Running a 4" suction nozzle to highbanker??

[Bigjboy]

Hello all, I just got into dreding last summer. Started with a 2" suction nozzle to my highbanker ran off a 150gpm cheap pump. Wanted to run more material so I purchases a 4" suction nozzle and a 10hp/php500 combo from keene. Problem I'm having is my 2" has 3 times the suction as the 4" with the vanguard/keene pump. The only thing I can think of thats killing my suction is the check valve I'm using isn't from keene and I'm dredging at 6000ft elevation. I'm using 1.5" pressure hose to the nozzle and the jet in the nozzle measures 1" exactly. Anyone else running a 4" suction nozzle to a highbanker succsefully?

 

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[russau]

I would think a 4 inch nozzle would be over kill for a HB. way to much water and material to process it correctly . Im adding that the 4 inch nozzle would be to much water and material depending on the size of your sluice! If its the 10 x ?? it will be to small. I wish I had added this when I first posted.

 

[Timberdoodle]

Purchase a pressure gauge (5-10$) and install it on the pump to see what kind of pressure the pump is running at. Home depot has a gauge with a garden hose thread adapter to test house pressure, This connects to the sprayer outlet on the pump quickly and will give an idea of what's going on. You should be able to reach 40psi or greater running pressure easily with that pump. If you don't think your getting up to pressure do to a restricted flow in the check valve then try removing the check valve once running and watch the gauge.

 

[mike(swWash)]

What he said

 

[Bigjboy]

I do have pressure gauges ready to go and some vacuum gauges. Just waiting for some warmer weather. My pump is a 2.5" discharge, I reduce it down to 1.5" hose. I figured I wouldn't lose any flow because the jet on the nozzle is 1". Is that correct or should I be running 2" to the nozzle? Also I run a 4" to a highbanker because I can get better recovery by screening to 1/2" and also I'm packing everything in. I always thought a dredge would be more equipment and take longer to assemble.

 

[winners58]

what brand is the nozzle? could be the weight of the water going into the highbanker, you could try setting up in the water or lower the legs.
I've set up my dredge box on rocks beside the stream and noticed a loss of suction. you could try going 2" and reduce it close to the nozzle
by reducing it right out of the pump could be producing a back pressure and cavitation in the pump.
with that motor and pump you should be able to lift a bowling ball at half throttle, set it up with just the nozzle and hose all under water.
if you're still having problems you can call Keene and talk to Mark, he knows what problems others have had and can be very helpful.

 

[Timberdoodle]

I do have pressure gauges ready to go and some vacuum gauges. Just waiting for some warmer weather. My pump is a 2.5" discharge, I reduce it down to 1.5" hose. I figured I wouldn't lose any flow because the jet on the nozzle is 1". Is that correct or should I be running 2" to the nozzle? Also I run a 4" to a highbanker because I can get better recovery by screening to 1/2" and also I'm packing everything in. I always thought a dredge would be more equipment and take longer to assemble.

I would definitely step up to a 2" pressure line. I'll explain why.
The 1" jet orifice will pass a certain volume of water at a certain pressure( like 180gpm@40psi). The pressure hose feed must be sized to get the pressure available delivered to the jet orifice. If the speed of the water flow in the delivering pressure hose is over 18-20fps then you start loosing a lot of pressure from friction losses. In the example above 180gpm in a 1.5" pressure hose is traveling at 32fps with a loss around 17psi over 20ft of line. 180gpm in a 2" pressure hose is travelling at 18fps with a loss of 5psi over 20ft of line. The loss of 5psi can be compensated for by setting the pump speed, not so easy when losing 17psi, ie almost half the pressure to friction losses.

 

[Hoser John]

That orifice is way too small for the job.Never reduce at the pump as you have restricted gpm bad-at the nozzle provide much more volume to feed the jet,which needs a bigger orifice. There was another fellow here-see archives-with the exact same problem. Drill out fixed immediately-Lotza luck-John PS.4" Dahlke dredge HB is a gravel suckn' monster with fantastic dovetail riffles for that elusive talcum powder micron gold. Hit the website to see.

 

[Reed Lukens]

1½" is half of the size needed to run that pump so basically, you have the wrong pump and it will not do the job. I run the Proline HP500 and it works great with a designed 2" pressure hose. Bottom line is, you don't have a highbanker pump and you need to sell it or trade for a high pressure pump like the HP500.
As you can see 3" required and 1½" provided is laughable but an easy mistake when using a volume style pump over a high pressure

 

[LRC253]

I'm running a 4" hydroforce nozzle to my custom built highbanker that is very similar to the gold hog monster hog. I'm running a Honda gx200 with a gold grabber 3"inlet 2"outlet pump. The suction is ok at best compared to the 4" keene dredge I had... The problem is that high bankers sit up much higher off the water and to put that 4" hose all the way up in the header box is killing the flow. Gravity is a *****.