12 Volt Electric Gold Dredge Progress. Suction Nozzle VS Jet Log.

I tested two types of tri-jet jet lock venturi up against a suction nozzle and managed to increase suction by 25% with a custom 3D printed closed face 6 blade impeller.
For now, the initial 3D models will be available for free download through my website:
(Thanks for your patience as I figure out the correct way to link files...)
Initial 3D files can be downloaded for free through my website.
www.utmostoutdoors.com/digita...
Thanks for your support!

[@oldbonesbushcraftrodjackso474]

HI Kyle Your inventions will shine. That is a lot of pressure for a small unit. Pretty cool.

[@UtmostOutdoors]

Thanks!

[@fnasum8658]

Great videos, thank you for sharing. You definitely put a LOT of time and energy into making technological advances in the area, and I am sure I speak for us all when I say we appreciate your efforts. Looking forward to what's coming up next!!

[@UtmostOutdoors]

Thank you!

[@gold-fever.prospecting]

Looking great Kyle! Happy to test in the states when your ready :)

[@UtmostOutdoors]

Thanks, hopefully I'll have something soon.

[@jonmorgan1913]

The company out of California had their sluice box attached directly to the back of the nozzle and was fully submersed for efficiency.

[@UtmostOutdoors]

I like those suction tube designs, but I was hoping by having the sluice box independently floated it would help keep it level to increase gold retention. The chase of efficiency is a tough game when running electric machines... So much to think about when trying to get it all to work together! :)

[@HammerAnvil-zf4hb]

Hello from Alaska, love the content, and your clean up sluice mat video we got the same kinda gold here and the info I learned has helped so thanks

[@UtmostOutdoors]

Thank you!

[@Palisades_Prospecting]

Greetings from Alberta Beach. I spent my own time in Wapitraz. Very interested in what you come up with for subsurface. Season one or two of Bering Sea Gold had a guy do it but didn’t show much if I remember. BTW. Testing my own sluiceless flour gold recovery system and nope, not talking yet! 😜

[@PrairieProspecting]

hey Kyle. I've been thinking about your subsurface sluice. Yes there will be backpressure from the discharge, and this may help slow discharge down to a chatchable speed. Your forward velocity is still going to exceed your downward pull of gravity, the key to gold catchng, so instead of having riffles like ramps to catch gold, maybe you could have them like ramps on the top of the sluice to drive the water down into the mat? roof ramps..lol. flood gold will be a problem as its hard to catch those surfers, but i think you can figure it out, and when you do, you will have reinvented the wheel! cheers, Prairie🤠

[@UtmostOutdoors]

So many ways to approach things... I'm still printing off some float supports and stuff then I'll get the first recovery tests after that.

[@whynotdean8966]

The subsurface gold recovery is going to be really interesting. Regardless of how you end up doing it, I'm pretty sure you're going to have to slap a pretty fine screen on your suction nozzle. Have you seen the guy(s) who made an underflow sluice? That could be something to look in to :)

[@UtmostOutdoors]

I think for the coarser "fine" gold out there, we shouldn't have much trouble catching it. Just need to try a few things to check what seems to work. I think the underflow style sluice can work well for the coarser gold, but I suspect it would run into the same problems that an elutriation column does when it comes to fine flat flour gold. I think I'll focus on getting most coarser gold first, and leave the ultra fine flat powder for a future recovery project... But we will see how we do!

[@MrDingaling007]

What if you just wanted to shift gravel to get down to the bedrock. This seems like a super-efficient way even just for this purpose.

[@PacificPioneer]

Have you considered hooking up a solar system to get more battery life out of it? Panels can be found for less than a dollar per watt if you do some looking around, and charge controllers can be found for under $20. With all the sun you guys get you could probably keep it running all day.

[@UtmostOutdoors]

I think a solar charging setup with two swapable LiFePo4 batteries would be great! could charge one while using the other. Maybe build a box to fit the battery size you go with. at ~185 watts, it would take 15AH to run for 1 hour... so a 30AH 12.8V lithium battery would be 2 hours runtime, while the other charges... So many possibilities!

[@1oldsoldier28]

Awesome Kyle, when is the field test ?

[@UtmostOutdoors]

A proper field test is still a ways off... I need to do some recovery testing in a pool first, then I'll travel somewhere I'm allowed to use it.

[@1oldsoldier28]

@@UtmostOutdoors Sounds good look forward to that mate

[@darcysingler6742]

Triple jet water jacket please put on your sight.

[@UtmostOutdoors]

It should be up there, try the link and it should download from google drive. I'm a bit new to this, so let me know if everything works out ok or if I need to change the share permission settings or something...

[@chrisdamian7249]

i hope you'd be able to do some dredging soon wid that.by the way , you said you moved to Australia recently, am i correct😀?

[@UtmostOutdoors]

Yeah, I recently moved to Australia.

[@mikepung94]

I don't know if I just missed it but, have you ever looked at an infinity suction nozzle design? BTW I like your brain

[@UtmostOutdoors]

Hey Mike, I did experiment with an infinity jet in one of the last few videos. A full ring jet does seem to prime the fastest, as it feels like it's almost even sucking air when out of the water, but the overall efficiency did not beat a single jet. I was personally surprised to see a single jet, twin jet, tripple jet, and infinity jet all perform so close. I think it's all about sizing the jet cross section to match the pump, and from there the suction is similar. but more small jets does mix in a shorter tube than one large jet, so that helps place the jet closer to the sluice box for packaging... Hope that makes sense. Another thing to consider, is that the wall friction at the jet actually goes up as you move towards a ring jet. Just the math of how much surface is in contact with the high velocity water exiting the jet. So a ring jet actually may experience higher skin friction losses compared to a single circle. It's been a fascinating learning process!

[@HammerAnvil-zf4hb]

I have a question what if you had a section where you added a inlet in the system to add another pump for more pressure down the line.

[@UtmostOutdoors]

I guess you could use two pump one after the other, or both into the same jet, so long as the jets a sized correctly. I suspect the suction achieved would be similar and that the main consideration there would be packaging. If it's convenient to run a suction nozzle into a jet log and have a pump on each, go for it. I think it would be easier to work with if all your pumps were in the same spot, but no reason you couldn't run one after the other as a booster.

[@HammerAnvil-zf4hb]

True the backpacking aspect is the key, the less parts you have the better, keeping it as simple as possible. Do you think if you upgraded the motor inside the pump for more torque you could get better head lift to pump further

[@UtmostOutdoors]

@@HammerAnvil-zf4hb Yes, the more power you throw at it the more performance you will get. I think I have enough to work with using the stock motors output of ~185 watts. I could tweak the impeller to about 225 watts if I monitored the temperature and it ran OK, or swapping to a brushless system might even add more efficiency. I think 3" subsurface dredge that runs on a brushless motor could be quite compelling, but I just don't have the spare cash right now to buy all the parts I would need. For now, I think this power system will work just fine and I just need to test some matting out next.

[@jonmorgan1913]

Hey! This is Jon from Lee Hendrix gold. We have messaged a while back. A company out of California a few years back made an electric dredge with 3 amp bilge pumps . Lee and I dredge here regularly in North Carolina. I would love to test your equipment and of course video. I will pay for it. Let me know.

[@UtmostOutdoors]

Hey Jon, I'll go have a look at some of those videos later. I'd love to get some people out in the field to help test this thing out once I get the basics sorted out! Keep an eye out and hopefully into September I can have a marketable prototype 01 sorted out for you!