MrWareWolf
Jr. Member
- Aug 22, 2014
- 43
- 8
- Detector(s) used
- Generic 30" keene/jobe/royal-style sluice with flare, riffles, expanded metal, moss matt under riffles..
California Bucket Sluice concentrator
want: falcon pinpoint detector
- Primary Interest:
- Prospecting
So, I've had my California Bucket Sluice box for a while now.
Here are some things I've learned along the way.
The experienced folks can chime in and share places I might have gone wrong.
For us newb's, it would be helpful to hear from you what your opinions of my mistakes, or rather adventures.. 8)
I've rerun material so many times that I burned up a pump with from my bucket sluice!
Lucky me.
MISTAKE: Pump wasn't made for dirty water & failed quickly..
SOLUTION: I thought I would put a sock over it, but never actually did.. If you use two or three old socks or rags over the intake, it would prevent material from entering the pump which burns out the inner workings of the pump mechanism, leading to failure.
I knew it wouldn't last long. No big loss, $15 pump.
FIX: Replaced it with a Little Giant 550GPH Pool Cover pump.
This one can handle dirty material, and has strong lift capability, which I think equates to the velocity of the water or something. Maybe that is how much 'material' it can push through the water, I dunno. What I do know is this is a monster pump!
I re-run material over and over. In the course of doing this, it is VERY tedious being hunched over my sluice to put material in with a spoon..
oO
Holy Cow.. Ya fall asleep or freeze here in Utah this time of year in your garage. Putting all the smalls through..
So I devised a credit-card hopper for my sluice, & then another.
Currently I have two hoses that drive water to the sluice. With one of them, it provides enough water to properly run. A little too well in fact, with this monster pump: it blows out all the material in no time.
Bummer, sure, but all is not lost.
This has allowed me to test different types of feeders and hoppers.
"on the way soon": I have a T with Valves to solve this blow out problem.
In the meantime check out the Feeder/Hopper things I devised.
Pictures..
Videos..
short:
long:
Here are some things I've learned along the way.
The experienced folks can chime in and share places I might have gone wrong.
For us newb's, it would be helpful to hear from you what your opinions of my mistakes, or rather adventures.. 8)
I've rerun material so many times that I burned up a pump with from my bucket sluice!
Lucky me.
MISTAKE: Pump wasn't made for dirty water & failed quickly..
SOLUTION: I thought I would put a sock over it, but never actually did.. If you use two or three old socks or rags over the intake, it would prevent material from entering the pump which burns out the inner workings of the pump mechanism, leading to failure.
I knew it wouldn't last long. No big loss, $15 pump.
FIX: Replaced it with a Little Giant 550GPH Pool Cover pump.
This one can handle dirty material, and has strong lift capability, which I think equates to the velocity of the water or something. Maybe that is how much 'material' it can push through the water, I dunno. What I do know is this is a monster pump!
I re-run material over and over. In the course of doing this, it is VERY tedious being hunched over my sluice to put material in with a spoon..
oO
Holy Cow.. Ya fall asleep or freeze here in Utah this time of year in your garage. Putting all the smalls through..
So I devised a credit-card hopper for my sluice, & then another.
Currently I have two hoses that drive water to the sluice. With one of them, it provides enough water to properly run. A little too well in fact, with this monster pump: it blows out all the material in no time.
Bummer, sure, but all is not lost.
This has allowed me to test different types of feeders and hoppers.
"on the way soon": I have a T with Valves to solve this blow out problem.
In the meantime check out the Feeder/Hopper things I devised.
Pictures..
Videos..
short:
long:
