Noob Highbanker / Sluice advice needed - Videos

[ethought]

Here are some more videos.

Running with fresh water:



Running at a steeper angle (which seemed to allow the sluice to not pack up)



What was left after running at a steeper angle:

 

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[Goodyguy]

Perhaps you should call the manufacturer and see if they can help.
If it were mine I would see if they could trade out the riffles for the shorter version.

Either way you need to classify your material down to at least 1/4" for best results

GG~

 

[Oakview2]

There is not enough water going down the box. Did you try reversing the polarity on the 12v pump as someone else suggested. Next I would make sure your battery that is powering the pump is up to snuff. And lastly, I would hook it up and time the discharge into a five gallon bucket is and see exactly what your output is. Perhaps you just got shipped a bad pump. Best of luck... Good health and good hunting..

 

[Reed Lukens]

I thought I'd seen everything... Man you seriously need some help here.
First take the commercials off of the videos that you're asking for help on. I'm gonna click skip on them because you are wasting my time when I'm already helping you.

2nd, everything in the box has been put in backwards except for the riffles... The screen at the head needs to have the open end pointing out so that it washes the fine material through the holes and they have a place to escape and go down the box.

3rd, your expanded metal under the riffles is upside down, those riffles need to point down stream to make an eddie (pun intended

4th) Then Mr. Munster, you obviously have a plugged intake on your pump, it maybe be plugged with anything from leaves on the outside, to the smallest of roots now wrapped around the impeller because you had no screen covering over it.

5th, keep your main hopper flatter to give the material the time it needs to wash before it enters the box.

You will have better luck when the pump starts running the way it did when you bought it but you will probably have to take it apart to clean all of the garbage out of it. 1200gph would be fine for low impact riffles but with these you will need probably 1" to 1½" per foot of drop when it is put together right. Let me know when you have the commercials off of your videos that you need help with and I will watch the rest then.

 

[ethought]

There is not enough water going down the box. Did you try reversing the polarity on the 12v pump as someone else suggested. Next I would make sure your battery that is powering the pump is up to snuff. And lastly, I would hook it up and time the discharge into a five gallon bucket is and see exactly what your output is. Perhaps you just got shipped a bad pump. Best of luck... Good health and good hunting..

I did reply to the earlier post suggesting the polarity on the pump was reversed. I tried that and with the wires reversed the pump was outputting alot less than it is now (and didnt sound great either).

The next step is to test how many gallons the pump is moving per minute - as many have suggested though I think it will be alot less than what it should be moving.

 

[ethought]

I thought I'd seen everything... Man you seriously need some help here.
First take the commercials off of the videos that you're asking for help on. I'm gonna click skip on them because you are wasting my time when I'm already helping you.

2nd, everything in the box has been put in backwards except for the riffles... The screen at the head needs to have the open end pointing out so that it washes the fine material through the holes and they have a place to escape and go down the box.

3rd, your expanded metal under the riffles is upside down, those riffles need to point down stream to make an eddie (pun intended

4th) Then Mr. Munster, you obviously have a plugged intake on your pump, it maybe be plugged with anything from leaves on the outside, to the smallest of roots now wrapped around the impeller because you had no screen covering over it.

5th, keep your main hopper flatter to give the material the time it needs to wash before it enters the box.

You will have better luck when the pump starts running the way it did when you bought it but you will probably have to take it apart to clean all of the garbage out of it. 1200gph would be fine for low impact riffles but with these you will need probably 1" to 1½" per foot of drop when it is put together right. Let me know when you have the commercials off of your videos that you need help with and I will watch the rest then.

Ads have been removed from Youtube videos. Sorry about that, I just followed Googles suggestions - probably should have thought about that more carefully.

I am going to pull the sluice out in the day time tomorrow and go through all your points / suggestions. Thanks.

 

[Oakview2]

Sorry about that, I must have missed your reply

I did reply to the earlier post suggesting the polarity on the pump was reversed. I tried that and with the wires reversed the pump was outputting alot less than it is now (and didnt sound great either).

The next step is to test how many gallons the pump is moving per minute - as many have suggested though I think it will be alot less than what it should be moving.

 

[Goodyguy]

ethought,

1200gph is really not that much flow when riffles are involved. The gold cube uses 1100gph and has no riffles or expanded metal and the tiers are set at 15 degrees (about 3" to the foot) And is designed to run 1/8" pre-classified material and will recover sub 100 mesh sized gold.

I don't believe that even a perfectly working 1200 gph pump will sufficiently operate your model high banker with those riffles even without the screen installed or with the expanded metal turned over or even eliminated.

Just for a test I tried my 1100gph pump on my Keene A-52 highbanker with the stock riffle setup expanded metal and stock carpet with the sluice set at the recommended 1" drop to the foot and had the same poor results as you did.

GG~

 

[Fullpan]

To recap - clean your pump, flip the expanded metal, classify to 1/8 before feeding, try it without the standard riffles, etc. I can see you have a good
attitude - don't get discouraged, your videos are helping to fix the situation.

 

[Reed Lukens]

No problem with the ads I was just writing it down. I watched all of the videos on YouTube today & Goodguy is right on the pump, it is small but because the pump was positioned under the outfeed, it got clogged with dirt & everything else. Maybe your stock pump actually runs more than 1200gph but it would be best to do a flow test on it with a couple of 5 gallon buckets. It should take 15 seconds to fill the bucket if I did the math right. Also to increase the action in the sluice you can pull out the expanded and make sure that the riffles are sealing tight against the carpet. To take away from the height of the riffles you can put miners moss over the carpet. That by itself will probably give you enough water but still 1200gph is pretty slim but I doubt if they would sell you a product that doesn't work. I looked at the web site and it looks right, just make sure that there is an opening under the screen at the head of the sluice. Is the expanded welded to the riffles? If not then take it out for the tests. Then there is another guy on YouTube that bought one of these a while back, look him up & ask him how his is working.

 

[ethought]

I inspected the pump today and could find no plant matter or anything stuck that would suggest reduced flow - I did not disassemble the pump though.

So I tested the pump as it is and it was moving:

20L per 25 seconds
50L per Minute = 13.2 Gallons per minute
792 Gallons per hour

So it is running at 2/3 of spec.

 

[ethought]

Also to increase the action in the sluice you can pull out the expanded and make sure that the riffles are sealing tight against the carpet. To take away from the height of the riffles you can put miners moss over the carpet. That by itself will probably give you enough water but still 1200gph is pretty slim but I doubt if they would sell you a product that doesn't work. I looked at the web site and it looks right, just make sure that there is an opening under the screen at the head of the sluice. Is the expanded welded to the riffles? If not then take it out for the tests. Then there is another guy on YouTube that bought one of these a while back, look him up & ask him how his is working.

Thanks for the suggestions Reed. I looked for ages on youtube and could only find one other video of someone using the same high banker so thanks also for posting that video - was good to see how someone else runs it. Interestingly it looks like the pump in that video was the 800GPH one.

The expanded is not welded to the riffles (you can see that in the video you posted at 6:40) so I will try and run the sluice without it but think I will need to order some miners moss first as you suggested to fill the gap. Also I will make sure there is a gap under the screen at the head of the sluice.

 

[Reed Lukens]

There's your answer So I would call & see about returning it but if they want you to buy a new one from them, just don't. You will be better off with a different motor all the way around. I would think that a 2kgph would work fine. That's 2000gph hehe, was having some fun writing it that way... lol. This way you could put a valve or a rheostat on it & throttle it down to the right flow if needed. Then there's always the little gas powered Honda WX15 that really is a good working in the field pump.
Here's the WX15 in action.


We were using the WX15 pump for the cal Junior Sluice & Rodney now uses it for his South Yuba Mining Company Highbanker, which is in the next video in this playlist I think, same playlist anyway. My channel is all set up in playlists for each vacation or under the product review playlist for each piece of equipment that we have tested.

 

[ethought]

ethought,

1200gph is really not that much flow when riffles are involved. The gold cube uses 1100gph and has no riffles or expanded metal and the tiers are set at 15 degrees (about 3" to the foot) And is designed to run 1/8" pre-classified material and will recover sub 100 mesh sized gold.

I don't believe that even a perfectly working 1200 gph pump will sufficiently operate your model high banker with those riffles even without the screen installed or with the expanded metal turned over or even eliminated.

Just for a test I tried my 1100gph pump on my Keene A-52 highbanker with the stock riffle setup expanded metal and stock carpet with the sluice set at the recommended 1" drop to the foot and had the same poor results as you did.

GG~

What capacity pump do you think would be the best if 1200GPH is underpowered? What capacity pump do you normally run on the Keene A-52? Just asking, because as I mentioned above, it seems my pump is only pumping 800GPH so I figure it might be worth upgrading the pump if its only a matter of $20 or so to get something more powerful. The trade off of course is battery capacity / running time on a larger pump but...

 

[Reed Lukens]

If you run 2 different pumps into a tee that will work, we have done it a number of times so if you got a 2k then that with the 800 that you have gives you 2800 if needed. Normally everyone runs a WX15 on a 10" wide sluice or about 25gpm.

 

[ethought]

If you run 2 different pumps into a tee that will work, we have done it a number of times so if you got a 2k then that with the 800 that you have gives you 2800 if needed. Normally everyone runs a WX15 on a 10" wide sluice or about 25gpm.

Interesting video - I watched through and picked up a few points. I would like to run a petrol powered pump but unfortunately in the state I live in we are not allowed to !?!? So until I go for a trip across to the bordering state petrol is not an option.

I think I will take your suggestion and get a 2000gph pump. I have found this pump here: Bilge 12V Submersible Fishing Boat Water Pump 2000 GPH | eBay The only problem with that is it runs at 10A as compared to the 1200 which runs at 4A. So with my new 18AH battery I will be struggling to get 2 hours out of the 2000gph pump. Mind you, if the 2000GPH pump makes the whole sluice operation more efficient - I might be able to run just as much material in a shorter amount of time - and can always buy another battery if needed.

I think I have enough suggestions now to go out and do some serious testing so thank you all for the help - I might have to wait a while as temperatures here have been hot (Friday was 44 celcius = 111 F !) with no sign of cooling down anytime soon - which also means water is getting harder to come by. But - I have the goldbug pretty bad - so If I have to cart water in I will

 

[Goodyguy]

No problem with the ads I was just writing it down. I watched all of the videos on YouTube today & Goodguy is right on the pump, it is small but because the pump was positioned under the outfeed, it got clogged with dirt & everything else. Maybe your stock pump actually runs more than 1200gph but it would be best to do a flow test on it with a couple of 5 gallon buckets. It should take 15 seconds to fill the bucket if I did the math right. Also to increase the action in the sluice you can pull out the expanded and make sure that the riffles are sealing tight against the carpet. To take away from the height of the riffles you can put miners moss over the carpet. That by itself will probably give you enough water but still 1200gph is pretty slim but I doubt if they would sell you a product that doesn't work. I looked at the web site and it looks right, just make sure that there is an opening under the screen at the head of the sluice. Is the expanded welded to the riffles? If not then take it out for the tests. Then there is another guy on YouTube that bought one of these a while back, look him up & ask him how his is working.

ethought,

The above video proves that the riffles are way too tall for the pump.
Just look at all the fine material that didn't make it over them (at 6:19 of the video) when he shut down for clean up.
It was completely loaded up!



GG~

 

[ethought]

Got another pump from the local boating store - a cheap 1100GPH pump. Added a T junction and ball flow switch.

The sluice seems to be operating better now. Still not as much flow as I was hoping for, but after doing a few tests the sluice is not packing up and seems to be clearing most lighter material.

I did 2 tests - randomly mixing in small pieces of small lead shot into half a 5 gallon bucket full of gravel. First test mixed in 11 small pieces, after a full run recovered all 11 from the sluice. The second test I added 19 small pieces of lead shot and recovered 18 of them. All pieces seemed to be getting caught under the first stage screen or at the first riffle. So it seems like Im getting closer to getting this thing functional..

 

[Goodyguy]

Now go get some gold

 

[Northdigger]

So after 3 years how did it go?

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