There are not many resources on the Internet describing off grid drip irrigation. The major difference is using a dc water pump to pump and pressurize the drip line. Most of the dc water pumps are meant for rv’s. Flowjet and Shurflo are the biggest pump manufacturer’s.
For my rural property, we want to plant some fruit trees. Our well pump and infrastructure are solar powered, so drip irrigation seems a logical choice to conserve resources. This weekend I tested this.
I used a Shurflo Revolution (series 4008 3.0 gpm) pump from Amazon (about $90) and twenty 2gpm pressure compensating emitters. The test setup was 50 feet of 0.5″ trunk tubing directly coupled to the Shurflo pump. Each emitter is on five feet of 0.25″ tubing. I first volume tested ten emitters, then twenty emitters. The volume test was run for two minutes. I found that in both cases the system overwatered by 20%. The amount did not change by more than 5% when going from ten to twenty emitters. I am guessing that the 55psi output from the Revolution pump probably exceeds the spec of the emitter. In the real world, additional friction from longer 0.5″ trunk line will reduce the pressure, at least at the end of thee drip line.