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Open-Source Hardware, Blueprints & Toolkits

Free, open-access engineering drawings, CAD models, software tools, hardware databases, and step-by-step construction manuals for field practitioners and self-supply initiatives.

1. Engineering for Change (E4C) Solutions Library

  • Focus: An open hardware database evaluating over 300 humanitarian technologies with standardized engineering spec sheets, independent academic/field evaluations, price benchmarks, and manufacturer profiles.
  • Website: engineeringforchange.org/solutions

2. VeraSol Product Database & Global LEAP Guides

  • Focus: Open-access quality assurance database of laboratory-tested off-grid solar products and solar water pumps, documenting verified flow rates ($Q$), dynamic head ($H$), electrical efficiency, and ingress protection (IP) ratings.
  • Website: verasol.org/solutions

3. GIZ / FAO SPIS Solar Pumping Toolbox

4. SMART Centre Group

  • Focus: A global network promoting simple, market-based, affordable, and repairable water technologies (SMARTechs). SMART Centres establish localized training hubs, certify drillers, and support local fabricators of rope pumps, wire-brick tanks, and manual drills.
  • Website: smartcentregroup.com

5. Jacana SMART Centre Zambia

  • Focus: An NGO operating in Zambia implementing the Supported Self-Supply model. They train local manual drillers (using Mzuzu/auger setups), blacksmiths, and pump makers, and co-fund water projects using a digital discount coupon system.
  • Website: jacana.help

6. Practica Foundation

  • Focus: An international research and design foundation publishing standardized blueprints, CAD files, and step-by-step fabrication manuals for manual drilling tools, solar pumping systems, and low-cost agricultural irrigation kits.
  • Website: practica.org

7. Appropedia Safe Water Collection

  • Focus: An open-source collaborative engineering wiki documenting hundreds of DIY water filters, storage tanks, and pump mechanisms.
  • Website: appropedia.org/Water

8. Drillers Toolbox

  • Focus: A digital handbook and mapping registry designed specifically for manual drillers, geologists, and field practitioners to locate groundwater potential and log drilling profiles.
  • Website: drillerstoolbox.org

9. Portable Solar Pumps

  • Focus: Open-access platform introducing affordable, lightweight (15kg) portable solar pump kits designed to be theft-resistant by allowing farm owners to pack up the pump and panel at night.
  • Website: portablesolarpumps.com

10. Global Solar Water Pumping Working Group (UNHCR / Oxfam / IOM)

  • Focus: Open humanitarian engineering repository providing standardized solar borehole technical guidelines, hybrid solar-diesel automation specs, and comprehensive training manuals.
  • Website: solar-water-pumping.org

11. WASH AI (Baobab Tech)

  • Focus: An AI-powered knowledge assistant indexing tens of thousands of water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) resources to support interactive, context-specific inquiries and technical decision-making.
  • Website: washai.org

12. UNICEF ASWA Publication Mapping

  • Focus: A curated library of 161 technical manuals, tools, and guidelines on rural water supply delivery, compiled under the UNICEF Accelerating Sanitation and Water for All (ASWA) program.
  • Website: rural-water-supply.net/en/resources/details/1126

13. Practical Action Knowledge Hub

14. Akvo.org Open Data Tools

  • Focus: Open-source digital tools for field data collection, water point mapping (Akvo Flow), and mobile water quality testing (Akvo Caddisfly).
  • Website: akvo.org