A rope pump consists of a wheel and an endless rope with pistons made out of rubber from a car tire or High Density PE. The pistons are attached to the rope at intervals of a meter and fit with a clearance of 1 millimetre in the pump pipe (also called raising main). The rope and pistons are moved by a handle with a wheel and go down to the bottom of the well where they enter in the PVC pump pipe via a guidebox. Between the pistons water is now lifted to the surface and leaves via the horizontal outlet pipe which has a bigger diameter than the pump pipe. The wheel and handle are mounted on a structure on top of the well or borehole. Rope pumps can be used on hand dug wells of 3 meters or more to boreholes with diameter of 2 inches or more. The yield and diameter of the pump pipe depends on the depth of the well:
- 70 litre/minute with pump pipe 1¼” for water levels to 5 meters
- until 9 litre/minute with pump pipe ½” until water levels up to 35 meters and variations in between.
The name A model is because of the pump’s structure is in the shape of the letter ‘A’. This manual gives you details how to produce this model.