Kyle_in_Tex
Super Star Member
Don, be sure and keep us posted if you get this thing and start drilling. BTW, do you have to "man" this machine if its going only 4"/hour???
good luck...Kyle
good luck...Kyle
DeepRock Hydra-Drill
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MossRoad
Super Moderator
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- Power Trac PT425 2001 Model Year
Thanks for the information from the curiously challenged(me) /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif
Kyle, this is a totally manual rig - no hydraulics but a cable and winch instead. That is where a lot of cost is saved. It also comes in pieces that you assemble at the drilling site, i.e., no trailer so additional savings. The drill stems are 1 3/8" in 5' sections so you have to add them often. The net is that you do have to man the rig just as you would a PHD and the digging rate will vary just as with a PHD. I thought I might build my on drilling rig using my PHD gearbox but it would have too much torque for the small drill stems. I would have to go up to 2" drill stem. The lowest cost drill rig that this company has that uses this size drill stem would cost $16K with 250' of drill stem. I think about $5k of this is the drill stem. I thought about salvaging drill stem at the local salvage company. I have seen lots of it there at times but then I would not know what it had been used for and would not want to use it on a water well. It is also longer so would require a taller rig. The salesman told me I did not want to know what the larger drill bits cost.
Slamfire
Veteran Member
The thing that bothers me about hydro drills is where does the water to power the drill come from? And what supplies the necessary pressure?
Egon
Epic Contributor
Slamfire:
Accordingto the web site the drill is engine powered and a separate engine driven pump supplies the water pressure. The cuttings are flushed into a sump pit and the water is recirculated. Mud is also added to the water to help carry up the cuttings. The supply of water must be from some external source when drilling.
Egon
Accordingto the web site the drill is engine powered and a separate engine driven pump supplies the water pressure. The cuttings are flushed into a sump pit and the water is recirculated. Mud is also added to the water to help carry up the cuttings. The supply of water must be from some external source when drilling.
Egon
They claim you need about 1 gallon of water for each foot of depth that you drill so for a 200 foot well you would need about 200 gallons of water which you have to supply from some other source. You also need a container or pit at a lower level than the well site to put the water in. Drilling additives are mixed with the water and a pump is used to pump the water/additive mixture (called mud) down through the drill stem and bit. The mud flushes the material (spoils) removed by the drilling bit out of the hole. This mud/spoils mixture drains back into the pit through a small ditch where the spoils settle out and the mud is reused. The mud also seals the walls of the hole so it does not collapse when drilling through soft formations such as sand and gravel. This is the same process that is uded to drill oil wells. When they drill an oil well the first thing they do is drill a water well and a pit at the drilling site. A chief component of the drilling additives is bentonite which helps seal the pit so it will hold the water.
If you drill at a domestic site the water can come from the tap but if you drill at a remote site you have to either truck in the drilling water or get it from a local source.
A separate gasoline powered pump is used to pump the mud down the drill stem through a swivel connection at the top of the drill stem.
If you drill at a domestic site the water can come from the tap but if you drill at a remote site you have to either truck in the drilling water or get it from a local source.
A separate gasoline powered pump is used to pump the mud down the drill stem through a swivel connection at the top of the drill stem.
wroughtn_harv
Super Member
Don don't pooh pooh the salvage idea too quickly. I found at my favorite salvage yard three hundred pieces of drill stem for Case Maxisneakers. They're the cable plows the telephone and cable tv guys use for drops.
I arranged for my bud who has literally hundreds of Maxi's to buy them. We got them for about five dollars each. They were new. His dealer cost on them through conventional channels was in the sixty dollar each range.
The only thing we could come up with was they were inventory at some supply yard. And someone saw them as scrap and sold them as such. We saved bud about eighteen grand that day. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif
When you get you set up I'd like you to check how they're coupled. Most of the drill stem I've seen are taper screwed together. The glitch as I see on that is you can't reverse or you take the chance of undoing a joint gawd knows where. The maxi sneaker system uses a staple looking pin as the retainer.
I arranged for my bud who has literally hundreds of Maxi's to buy them. We got them for about five dollars each. They were new. His dealer cost on them through conventional channels was in the sixty dollar each range.
The only thing we could come up with was they were inventory at some supply yard. And someone saw them as scrap and sold them as such. We saved bud about eighteen grand that day. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif
When you get you set up I'd like you to check how they're coupled. Most of the drill stem I've seen are taper screwed together. The glitch as I see on that is you can't reverse or you take the chance of undoing a joint gawd knows where. The maxi sneaker system uses a staple looking pin as the retainer.
The only thing I have seen at the local salvage yard is used drill stem. I bought some to use as fence posts but it would not cut with a torch and I could not weld it. I don't know what it was made of but it sure is hard. The stuff I bought had something in it that was extemely noxious when it was heated. I figure I took at least 5 years off my life when I worked with it.
The drill stem that DeepRock sells is threaded with rolled threads. I don't know if they are tapered or not but you clearly cannot reverse the rotation with them in the ground. The only real danger is that you have cave-in in the bore. The mac;hine is not supposed to have enough torque to twist the drill stem off and and I assume it has a sheer bolt to protect the engine and transmission. I found another manufacturer of portable, manual drill rigs - Mid-Western Machinery in Mo. They call their rig the PortaDrillMini. It has weight bars and a winch/spring setup to apply down pressure.
The disavantage right now is that they are not offering discounts.
I sure wish I could find someone who has actually used one of the things to get their feedback on how they work. I think the military uses them but I don;t know how to get information from them. I guess I should see I can find the Corps of Engineers site again since they publish all kinds of manuals. Of course they don't give the kind of practical experience I am interested in.
The drill stem that DeepRock sells is threaded with rolled threads. I don't know if they are tapered or not but you clearly cannot reverse the rotation with them in the ground. The only real danger is that you have cave-in in the bore. The mac;hine is not supposed to have enough torque to twist the drill stem off and and I assume it has a sheer bolt to protect the engine and transmission. I found another manufacturer of portable, manual drill rigs - Mid-Western Machinery in Mo. They call their rig the PortaDrillMini. It has weight bars and a winch/spring setup to apply down pressure.
The disavantage right now is that they are not offering discounts.
I sure wish I could find someone who has actually used one of the things to get their feedback on how they work. I think the military uses them but I don;t know how to get information from them. I guess I should see I can find the Corps of Engineers site again since they publish all kinds of manuals. Of course they don't give the kind of practical experience I am interested in.
heehaw
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won't the drill rig co. give you a list of "satisfied customers" that have used their equipment?
heehaw
heehaw
</font><font color="blue" class="small">( won't the drill rig co. give you a list of "satisfied customers" that have used their equipment? )</font>
They publish quotes from "satisfied customers" in their literature but I don't trust such filtered information. I suppose I should ask them for contact information so I can get first hand feedback. Of course they could just give the names of some of their employees or relatives and I would have no way to know.
They publish quotes from "satisfied customers" in their literature but I don't trust such filtered information. I suppose I should ask them for contact information so I can get first hand feedback. Of course they could just give the names of some of their employees or relatives and I would have no way to know.
