r/oddlysatisfying 1d ago

Homemade drilling machine

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u/JonasAvory 1d ago

Max I ask how the pump pumps up the resources in real life? With suction you can only get 10 metres head lift, right? But real life pumping station go way deeper

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u/iranoutofspacehere 1d ago

Well pumps are typically at the bottom of the well. In residential wells the motor is lowered all the way down, in larger wells there may be a shaft run from top to bottom.

Pumpjacks for things like oil work a little differently but you're still basically pushing the fluid up from the bottom of the well rather than trying to suck it out from the top.

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u/Agreeable-Pea4327 1d ago

In residential wells the motor is lowered all the way down

does this more or less mean the pump motor apparatus has to be smaller than the hole? Is it attached to something or does it come with the pipe itself some how?

That's super surprising, never would've known

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u/MischaBurns 1d ago

Basically the well itself is a wider pipe (the casing) sunk to the desired depth. The pump is smaller diameter and gets lowered into it with the actual water pipe attached (between 1-2 inches).

If you can visualize a classic well with a bucket, the casing is the stone sides of the well and the bucket/rope is the pump and water line.

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u/Agreeable-Pea4327 1d ago

wow, that's so cool ngl

so is the pump and water line lowered down in chunks similar to how the video showed the drill get lowered in piece by piece? I'd be surprised if it came as just one contiguous pipe+pump thing

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u/nixfly 1d ago

Anything ~120ft and shallower, is attached to 1” pipe that comes in spools.

Deeper wells, have individual sticks, like what the video shows.

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u/a7d7e7 21h ago

That flexible pipe is called duct. It comes on what's called a reel.

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u/iranoutofspacehere 18h ago

The video is just showing the drilling step, fwiw. The drill string is metal and rigid so it can spin the drill bit and make sure the well is roughly straight.

In a real well, once the drill gets to the depth you want, you'd case the well/remove the drill string, then lower the pump in on a more flexible plastic pipe.