March Pump V Solar pump.

[Beerbuddha]

Hi guys.

I have 3 solar pumps in my system.
1 Recirc Liquor Tank
2 Recirc wort and transfere to boil kettle.
3 Boiled wort to fermenter via plate chiller.

So i decided to splash out on a march pump for xmass. Just to upgrade. But i discovered the 20 euro solar 12v does just as good a job. So waste of money spending 100+ on march but on good note it looks good. 

[DEMPSEY]

Solar pumps are cheap and do work but can let you down.Your march pump will find its way into your brewing life and if not you can always sell it again

[Beerbuddha]

I will keep it as it does what it says on the tin ,but its more a heads up for people thinking will i spend the extra on a march. But i guess we all learn from our mistakes i just wont buy another 2.
If i have the extra cash i will spend it on upgrading something else or maybe getting one of those blichman hop rockets mmm shinney blichman stuff 

[Greg2013]

Beerbuddah boss have you a link to that solar pump you got ?

[Beerbuddha]

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Solar-12V-24V-DC-Hot-Water-Circulation-Pump-Brushless-Motor-Water-Pump-3M-5M-/330917635749

There ye go. It comes from hong kong obviously.... took 1-2 weeks. I got a spare one too as there cheap.

[Ciderhead]

Looking at all the forums in the US/UK, Chugger is fast becoming the pump of choice over March, solars are good but should not really be your go to pump for serious long term hard work.

[Beerbuddha]

Thats what i told myself hence the upgrade. The first solar i got was 2-3 years ago to recirc hot water and it is running the most and it is still working away......i dont know what i was expecting with an expensive pump but cost-wise alone its cheaper to replace solar after 3-4 years than buy the expencive one.

I did have issue with solar when recirc wort as it can block with grain but this was an issue with my DIY false botton letting the grain into pump rather than an issue with pump.

[Will_D]

With all the silicon tubing around I am surprised no-one has made a peristaltic pump!

Absolutely nothing touches the liquid bar the tube its in!. Teperature is only limited by the tubing. It can pass small non abrasive debris.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peristaltic_pump

[Rats]

With all the silicon tubing around I am surprised no-one has made a peristaltic pump!

What put me off is the noise it makes 

[Beerbuddha]

I wounder if anyone has one and can fill us in with some info ? Pros,cons,price etc

[johnrm]

You could engineer one with a bunch of bearings, the only thing would be that the IN side might collapse under vacuum.

[Dara]

I've used peristaltic pumps at work for transfer and dosing systems, non brewing applications. I don't have any pumps in my own brew set-up but if I did I don't think I'd go peristaltic. I'll give the negatives first; They are expensive for anything over dosing sizes (ml/min v's l/min). They don't give much head so pumping through anything with resistance, e.g a heat exchanger could be problematic. On I minor point the flow tends to be pulsed which may not be what you want if using for sparging. The biggest challenge I'd see though would be longevity of tubing. For it to pump you need to maintain resilience in the tubing. For silicone tubing like that in the group buys this goes fairly quickly, I'd imagine within 24 hours. At work we were chucking them after a few hours and that was at ambient temps. When the tubing goes it can start shedding into the flow stream but normally resilience is the first to go.

On the upside; if you could get a cheap one it would be worth a go. The nice thing about them is that they typically come with fllow control which can be linked to controllers (pid, stc1000 type devices) - nice for sparging or temp control through a fancy herms system. As stated above they are clean so no messing around., they are self priming so no cavitation. Are very easy to use. All the ones I've seen, which are not too many but all had smart functions like dosing fixed volumes I.e if you wanted to sparge a fixed volume it will stop when done.

Actually now that I've listed the pros, they are beginning to out weigh the cons. So, if you can over come cost and find suitable tubing (with resilience at reasonably high temp)they could be a runner. For a typical homebrew setup I,d say you would not need much more than 1m head, you can extend tubing life by moving rotor on to a 'fresh' section of tubing. Overall the convenience may outweigh the cost of tubing replacement.

That's just my thoughts and experience on using them.
Dara

[johnrm]

I happen to have 2  24v diaphragm pumps for water filters. I must play with these. Not good for boiling I imagine.

[Beerbuddha]

Sticking with solar pumps v persistatic me thinks.

[Greg2013]

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/DC-12V-SOLAR-HOT-WATER-SUBMERSIBLE-CIRCULATION-PUMP-BRUSHLESS-MOTOR-6-5L-MIN-/301009053130?pt=UK_Home_Garden_Garden_Plants_Bird_Bath_Feeder_CV&hash=item461589a5ca