Introduction: How to Make a Visible Water Pump
Wouldn’t it be cool to be able to make a transparent water pump, so that you can visibly see all the liquid moving, tumbling amd circling around inside?
Today we’re going to make a sea through submersible pump with unusual items. There’s are various types of pumps, but we’re going to make a centrifugal pump. Centrifugal pumps are designed with a rotating impeller which can be used for pulling the water into the pump and force the discharge flow. By using these pumps, all types of liquids can be pumped with low-viscosity. And also these pumps work fine with thin fluids & gives high flow rates.
One important thing to note is that, you can have a very well made pump but by using a not-so powerful motor, your water pump may not pump to its full capacity. So it’s a good idea to use a powerful dc motor. Eg 775 dc motor
Unfortunately couldn’t get one, so I used a less powerful motor. But it works very good though
Supplies
Supplies
1. 12v dc motor
2. Transparent plastic perfume/cologne bottle with cap
3. Hard plastic
4. 3 syringes
5. Some wires
Tools
1. Hack saw or dremel
2. Sandpaper
3. Super glue and hot glue
4. Compass
5. Drill or hot nail
Step 1: Making the Pump’s Body
Now to make a correctly sized hole, Smear some toothpaste to the curved end of the tube. With the open end of the perfume cap looking at you, position the the syringe tube at the top left side of cap. Remove the tube and you’ll have an outline of a oval. Cut this outline and glue the syringe tube to the cap. Remember to first wipe clean the toothpaste before glue. Run a thin bead of hotglue along the joint to make it watertight. This’s the output of the pump.
Step 2: The Impeller
Again with a compass draw another circle that’s around 1~1.5cm in diameter. Now you should have a circle with four lines dividing it and a smaller circle at the middle. Use a ruler to draw a slanted line from the outermost end of one of the four lines to that its almost at a tangent to the smaller circle. Do this for the remaining three lines. Measure the length of the line with a ruler, Please refer to the pictures above. It’s really hard to explain in words.
Step 3: Impeller Fins
After the epoxy cures, push the impeller into motor shaft in the pump housing so it reaches the bottom. Add some superglue to secure the impeller in place. If you see that there’s a large gap between the outside edge of the cap(pump housing) and the top of the impeller, then cut/reduce the height of the pump housing. Having a large gap will seriously affect the pump’s performance.
Step 4: The Intake
Make a smaller hole the diameter of the syringe tube at the middle. Glue one end of the tube to the transparent plastic, again making sure that the joint is sealed. Hot glue the intake on top of the pump housing with the open end looking down. Again, the joint needs to be airtight.
Step 5: Making It Submersible
Step 6: First Thing to Try If It Doesn’t Work
Why does priming matter? We’ll because, without the water inside, the pump first tries to suck out the air inside the pump which the impeller is pretty bad at. i.e it’s not a propeller. The impeller can’t grab and such the thin air out of the pump’s body for the water to come in. Filling the pump with water already removes the air, so the impeller gets to work and starts pushing the water.
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