where we put some tablets into the outflow pipe, after the tank. I tried to explain them it was a bad idea, but guess what? Either we do this, or goodbye project. So the clorinization part it actually up to the government.

RE: wildbill

We looked up biosand filtration, and what we found is that it would be difficult to implement a DIY version, and the professional biosand filters are costly.

So we studied the “standard” sand filters, and the issue is that you would have to backwash-clean them. What comes out of the filter is considered toxic waste (full of bacteria). We have nowhere to pour this toxic liquid. The community is after a river with no bridge for cars, so nobody could come here and take the toxic waste for us.

RE: ardly

The issue with the water wheel idea is that the river is (for his whole length) enclosed by 2 rock walls, between 5 and 12 meters tall, both sides.
What that means is that when it rains, the water has nowhere to go and so the level goes up and up really fast. Sometimes we see entire trees floating downstream.

So anything we install inside the river is in danger. We are only able to install a submerged water pump inside a cage, behind a massive rock. Any structure bigger than that would get destroyed easily.

RE: jremington

Never thought about that, thank you! I’ll look into that.

RE: ardly

Please find the calculations above.

8

The average consumption rate that I get is around 180 liters (47 gallons) per person per day, all included (drinking, cooking, showers).

That is much higher than it needs to be, if people are taught to conserve.

I live in the U.S., far from town. The well water is quite bad so I implemented a rainwater collection system for the home, using a metal shed roof with area 110 m^2 for the collection surface. The water is filtered using a very simple polyester fabric filter and then sterilized using a UV source.

We have to rely on storage tanks to get through the (typically) 100 day period of no rain. During that period the two of us are careful, and use about 40 gallons per day or about 75 liters/person/day at one shower per person/day. We could get by on much less if we worked at it.

9

My first question is why not catch and use rain water ? seems like the most abundant local source of water and is freely available.

also, if you have a pipe that is already in place, I would consider the sand filter already mentioned.
filter it before it gets into the pipe. the pipe inlet should not need to be cleaned. there are ways to make such things self cleaning.

In my opinion, you are moving from a gravity system that might or might not be fixable, to a system that requires electricity or gasoline. if the motor fails, you have nothing until it gets fixed or replaced.

another idea is a simple holding pond at the source.
let the water slowly fill the pond.
pump the water out of the pond. that will be water that has had time to settle, but still needs to be purified.
look at how they once build canals. you could even make a canal style with a gate. then once a month or so, open the gate, let the water rush out and flush out the silt.
if you used a gravity fed water filter into a holding tank, then you pump out of that tank. no need to send dirty water that you have to clean later. clean it first, then pump it.

I would definitely use rain water for crops.
not sure how often it rains, but you might find you can get much more water than you need.

10

A bit of duplication here, please forgive. I did a water system upgrade in a food plant many years back, this is based on my experience, note also I am not a Chemical/Biological engineer.

We had to put the chlorine in at the inflow of the tank, required to have 20 minutes contact time for the chlorine. Had some junk in the water and had baffles in the tank to help the junk settle out and help guarantee contact time.

Chlorine was checked at the point of usage to make sure there was some residual chlorine to indicate that the chlorine was still active

Good luck

11

Are you sure PVC tubing can handle the pressure at the pump? I'd go for steel. You have 130m or 13 bar of pressure coming out of that pump, maybe more. And the pipes are in/near the river which you said sees flooding so you need those pipes to withstand a battering.

There are pumps that can handle really dirty water - I've been watching this "gold rush" show many times, and come to think of it they often pump very silty water into their wash plant. The pumps seem to be handling it quite well. The volume of water they use is probably of a similar order of magnitude as you're asking for. Of course that doesn't stop the dirty water problem, but it does stop your pumps from getting clogged up too often. Can't help you with specific types of pumps of course, maybe people in the mining industry can help with that.

Then the turbidity itself. I had a quick look at the sensor you linked to, and that's going to be a nightmare to install at the pump, and keep intact for longer than a few days. The second problem you have is that your system has to work with at least two sets of sensors: at the pump, and at the tank, some 400 meters apart.

Based on what you told so far, I think the best place for the turbidity sensor would be in the pipe, some 10 meters above the pump: outside the canyon, so safe from floods. The problem you have to deal with of course is that the water pressure there is still very high. This sensor most likely can not handle the pressure.

Placing it in the river is also not going to work well. Whatever controller is reading this sensor will have to be placed reasonably close by, so will end up under water when it floods.

That leaves the other end of the pipe, where the water comes out. This is probably the best solution. You get to see the turbidity as it gets into the tank - when over the limit, cut the pump. You may even be able to drain the pipe so the dirty water that's in the pipe is dumped back into the river.

Then just wait an hour, two hours, a day - well, you how long it at least takes for the river to be clear enough again, and start pumping. See what comes out of the pipe, if still too dirty, drain the pipe and try again later. A little overly dirty water in your tank should't be a problem, it gets diluted.

You also want to know whether the pump works - i.e. whether water is flowing. That can also be done at the tank, using a flow switch. When the water flows the switch is triggered and you know the pump works.

Another thing to consider is the cleaning of the tank. As I hear it, you will get quite some silt in your tank. As it sits in the tank it sinks to the bottom, over time forming a thick layer. Come to think of it, the top layer of the water in the tank should be the cleanest, a floating outlet hose may help getting to it somehow, instead of draining the much dirtier water near the bottom?

12

Let me see if I understand correctly. You specified a 1600 gallon tank up a hill. Yet, you live where there is no bridge to the village. I just replaced a 1000 gallon irrigation water storage tank. I had to use a tractor to move the tank and to even roll it over. What is your plan for a tank almost twice that size?

There are several things you have not mentioned as alternative plans.

  1. Use a section of 24 inch plastic water pipe at your current water source. Cut ports for water in and water out. Put metal screen over both holes.Fill the pipe with filtering material, such as sand. This would stop the trash and soil.

  2. Is there no area near the river where a well could be dug to get water and let the soil filter the impurities? You could use the same 24 inch water pipe, or larger diameter if available and put you pump inside the pipe. If river water gets too high, add onto the top with more water pipe.

  3. Surely you can get bags of concrete mix and build forms to either enclose your existing water source, or build up the sides of a dug well.

Paul

13

jremington:
That is much higher than it needs to be, if people are taught to conserve.

I live in the U.S., far from town. The well water is quite bad so I implemented a rainwater collection system for the home, using a metal shed roof with area 110 m^2 for the collection surface. The water is filtered using a very simple polyester fabric filter and then sterilized using a UV source.

We have to rely on storage tanks to get through the (typically) 100 day period of no rain. During that period the two of us are careful, and use about 40 gallons per day or about 75 liters/person/day at one shower per person/day. We could get by on much less if we worked at it.

You are absolutely right about that: people (including ourselves) need to understand how to save water.
The main issue that I see is that for the past (I believe) 10 years they've been drinking "free water". The PVC tubing was given by the government, together with the bad concrete job they did at the natural spring.

From that point in time, everybody has been drinking without paying a penny, sooo...who cares about saving water.

dave-in-nj:
My first question is why not catch and use rain water ? seems like the most abundant local source of water and is freely available.

We thought about that, but the people in the community don't have money to buy all the PVC tubing, let alone a tank...

Also we would have to teach them how to properly store and treat water, and that's really hard to do because, as sad as it may sound, most of them don't know how to write nor read, which means it takes A LOT of time to get them to understand the things we get for granted.

also, if you have a pipe that is already in place, I would consider the sand filter already mentioned.
filter it before it gets into the pipe. the pipe inlet should not need to be cleaned. there are ways to make such things self cleaning.

In my opinion, you are moving from a gravity system that might or might not be fixable, to a system that requires electricity or gasoline. if the motor fails, you have nothing until it gets fixed or replaced.

The issue with sand filtration, as I said above, is that we have nowhere to displace the toxic waste. We would be polluting our own community.

The pump will runs on electricity. Fortunately for everyone, just 1 week ago we discovered a natural spring in our own piece of land, which happens to be just about in the center of the whole community.

It produces around 15 liters of water per minute. We did a job few days ago and now we are storing there some 3,500 liters. We'll be installing a manual water pump. So if something goes wrong with the pump, people can still drink and cook with our own water.

It will work much like an "emergency water source" free for everyone to use. Like a backup plan while we fix the what's not working.

another idea is a simple holding pond at the source.
let the water slowly fill the pond.
pump the water out of the pond. that will be water that has had time to settle, but still needs to be purified.
look at how they once build canals. you could even make a canal style with a gate. then once a month or so, open the gate, let the water rush out and flush out the silt.
if you used a gravity fed water filter into a holding tank, then you pump out of that tank. no need to send dirty water that you have to clean later. clean it first, then pump it.

I would definitely use rain water for crops.
not sure how often it rains, but you might find you can get much more water than you need.

The issue with this idea is that the spring the community is using right now, is far from the community, inside a privately owned piece of land. The owner already told us "quick with your new aqueduct, I need the water for my cows".

So in a matter of months he'll be removing our tubing and the community will be without water (if we don't install the new aqueduct in time).

The law here in panama allows a land owner to do whatever he wants with his water. It doesn't matter if 40 people are drinking it. You want to shut it down? Just do it, no consequences.

saildude:
A bit of duplication here, please forgive. I did a water system upgrade in a food plant many years back, this is based on my experience, note also I am not a Chemical/Biological engineer.

We had to put the chlorine in at the inflow of the tank, required to have 20 minutes contact time for the chlorine. Had some junk in the water and had baffles in the tank to help the junk settle out and help guarantee contact time.

Chlorine was checked at the point of usage to make sure there was some residual chlorine to indicate that the chlorine was still active

Good luck

Thank you, I'll look into that.

As of now the plan (by our glorious government) is to put the chlorine in the outflow pipe, just after the tank.
I'll study what you say and I guess I'll have to fight with them if your solution is what we need.

Few months ago I told them that we would have to install a little tank (say 2,000 liters) AFTER the main tank, and have the chlorine inserted into the system drop by drop, considering how much chlorine is needed based on the volume of water.

"That's too difficult to manage" they said. "You'll use the chlorine tabs inside the tank".

wvmarle:
Are you sure PVC tubing can handle the pressure at the pump? I'd go for steel. You have 130m or 13 bar of pressure coming out of that pump, maybe more. And the pipes are in/near the river which you said sees flooding so you need those pipes to withstand a battering.

We are thinking about using PVC tubing, but the kind which is thicker than usual. It can sustain a lot of pressure.
Also, 500 meters of steel pipe would cost a lot of money!

Consider that the pump will be installed near one side (or a "wall"). It will be protected behind a big rock, and inside a steel cage anchored to the bottom. From there, the PVC pipe goes up vertically, enclosed into concrete, secured to the wall with steel pins.

So we are pretty sure it cannot be broken easily. That's what we can do!

There are pumps that can handle really dirty water - I've been watching this "gold rush" show many times, and come to think of it they often pump very silty water into their wash plant. The pumps seem to be handling it quite well. The volume of water they use is probably of a similar order of magnitude as you're asking for. Of course that doesn't stop the dirty water problem, but it does stop your pumps from getting clogged up too often. Can't help you with specific types of pumps of course, maybe people in the mining industry can help with that.

You are talking about "semi-trash" of "trash" pumps, such as this one: https://www.dabpumps.com/en/drenag-1400-1800

That pump can move water even if it contains solids up to 12 mm in diameter.
You can find above in this thread that we decided not to use a pump like this mainly because it costs a lot of money compared to its original price in Italy. Same goes for other models and brands.

14

Then the turbidity itself. I had a quick look at the sensor you linked to, and that's going to be a nightmare to install at the pump, and keep intact for longer than a few days. The second problem you have is that your system has to work with at least two sets of sensors: at the pump, and at the tank, some 400 meters apart.

Based on what you told so far, I think the best place for the turbidity sensor would be in the pipe, some 10 meters above the pump: outside the canyon, so safe from floods. The problem you have to deal with of course is that the water pressure there is still very high. This sensor most likely can not handle the pressure.

Placing it in the river is also not going to work well. Whatever controller is reading this sensor will have to be placed reasonably close by, so will end up under water when it floods.

That leaves the other end of the pipe, where the water comes out. This is probably the best solution. You get to see the turbidity as it gets into the tank - when over the limit, cut the pump. You may even be able to drain the pipe so the dirty water that's in the pipe is dumped back into the river.

Then just wait an hour, two hours, a day - well, you how long it at least takes for the river to be clear enough again, and start pumping. See what comes out of the pipe, if still too dirty, drain the pipe and try again later. A little overly dirty water in your tank should't be a problem, it gets diluted.

The sensor could be installed inside the steel cage which protects the pump. Trust me it will be built to sustain everything.

Regarding the controller, it could be connected with an extension (I guess?) and securely installed away from the river, where we intend to also install the control panel with gives electricity to the pump (and the controller itself).

You also want to know whether the pump works - i.e. whether water is flowing. That can also be done at the tank, using a flow switch. When the water flows the switch is triggered and you know the pump works.

That's a nice idea. I'd love to add this flow sensor to the Arduino so that I can remotely manage the pump and see if something is wrong.

Another thing to consider is the cleaning of the tank. As I hear it, you will get quite some silt in your tank. As it sits in the tank it sinks to the bottom, over time forming a thick layer. Come to think of it, the top layer of the water in the tank should be the cleanest, a floating outlet hose may help getting to it somehow, instead of draining the much dirtier water near the bottom?

Well the idea is to use the sensor so that we allow into the tank as little as silt as possible.
But of course some silt will build up i guess in a matter of weeks. I'm thinking about installing a drainage pipe well below the outflow pipe so that by opening it the whole tank gets cleaned.

Also the 6,500 liters tanks easily allow a person inside, so that could be cleaned as it should be, let's say every couple of weeks.

Paul_KD7HB:
Let me see if I understand correctly. You specified a 1600 gallon tank up a hill. Yet, you live where there is no bridge to the village. I just replaced a 1000 gallon irrigation water storage tank. I had to use a tractor to move the tank and to even roll it over. What is your plan for a tank almost twice that size?

A friend of mine owns a tractor and a backhoe. We used them to fix the road and other stuff.
When we need him, he just crosses the river no matter what. Three days ago he crosses the river with those things AND two big trucks full of rocks.

He’s crazy as hell.

(Note: I’m not talking about the same river where we want to install the pump)

There are several things you have not mentioned as alternative plans.

  1. Use a section of 24 inch plastic water pipe at your current water source. Cut ports for water in and water out. Put metal screen over both holes.Fill the pipe with filtering material, such as sand. This would stop the trash and soil.

I’d love to do that, but the owner of the land where the spring is located, told us he will be cutting us off the water supply (I explained it above).

  1. Is there no area near the river where a well could be dug to get water and let the soil filter the impurities? You could use the same 24 inch water pipe, or larger diameter if available and put you pump inside the pipe. If river water gets too high, add onto the top with more water pipe.

Then well drilling truck cannot access the river, that would be really difficult to do.
We talked with a couple of companies here who drill wells, and they both said “no way”.

  1. Surely you can get bags of concrete mix and build forms to either enclose your existing water source, or build up the sides of a dug well.

Paul

Same as above, the water source we are using right now will not be used in the future.

** BTW FOLKS, THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT AND IDEAS! **

15

hi,
how much do you know about electrics , electronics, Arduino and c++?

the Turbidity sensor is not an accurate measurement device. it states that on the web page , and needs to be used in still not flowing water.

the dab pump is a bore hole pump cant find exact model you specified and has to be mounted vertical and states that it is intended for clean water, but can handle 120g/m3. (how long for ? ).

the control of the pump from the tank level switches , you should do with float switches and contactors. the contactor latches on when low level float is activated and pumps water untill full level float switch is activated which resets the contactor. this is a basic motor start/stop contactor resnably cheep.

the turbidity sensors output is 0 - 4.5v dc . has 3 wires conecting it to the arduino 5v , ground , and analouge out, which should be connected to (A0) on arduino.

then use analouge read to get value from A0 pin and output it to a digital output pin.

need to use this output to control a realay in series with the low level float switch so that if the water is dirty then it wont turn on. ( as relay will be off breaking the circuit).

im new to the arduino myself so conecting the info to the web/recording it is a bit past me at the moment.
but i would start by getting the basic system working then move on to web and data analisys later.

the basic system is resnably simple. just basic electrical motor control.

hope this helps.

16

niccolaiddis:
We are thinking about using PVC tubing, but the kind which is thicker than usual. It can sustain a lot of pressure.
Also, 500 meters of steel pipe would cost a lot of money!

I know - steel where you must, PVC where you can, that was the idea. But it seems you have it well under control. Concrete should do the job.

niccolaiddis:
The sensor could be installed inside the steel cage which protects the pump. Trust me it will be built to sustain everything.

The concern here is also reading the sensor. You have to bring wires to an Arduino unit, which you presumably want to keep out of the water. Yet you shouldn't make those wires 10, 20 meters long, that's an issue. Plus as pointed out above the demand for stagnant water, and the general inaccuracy of such senors, it's basically measuring the clarity of the water by measuring how much light passes between two points.

Using relative thick wires limits the losses on the power supply (I know, not much current, still 20 meters of signal wire has non-negligible resistance). You also may need to worry about lightning proofing, as those long wires can pick up a lot of EMI. That depends on typical weather in your area.

You should have power around as you have the power to the pump, so that would settle that concern.

Finally there's the communication: wireless is the only sensible option for that distance. Wires of that length are a lot more expensive and more prone to failure. RFM69 or LoRa modules come to mind considering the distance - transmission is relatively slow, but you have very little data to transmit anyway so that doesn't matter. You do have to make sure there's not a lot of rock blocking the line of sight between the units, or you may have to set up a relay even.

Somehow you're also going to control the pump, will that be the one connected to the turbidity sensor, controlling some big relay(s)? 5 hp is 3.7 kW so I guess you use three phase power, 3-4A per phase (plus some for start-up current). At 220V that'd be more like 17A.

niccolaiddis:
The issue with sand filtration, as I said above, is that we have nowhere to displace the toxic waste. We would be polluting our own community.

Is that so?
It's toxic, but also biological (bacterial) in nature. This can be dealt with using natural methods, or by simply heating it (sterilising). As the volume of this filter is not that big, this may well be feasible.

17

some of what you say does not make sense.
you can use concrete to make a hodling pond,
you can use concrete to channel rain water to your pond
you say you do not have money for tanks, but you have tanks.

assume that your pump burns out the impeller.
how long will it take to get a new impeller ?
do you think it might rain before you can get a new one ?

you can build a lower storage pond, use a cheap, pump to pump water up into that pond,
then allow the silt to settle, then pump clean water up to the holding tanks.

you say you cannot handle the toxic collections from a sand filter, but you want to pump the toxic water into your village and then have someone get into the toxic filled tank and clean out the toxic residue.

I an guessing that you have not looked at just what a sand filter is or does.

as for the toxic waste in your tanks, you should use a lower connection as the place where water for the plants is sent out of the tank. Wash as much as you can every day.

one set up would be to use a spiral pump. the flowing river drives the pump.
the pump is just tubing that is wound in a very special way and can pump up-hill for so good distance.
you can make a sand filter near the river, use a spiral water pump that will never fail from silt, and pump water to the sand filter.
then pump clear water up to your needed point and your pump will last years longer.

one of the lessons we have learned is to build with longevity in mind and with lower cost of operation
Also, that you should have at least 2 sources in case one goes away.

Since you are loosing your only source of water, you have to move fast, and the single pump option is probably the only choice you are willing to look at for a solution as it may be far and away the most expensive, but it is also the most technical and but, the fastest way to get water without a large labor force.

I honestly wish you the best of luck.

18

Sorry but I am not getting it...

Tossing a expensive pump into the river to be stolen by 3 guys and a raft..

No mention about how the electricity is going to be sourced.

47 gallons per person per day is living the high life of water consumption wise , where is your wastewater treatment facility or is that considered toxic and pvc piped downhill.

Single tank holding sedimate / microorganism laden water to simply be chlorine injected as is running to a open faucet...

Huge long story about problems with government backed installation, only then to say farmer is cutting you off.

A government mandated installation process you plan to ignore, but are expecting future funding from said government.

Are you serious saying your only concern is the level of sand the pump will encounter and getting WiFi updates on tank level?

19

Since this is an Arduino forum and we deal with the measuring and controlling parts, it is time that we stop trying to engineer your pipe and pump and get on with the control needs for such a project. It appears to me that there is a lot of information that you have that is not important for the controls bits, reasons for losing one source, gov't regulations, X/Y problems for choices and others we do not need to concern ourselves about.

As I see this, you have two ends that are not close to each other.
The pump needs a signal when to start and stop
The resoviour needs to send a signal when it is a good time to pump.

That is your first layer of controls.

Alarms and sensors for water clarity would be in the next layer
Data logging and such would be in a more supervisory layer, but important in the development of the grand scheme of the project.

Since do not really need to know what the pump or motor is, but only how to turn it on and off, we really should just treat your final control as a relay. from that point, your installing electrician can figure how to start the pump.

the sensor for water level is important, as would be a bypass in the event of a failure. you should have a manual control to turn on the pump.

Tracking water use and such is in the supervisory layer, easy enough to add at any time.

I would highly suggest that you lay out a sketch of each end and start adding the sensors on your wish list.
make a chart with 3 columns, what is absolutely required immediately. what is part of the short term needs and what you wish you could have if money and time were not problems.

With those pieces, we can help you actually put together the controls side of the project. create the flow chart of the way the program should be laid out.

A hand sketch is fine, use PAINT if you like.

20

How much rainwater can you catch with a tarp mounted on poles? Try with just one and find what works best.

Do I know about tarps and rain? Only for many times my tents and tarps shed a lot of rainwater but not holding it, I was a Scout.

I would lash 4 poles together so that 2 would hold one edge of the tarp by the corners high and stretched and the other 2 lower and closer to make a V for water to pour from. The tarp would not need to hold deep water, just collect an area of rain into a bucket.
But make sure to not catch the first minute of rain, it will have the dust and microbes from the sky in it.

See how much 1 can do, the price of a tarp or similar and a few meters of rope is not so high? When you are done, you still have the rope and tarp and poles.

There are plants, fish and frogs that can clean water. I spent time in a pool that had frogs, scavenger fish and snails keeping it clean without chlorine and red "pool eyes". If you can find a college that teaches water treatment (civil engineering) they may be able to tell you what plants and other life they use in treatment pools.

On youtube there are videos mainly from South Asia on building cisterns using ferro-concrete (concrete and chicken wire). They also include ways to clean the water before storing. Your problems are shared by many, the ones with solutions may help you.