Here's my idea...tell me whatchya Thunk...
If you've ever watched the show "Bearing Sea Gold" you see them mine the ocean floor for gold with suction dredges and with excavator dredges.
My thought is to combine the 2 and get 20...maybe 40...maybe 60 times the gold.
Increase the material moved thru the sluice box by huge amounts!
Spend all your time scooping material from the ocean floor...an NO time moving material to the top of the sluice box. It would be a massive boost in efficiency and less wear & tear on the excavator!
Run a suction hose from the top of the sluice box to the inside bottom of the bucket/shovel (along the excavator arm). The INSTANT you scoop, the material is being sucked up the hose and on its way to the sluice box. There is no need to move the shovel head (bucket) to the top of the sluice box. The bucket can stay under water inches from the ocean floor.
(The material would crush the suction hose inside the bucket)............
- Make an upside-down T out of metal pipe and weld it to the inside if the bucket.
- Connect the suction hose to the T at the top of the bucket (now the material can't crush the suction hose).
- Make the openings (holes) in the bottom of the T smaller than the diameter of the suction hose to avoid rock jams. That will work since there are 2 openings in the bottom of the T.
When prospecting...simply turn off the pump to the suction dredge. Then bring the material up in deck & pan it (as normal).
It would take some tweeking to find the right diameters of suction hose and the T...also how many seconds to wait between scoops to allow for the material to be sucked up...and possibly give the bucket a small shake side to side with each scoop to help wash the larger rocks (rough up the inside of the bucket would help with that as well).
Think it would work?
If you've ever watched the show "Bearing Sea Gold" you see them mine the ocean floor for gold with suction dredges and with excavator dredges.
My thought is to combine the 2 and get 20...maybe 40...maybe 60 times the gold.
Increase the material moved thru the sluice box by huge amounts!
Spend all your time scooping material from the ocean floor...an NO time moving material to the top of the sluice box. It would be a massive boost in efficiency and less wear & tear on the excavator!
Run a suction hose from the top of the sluice box to the inside bottom of the bucket/shovel (along the excavator arm). The INSTANT you scoop, the material is being sucked up the hose and on its way to the sluice box. There is no need to move the shovel head (bucket) to the top of the sluice box. The bucket can stay under water inches from the ocean floor.
(The material would crush the suction hose inside the bucket)............
- Make an upside-down T out of metal pipe and weld it to the inside if the bucket.
- Connect the suction hose to the T at the top of the bucket (now the material can't crush the suction hose).
- Make the openings (holes) in the bottom of the T smaller than the diameter of the suction hose to avoid rock jams. That will work since there are 2 openings in the bottom of the T.
When prospecting...simply turn off the pump to the suction dredge. Then bring the material up in deck & pan it (as normal).
It would take some tweeking to find the right diameters of suction hose and the T...also how many seconds to wait between scoops to allow for the material to be sucked up...and possibly give the bucket a small shake side to side with each scoop to help wash the larger rocks (rough up the inside of the bucket would help with that as well).
Think it would work?
