If you’ve got one decently powerful DC motor, you could conceivably build a water pump. Gang up ten of them, however, and you could build something considerably more powerful, as [akashv44] demonstrates.
The design is straightforward, relying on simple impeller pumps driven by RS-775 DC motors. The pump housings and impellers are all 3D printed. They’re designed so that the motor integrates neatly with the pump housing, and so that multiple pumps can easily be ganged up into a single larger unit. [akashv44] demonstrates a build using ten individual pump units with a large manifold, allowing the output of all the pumps to be combined into one single outlet. Fish Tank Submersible Filter
The concept is straightforward enough, and running on a 48-volt power supply, it’s clear that the pump can move a significant amount of water. Notably, though, it would be possible to improve significantly with some design changes. Currently, the water path from the pumps must make several 90-degree turns, harming efficiency. We’d love to see the pumps angled nicely into more advanced manifolds which would more smoothly combine the streams together. This would likely result in a far greater output from the system.
In any case, 3D printing pumps is an increasingly popular pastime around here.
It looks like it can move a decent amount of water, but it doesn’t develop a lot of head. Interesting nonetheless.
welcome to the club they have been doing this type of clickbait article for a while. This pump is inefficent and worthless. it will only really work for moving water laterally or down. if you need to move it down a siphon will work perfectly, and if you need to move it laterally other better options are out there.
and before anyone comes along and starts screeching about it being a hack that anyone can do please inform me of anyplace out in the wild people randomly have 10 motors laying around like this. again clickbait and HAD should be ashamed to push something like this.
HaD, and hacker culture before it, were basically always worse than the Indian dude who slapped together some crap. A lot of those videos are, or at least pretend to be, from poor regions where you don’t just have Amazon to buy something better.
There are close to zero hacks I would ever want to repeat on here. I’ve abandoned nearly every software project from simple to complex that I’ve ever made for personal use. I regret almost every parts bin purchase I’ve ever made as they now are largely semi-obsolete clutter. There’s no DIY electronics I actually use aside from a few repairs and adapters.
There’s an app for everything now, and commercial devices that are really good for most any task. Reusing stuff you have laying around is cool, but I’d rather not have stuff laying around to begin with, unless I just happen to get it free somewhere, I’ll just buy exactly the product I need, in a version that will last and has multiple uses and features, rather than buy some random motors.
And even in embedded systems jobs, much of my value is often just in finding commercial products nobody knew about, so we don’t have to build hacky crap that nobody will have time to learn other than the original dev, making it a liability more than an asset.
The problem isn’t with HaD….. it’s that most of hacking kind of sucks, both in the black hat and the “Doing diy tech” sense and it would be harder to find content if they only did actually useful or novel stuff.
I fear that the motors are not sealed against the water. Also in the video it seems that water is leaking also through the motors. That thing won’t last long. Maybe a O-Ring beneath the rotor would increase the lifetime a fair bit.
Lars is correct. Seals are mandatory. 48v is going to accelerate the electrolysis and degradation not to mention a shock hazard. Stopping the leakage will improve it’s efficiency as well..
A magnetic stirrer approach would be a good way to seal the water leaks.
DC Power most will Feed a tingling at 18v when working on trucks the voltage I around 28v when charging it feels unpleasant so I could imagine 48v would not you .
This is the proper way not to make a pump. Multiplying moving parts and waterproofing issues by 10-fold is not wise or useful. Besides that, “it can move a lot of water” makes no sense, Wasting your time with a 3D printer on some inept engineering seems to be a favorite hobby of some.
Thank you! It’s a poor design, the cost of each motor is about $17, $11 on Ali so the cost alone you can buy a purpose built pump with better flow. This thing would have lousy head pressure. Overall, just no
99% of hacks are equally bad. These days my rule is never DIY anything unless the project is exciting enough to spend months making into a repeatable, commercial grade OSS design.
Unless it’s free or part of scrap, I don’t even work with any unusual unique parts(Aside from a few printed ones).
The hacker ethos just… does not often result in products I would want to have, at least not without non-hacker refinement.
If I never DIY’d anything I couldn’t make to a commercial refinement, I’d never DIY anything
The process of making something is the main draw for me. Knowing what you’ve made is unique is satisfying too.
Yes- but if you just need to pump some water, turning it into a project rather than buying a water pump for $50 and moving on with your life may be a better use of your time & money.
Sounds like you’re not a dickhead. Thanks for bringing the positivity.
Admittedly, the hacker ethos – I believe – does put a focus on curiosity, exploration, and learning. (or sometimes dirty and quick solutions)
Most of which aren’t in-line with the goal of refinement to an improved or novel design – but I think that’s fine as long as people aren’t over-glorifying something kinda clunky and bad.
Why cant it be modular downtown?
They’re, in theory, 100 watt motors. That doesn’t look like a lot of water for 1kW pumping power. Not really surprising because the most efficient way to move a lot of water is not lots of small impellers, rather you want one larger impeller.
By all means mess around with it for fun but if you want to actually pump water you’d be better off buying a $100 pump rather than over $100 worth of dc motors.
Yeah, this is a “hack” gone wrong, just the motor selection is bad. There are so many variations of the RS-775 motor you never really know what you are getting. They are mostly all made in China, India, or Pakistan. Just buy a purpose-built pump instead. See this:
8 types of RS 775 DC 12-24V Motor, RPM, Current All Details
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6Ecf-P37QA
I can buy 100w motors for a dollar. I can design a cascading impeller design that takes advantage of cascading. Bottom of a culvert? I can-not kill fish with this. just looking for positives. Got any?
@William Mace said: “just looking for positives. Got any?”
Watching multiple RS-775 motors destroy themselves together due to water inundation is fun. I say submerge the whole thing for better effect.
I developed a magnet motor that produces usable torque and RPM and can easily drive a generator or pump or whatever. Naturally I’m having trouble getting anyone onboard because according to the fossil fuel people. Free energy is impossible… Go figure a billion dollar a minute energy business stomping out my free energy… I wonder why? Anyone interested in helping further deve. Let me know
Got a working prototype? Maybe could send through some proof etc?
How does it work? Magnets!
Show us a working & properly instrumented & documented prototype we’ll buy it for a million dollars if it really does provide “free energy”.
there have been a lot of fake water pumps on YouTube lately, also this looks like it could work in theory there could also be a big garden pump on the other end of the pipe also is would never be able to suck the water up like shown in the vid so to start it has to be primed so e sort…
My Scheppach SWP750 combination submersible pump for dirty water up to 8 m high and up to 20,000 l/h cost 30 euros in the factory offer. It is housed, has a CE mark and a two-year warranty.
The project is interesting and exciting, if only because you think about what you are using. For productive use, I would take something else.
> Free energy is impossible… Yep there’s your problem
DC is good for pumping water. Off solar their great because you can dispense with the Achilles heel of batteries. Ive pumped my own water for 20 years. If your careful a small pump can last many years. If i match it to the flow of my springbox, 1gl per minute, i can use less amperage. I assume the model shown is a learning tool otherwise how do you justify all that throw away consumer items that are not meant to last. These design are weak because they dont consider the water element or the flow
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