Introduction: A Homemade Water Pump

By
About: Hello, If you're reading this I want to say thank you. These four humble projects represent a 13 year old child's budding personality and insatiable desire to create. Many projects came and went, and dozens di…

This is a small scale water pump. It runs on three volts DC and has lots of uses. I made this for use in a water cooler in order to cool a TEC. It runs nice, and there have been no problems for the three months that I have had it.
How does it work?
In order to understand this pump you must understand Bernoulli's principle which states; as fluid speed increases pressure decreases. But what does this have to do with water pumps? Well for those who did not know, air is a fluid along with water, and inside the pump there is an impeller. That impeller starts to move the air fast causing a pressure drop. The low pressure inside causes water to be drawn up the bottom tube and shot out the side. Simple.
How did you make it?
I got the idea when looking at a bottle cap, and it was so simple it just had to work.
First I took a bottle and cut the neck off.
Then I found the small dot in the very center of the cap and drilled it out to be snug with the lip sticking out of the motor near the spindle.
Then I glued the motor on the cap so it lined up with the hole.
Then I took a 1/4" tall piece of thin aluminum sheet metal about 5" long.
I cut it into 4 1/2" segments and bent them in half to form 90 degree angles.
I hot glued the four pieces of metal to form a plus shape.
Then I hot glued that on to the motor spindle making sure it is centered.
Next run the motor and make sure it is balanced well, if not rearrange it until it is balanced.
Then cut two 1" lengths of copper tube
Next drills a hole in the side of the bottle cap the size of the tube and hot glue it in. MAKE SURE THE IMPELLER STILL SPINS FREELY AND DOSNT HIT THE TUBE THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT
Then cut a small piece of Plexiglas and drill another hole in it the size of the tube. Hot glue this to the bottom and you're done!
NOTICE: BECAUSE OF THE NATURE OF THIS IN-LINE PUMP THERE MUST ALWAYS BE WATER IN THE LINE FOR IT TO WORK. HAVING THE PUMP ATTACHED TO A RESIVWAR WOULD HELP FIX THIS PROBLEM.

10/2/2009 EDIT: XDleader555 made an instructable! (which I was to lazy to do) go visit here!

4/6/2010 EDIT: A few days ago I went digging around in my junk box for this pump.  I found it...broken :\  The motor spindle had rusted and frozen in place....damn.  I am currently looking for another motor, so if anybody is actualy planning on doing this, try looking for a motor with analuminum spindle.  Or maybe just buy a pump, but hey this is Instructables not gououtandbuyables!  :)