Almost Free Solar Pump Enclosure

[Garry]

This is the power supply they sell on solarproject.co.uk. You might find something similar in your man drawer? You shouldn't need to do any soldering, some small block connectors would do fine.

[brenmurph]

12v or 24v ordered? Stick with 12v, way more common.
If you get one of the variable voltage ones in Maplin you can control pump speed.
I'm not sure what the Amp load is on the pump, be sure and get a power supply that is rated correctly otherwise it might go POP.

12 volt   x 1 amp.
Most 12 volt transformers will do. If anyone wants a motor speed controller they are available on ebay for a few euros otherwise u can use  a lever valve to slow the flow as i do. Al long as u dont almost shut off the flow the pump will be fine. If u want to slow down the flow a valve will do fine to reduce flow. Those pumps pump 600 litres an hour ( 10 litres a minute and are a flow pump not a pressure pump..THEY ARE NNOT DESIGNED TO PUMP AT PRESSURE. So if using a valve to slow the flow dont shut off the valve too much or pump will overheat and may overload the transformer as well

[JD]

The idea of flow control using a downstream valve does apply back pressure to the pump and hence reducing the flow to zero will, as Bren says, overload the pump and/or the transformer which could end one or other of these in short order.

To be able to reduce the flow to zero, one has to rig the pump with bypass. See attached image for details.

One could use two gate valves instead of a three way with a little tinkering.

[Hop Bomb]

Or you could just turn the pump off to stop the flow 



Ive got those valves in my line to control my flow rate for sparging so I dont starve the pump trying to set the flow so slow. With the taps open fully on both my HLT & mash tun, my pump at no.6 on the adaptor plug & the valves open to their calibrated position I get 1 pint of sparge water in to the mash & 1 pint of wort out of the mash. Set & forget fly sparging. The other plus is I dont get those bubbles in my tubing during wort transfer from the mash to BK anymore.

[DEMPSEY]

The idea of flow control using a downstream valve does apply back pressure to the pump and hence reducing the flow to zero will, as Bren says, overload the pump and/or the transformer which could end one or other of these in short order.

To be able to reduce the flow to zero, one has to rig the pump with bypass. See attached image for details.

One could use two gate valves instead of a three way with a little tinkering.

I see one was visiting the well healed Royalty cousins recently
So using this method you are keeping the flow pressure into the pump while the liquid passes through the T valve and lets it pass through the 3 way valve to continue on. What if the pump is the force that is drawing the liquid in the first place.

[JD]

@Dempsey,
One is, in fact, of Royal descent, on two branches of one's family, one will have you know. My great grandmother was a Burke and like every other person in the country who is related to anyone with the surname Burke we are all of Royal heritage. Everyone of House Burke can legitimately claim descent from the original de Burgh, a Norman knight who descended from none other than Charlemagne, word has it    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Burgh Would wikipedia lie?

Anyway, now that one has dealt with the riffraff, one will move on to pumps. 

The 3 way valve distributes the pump output to the outlet pipe or back to the pump input (or some combination of both). The only path from input to output is through the pump.

In terms of the pump drawing liquid, it's all relative. The pump draws from both the bypass and the input. It the bypass is closed, the pump draws from the input. If the bypass is fully open, then the pump draws nothing from the input. If it is somewhere in between, then its all down to the bypass ratio how much comes from the input and how much from the bypass. The same ratio affects the ability of the pump to draw liquid against gravity: high bypass = low draw, low bypass = high draw.   

Using a restricted flow bypass is a common thing when a pump is used that cannot tolerate a no-flow situation (e.g. non-magnetically coupled pumps, high pressure pumps, etc.).

@Hob_Bomb
Switching the pump off is, of course, an option. The use of bypass, however, is safer when downstream restriction is used to control flow rate.

[Covey]

Dont intent to use it for sparging at the moment simpley from HLT>Mash and BK>FV thats it. What socket do i need to get, and ebay link would be handy

[Covey]

Hey just reporting in, have used the pump 3 times and have to say impressed. It has a good ability to pump well above its height and can handle 100c water and cool wort too, def has help me move liquid between tanks on my own.

[nigel_c]

Another thing to add to the must get list.

[christhebrewer]

You can control the flow of a dc pump by putting a voltage regulator on the supply. Be carefull not to stall the motor.