DIY "Stream" Style Pump

[crokus]

Mr Bojangles,
I saw a similar mod on another forum. To stop the water cyclone from the surface, they kept the top part of their gaurd closed (no holes in top) so that water could only get sucked in from the bottom and sides. Hope this helps.

[dhnguyen]

3 weeks running and still working great.

[joseney21]

hey quangtam7 you have to let us in the secret of how you made those slits on the housing for your prop.looks super cool, i would like to make my own like that.

[H20ENG]

I'd say tablesaw.....

[quangtam7]

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[quangtam7]

I used tile saw to cut those slits. Here is my maxijet 600 mod, outlet is 1.5"x1/4", I can not believe how strong it is, look at the last pic you can see the flow is very wide, the pump is 4" under water.

[dhnguyen]

You didn't use a propeller on this mod quangtam7? I kinda like the look of the slitted casing you had before better.

On a side note, I did try to make the slits out of my tile saw as well previously but couldn't keep the PVC piece straight enough to make such clean cuts as you did. Mine looked like it got in a fight with a butcher knife and lost LOL


D.

[quangtam7]

I use the same impeller that came with the pump. Here it is 6" below water and still trying to suck air in from the top.

[Roadtoad]

So the stock impeller is just blowing out from the side...this is similar to the mods where people were sawing off the nozzle to make a wider outlet.

[quangtam7]

Originally posted by Roadtoad
So the stock impeller is just blowing out from the side...this is similar to the mods where people were sawing off the nozzle to make a wider outlet.

Exactly! But in oder to get more flow, you need to drill some more holes on inlet side.

[David Corbett]

Any estimates on flow? How would you describe the stream it makes? David

[dhnguyen]

Well quangtam7's mod is a bit different than mine since he doesn't use a propeller. But I can say that using a propeller easily doubling if not tripling the amount of flow compared against a stock PH. The flow is also very wide and dispursed unlike the narrow stream one would expect from the typical powerhead.

D.

[selgado]

Hey guys I think someone stole your ideas. Check out this page - http://www.sparklingfloorservice.com...ool_stuff.html . Scroll down to a little past the middle of the page. Pretty slick.

[dhnguyen]

Isn't capitalism grand? LOL

I don't like the idea of having to drill my tank just to have that though.


D.

[dhnguyen]

ok I stand...er...sit corrected. This Vortech pump looks like it doesn't require any drilling at all as the 2 halves of the pump are held in place by magnet.

http://www.ecotechmarine.com


Pretty slick indeed. I wonder how much IceCap will charge for it.


D.

[melev]

Did you see the video I posted of it? It is in the IceCap forum in a current thread. It won't be cheap, but should be less than a Tunze Stream.

[joseney21]

still not cheaper than a sturdy DIY PROP powerhead, lol. i'll someday get around to making some of these, and if i'm not happy i'll buy those vortech pumps.

[selgado]

Originally posted by melev
Did you see the video I posted of it? It is in the IceCap forum in a current thread. It won't be cheap, but should be less than a Tunze Stream.

That was an impressive demo. Were you as awed in person as I was with the video?

[melev]

Everyone loved it. One thing that concerned me was the heat coming off the motor. It ran very hot at the time, but later I was told that they were able to fix that (at the conference!) so that it wasn't as hot to the touch. They even had some type of infared thermometer to test the temperature of the glass near the pump, and alway from it. It only varied by 1 degree.

I really like the size of it, and how it doesn't eat up a bunch of space. The motor won't be an eyesore to me either, if it stays close to the prototype we saw.

[TA]

Does't look like you can direct its flow...thats not good. Or am I wrong...

[melev]

It is a prototype. They are working on directional flow now.

[niko5]

Yea those little pumps are awesome way better than our mods as theres almost no parts to wear out and no motor in the tank. Very impressive. I wouldn't worry about the heat issues right now with the little motor because like you said Marc they are prototypes. If you noticed at the show the wires were wrapped in electrical tape very prototypeish

[mmbuna]

Great great thread!

Lot's of people tagging along adding their valuable 2c daily...

After reading all the pages, most in great detail, I still fail to understand if anyone has managed to keep the power heads (Maxi Jet or New Jet in my case) from spinning 'backwards' occasianly as a healthy AC motor is customed to?

Thanks for everyones input, this is what forums are best at!!...

[DonJasper]

There was some questions about longevity. Here's a pic of mine after about a year. It's hard to see the inner workings - glance at my gallery to look at the way I build the things.

The mesh is cut from a roll of plastic mesh used to keep leaves out of rain gutters. You can see how I hot glue it against a cleaning magnet to mount the thing.

One thing that I've found is that the 'loose impellor reverse spin' works when it's new, after a few months crap builds up on the axel, and it'll reverse spin and not slide forward. So I've had to manually pick it up out of the water, let it flutter and put it back under water until it spins the right way. I think I had to do one of the last month (horrors!!!!!) Big deal.

[nitrofish]

anyone seen this version? http://216.235.242.50/forums/showthread.php?t=16124

the guard includes a nub to prevent backspinning of the shaft(finally figured out what that was for). its pretty sweet, im useing one.