Automatic Bell Siphon Explained
Automatic Bell Siphon Explained
This is a demo of a bell siphon I built in collaboration with a couple of engineering professors. There are certain cases where it would be nice to be able to create a siphon without any intervention, a self-priming or automatic siphon: the next level of siphonry. It’s built out of an acrylic sheet and a piece of clear pipe. Thanks to Rolf Hut and Pete Marchetto for inviting me to collaborate on their project.
Full Project: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71E52Mbj32s&t=48s
Big Clive Urinal Auto-Syphon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQ45kMi6HkA
Rolf Hut: http://rolfhut.nl/english
Pete Marchetto: https://about.me/pete.marchetto
Animation: Devin Sloan
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aquaponics mentioned, WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
A lot of people have been commenting about the fluid tension theory of siphons. A siphon can indeed function without ambient air pressure in specific circumstances, but the bell siphon is relying on air pressure. More info in paragraph 5, here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siphon#Theory
Atmospheric pressure has nothing to do with a siphon, suction on the other hand has everything to do with it if the suction breaks the siphon stops, if the point is lower the the fluid will continue to flow.
You’re telling me for emptying rainwater from my tarp i won’t get pine needles or worms in my mouth? Sign me up!
Your right big Clive tried to work out how a urinal bell siphon worked but a real explanation has been done which is fascinating indeed
Check out the video
https://youtu.be/3So7W34KNV8
I would love to be able to siphon water upwards It would save me the tedious task of using a jug to pour water into my fish tank after siphoning out the dirty water
thumbs up if you walked through San Francisco before they stopped punishing crime
Thank you God bless
If you hold a lit candle under a bell siphon does it force the heated air to expand into the cup? Working in reverse?
I make siphons all the time
Hi, if siphon can pull the water above uphill, why cant it be used to fill the upper reservoir in a Hydro Electricity set up ?
But isn’t a siphon made to empty a reservoir by its upper part ? The bell siphon looses this property it seems.
Lovely!
Oh, you release the air down via siphon tube rather than up.
So this is how the paria diving accident happened.
Basically your toilet flush at home
Does the output of water still need to be at a lower altitude than the siphon?
Mhm
خیلی عالی واموزنده..ممنون از تفهیم زیبای که انجام دادید
clear and concise description of something that is obvious but I hadn’t seen before – even though I have heard urinals automatically flushing, I’d always assumed it was some form of hinged (tipping) tank in the reservoir. Thanks for the illumination.
nice Brady,
My place of work uses this principle to flush the urinals automatically.
Thx for upload!
but wait, don’t you need to add water to the reservoire to start it? it isn’t really a self-priming siphon if it requires outside intervention now does it. Also, siphons are hoses/tubes that rest over the edge of the reservoir and run downhill whereas the bell siphon is like a spill valve on a water tank. This bell siphon thing isn’t a siphon by definition.
Is this the same as the syphon in a house toilet?
Boyle’s perpetual motion flask canbe done bell ball syphon..??
Didn’t see it so I’ll say it: a Soxhlet extractor in chemistry works that way too, you heat your solvent, it condenses into the Soxhlet, the hot solvent extracts the stuff you want and at some point the solvent gets sucked back to the original flask, meaning you enrich the solvent in what you want, and in the end you can just distill off the solvent to isolate your product. Did that in lab as a demo for fat content in hazel nuts.
thanks! I’m off to use a bucket and a tube to drain my neighbor’s pool
I specified an automatic bell siphon system a couple of times for septic systems. They were a bit finicky.
Sweet! Just what I need to make my wave maker for my reef tank
Clear explanation 👌
but what about if i want to drain the water from a bucket underground to over a cinder block fence??? does this concept will work for that or maybe u have another idea. Problem…my racist back door neighbor build their fence with base cinder block blocking the natural flow of the water when it rains, my backyard floods and the water does not have any place to go. Paying someone to make a french drain is out my budget and it will very expensive because there are a couple of issues to deal with first and then do the drainage… so occurred to me if i can do buckets with some sort of drainage to their backyard (they will not even noticed because it is raining lol) so i can stop flooding of my property. Any ideas?
sorry for the question but why to choose this way of flow instead a steady flow? when a bell siphon is more appropriate then regular flow?
I like the channel I find it informative and relaxing.
thank you so much for the demo and diagrams! i tried watching several videos previously and didn’t understand why the bell siphon worked for aquaponic systems … now i get it. thanks again!
Oh! that’s what I have in the liquid detergent dispenser in my HD washing machine. I was wondering how that worked!
Equation for bell siphon ?????
Vacuum is not at work. A siphon works on the moon (no atmosphere)
Thanks for your bell siphon example. I’d like to build one for a my 3” popup at the end of a French drain. Don’t know where to start? This would allow me slowly drain f-drain automatically the pipe without fancy electronics! Please help?
This is an interesting video. I’d never heard of a bell siphon before, it was neat to see how it works. If I may ask an irrelevant question: the 2D animations like at/around 1:00 in the video, with which software were they made? Thanks for the video.
Can the bell siphon bring water up to a higher elevation?
when youtube was in its infancy i learned how to build a complete aquaponic system, and still have a box in the garage with the old pvc bell siphons. blast from the past!
I disagree with you on one point: it’s not a "vacuum", just an area of reduced pressure.
Thanks for tutorial
Friday night siphoning
I do believe I’m going to attempt to build one for my basement sumps. Why purchase expensive pumps if this will get the job done? Plus…if there is a storm and the power is out I’m screwed
You meant to say lungs and stomach full of gasoline 😂
Another great self-explanatory and useful video by Grady. Also use flexible tubing immersed completely under the surface, block off the outflow end and release the blocked end into the lower container.
I love your video but you don’t explain how a bell siphon actually works
👌