Cheap compact wort pump

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I have tried the cheap pumps
burned 3 of them up. Just bite the bullet and get a chugger and never look back.

Hate your luck.

One reason for choosing these 12v pumps to test my system re-design was $$ driven. I don't want to sink $200 on a Chugger and fittings to find I like my gravity fed system better. (which I haven't had luck with the pumps yet) I'm about $130 all in and most are silicone tubing and stainless upgrades I needed anyway.
Only $60 on pumps and power/controls.

To be very clear about the biggest reason for me! 12v vs. 110.
I drink homebrew while I brew. It's a rule. I will not be killed over a hobby. If there's water/ wort and high voltage electricity playing in the same area.... I'll pass.

I may never choose a Chugger type pump even IF I change my design.
 
Dang, did you run it dry at all? I've gone through 30 batches using mine. I have a backup pump just in case because they are so cheap. My brew day includes a 60 minute mash using the pump in a HERMS setup. Still going strong.
Pump never cavitated lines were full when I disconnected it. I have since ordered a mark II pump. I wanted to try recirculating my BIAB and now the system needs to have a better pump.
 
Ok this is totally not helpful and has nothing to do with his issue...but goes a long way to show your biased opinions. Its easier to just form a negative opinion of them to help justify your chugger purchase and thats fine but it doesnt make it true. lots of people use these successfully with no problems and the fact that you burned up all three says something to indicate you might not have understood something.

Your pumps likely burned up because you powered them incorrectly or tried to pump grain with them as many have using a single false bottom or bazooka tube which doesnt catch everything.... I have been using 6 of this for almost 4 years and never had an issue so my experience doesnt jive with yours. I know I have powered and used mine correctly but I dont know what you did.

Believe me I tried to make them work. Even had them hooked up in tandem.Powered properly with a 10 amp charger. I worked with pumps my whole work career 40 years. So I know what I am doing. I still have 4 good ones that I won't use because I can't trust them with a chugger I know it is going to work. A penny wise isn't always the best.
 
Believe me I tried to make them work. Even had them hooked up in tandem.Powered properly with a 10 amp charger. I worked with pumps my whole work career 40 years. So I know what I am doing. I still have 4 good ones that I won't use because I can't trust them with a chugger I know it is going to work. A penny wise isn't always the best.

Well like I said something is wrong with your setup... Not sure what you were trying to pump and how far but I use one to regularly pump through my plate chiler and over 4 ft high into the top of my conicals.. no problems. and I have been using the same 3 pumps now for over 2 years with hundreds of gallons of beer now. If you search here you will see most who claimed they didnt work were trying to power them off incorrect power sources like 9v wall worts and power supplies under 1 amp. Some were using $3 power supplies that failed and no longer produced the correct current.

Perhaps the issue was from using a battery charger which is a terrible DC power source without any filtering capacitors. charging a battery doesnt require a clean true dc wavelength. Most wont work at all as a bench power supply at all. I remember people in the car audio forums burning out cb and car stereos trying to use them as a power source. most new ones have added circuitry so they wont even power on unless they detect a battery.
 
Pump never cavitated lines were full when I disconnected it. I have since ordered a mark II pump. I wanted to try recirculating my BIAB and now the system needs to have a better pump.

I ungraded from the 12v to the 24v version a couple years ago because they are much stronger and pump 1/3 more..
 
I ran another Hot Water test yesterday.
This time I set the pump on the floor and used a tubing clamp at the far end of the output hose. I started a siphon running through the pump, filled all the tubing and clamped it shut. I pinched the tubing with my fingers on the HLT valve and pulled it from the barb connecting it to the Mash Tun valve barb. A small section of air was present put I played with the tubing after turning on the pump by pinching the tubing both input and output sides and the pump pushed the air on through.
I repeated this moving from the mash tun to the kettle. Same results. I recirculated into the kettle for a while then into a bucket simulating running into a fermenter.
All in all it worked.
The key here was the pump was on the floor.
 
I ran another Hot Water test yesterday.
This time I set the pump on the floor and used a tubing clamp at the far end of the output hose. I started a siphon running through the pump, filled all the tubing and clamped it shut. I pinched the tubing with my fingers on the HLT valve and pulled it from the barb connecting it to the Mash Tun valve barb. A small section of air was present put I played with the tubing after turning on the pump by pinching the tubing both input and output sides and the pump pushed the air on through.
I repeated this moving from the mash tun to the kettle. Same results. I recirculated into the kettle for a while then into a bucket simulating running into a fermenter.
All in all it worked.
The key here was the pump was on the floor.
As mentioned you really dont NEED to have the pump on the floor just lower than what you intend to pump. again if you put some sort of vent like a 3 way valve to bleed the air you wont have to mount them so low and loose the flow as a result.
 
Never had an issue priming mine. The weight of the water pushes fluid right through as soon as I open the valve. Mounted direct to the valve I don't see how it could get stuck full of air. Mine are the 24v version though.
Maybe a picture of your set-up would help.

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Never had an issue priming mine. The weight of the water pushes fluid right through as soon as I open the valve. Mounted direct to the valve I don't see how it could get stuck full of air. Mine are the 24v version though.
Maybe a picture of your set-up would help.

you also have your outlet and hose pointing up which helps ensure there is no air pockets trapped in the line or pump. try that with the outlet turned to a 90degree orientation an the air doesnt escape as easily. instead a little water trickles through and seals the outlet hose creating a trap of air.
In my setup the pump is pushing to a rims mounted below on the front of the table so I had found the hard way that some liquid easily trickles through and then creates a trap of air unless the plumbing is setup where all the air can easily escape. my chiller pump is plumbed in a similar manner to yours and therefore I have no issues priming it.

If the pump is mounted much lower than everything eles the air is pushed right through it and the pump along with the hose leading up to it gets flooded with water.. this is why most brew pumps are mounted low under the table.
 
try that with the outlet turned to a 90degree orientation an the air doesnt escape as easily. instead a little water trickles through and seals the outlet hose creating a trap of air.

Why couldn't you just rotate your pump a little so the outlet is facing up, just have it pump up and over a little bend in the hose before it heads down. That is what I do when I pump from my HLT to my MT. Also when I pump from my MT to my BK. I use mine on a 3 tier gravity system converted to using these pumps too. My pump connected to my MT doesn't have the outlet facing up, between 90 and 45 deg.
Hopefully you can modify your set-up to make it work. I have 4 of these pumps and never had an issue. When I was cleaning up after my last batch I found a massive chuck of leaf hops stuck in my input and it still worked fine. Hope you can get yours working, best of luck!

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Why couldn't you just rotate your pump a little so the outlet is facing up, just have it pump up and over a little bend in the hose before it heads down. That is what I do when I pump from my HLT to my MT. Also when I pump from my MT to my BK. I use mine on a 3 tier gravity system converted to using these pumps too. My pump connected to my MT doesn't have the outlet facing up, between 90 and 45 deg.
Hopefully you can modify your set-up to make it work. I have 4 of these pumps and never had an issue. When I was cleaning up after my last batch I found a massive chuck of leaf hops stuck in my input and it still worked fine. Hope you can get yours working, best of luck!

I have tried that but theres a number of reasons I dont want to do that. Like I said I have found a work around by just mountng the pump at one of the rims ports below for my setup.
 
Make sure the disc behind the prop is flat. Also make sure it's not snug against the pump body when you put the head back on. 99% of the time these are the cause for me.

Thank you so much dude, that did it!

I just managed to fix it well enough to demonstrate it works and sell :)

Ended up looking at all my gear, realizing how much time effort and money I've spent, and that I can't keep this up. Selling it all for a pico :)
 
When using the pump at boiling temps for recirculating I kept on getting air in the lines and the pump would stop pumping until I turned it off and turned it back on again. Is this cavitation? How can I avoid it? :confused:

I have it connected to a PWM to control the pump speed and I also have a valve to adjust flow if needed.
 
Yes, that's cavitation. No way to avoid it if you're trying to pump boiling liquid. Note that you if you are recirculating constantly you don't need to boil - just get to near boiling temperature. Getting rid of the DMS is done via agitation of the wort, which boiling will do but a constant pumping action should do as well - it's the way the picobrew works, for example. They hold wort at 207 degrees, just 5 off of boiling.
 
Yes, that's cavitation. No way to avoid it if you're trying to pump boiling liquid. Note that you if you are recirculating constantly you don't need to boil - just get to near boiling temperature. Getting rid of the DMS is done via agitation of the wort, which boiling will do but a constant pumping action should do as well - it's the way the picobrew works, for example. They hold wort at 207 degrees, just 5 off of boiling.

Interesting, I didn't know I could go below 212F if I recirculate. :mug:
 
Never had an issue priming mine. The weight of the water pushes fluid right through as soon as I open the valve. Mounted direct to the valve I don't see how it could get stuck full of air. Mine are the 24v version though.
Maybe a picture of your set-up would help.

Hey Wolf, what are you using for a power supply? Do you have a link or a pic? I'm trying to figure out how I can wire one of these up. Thank you!
 
Hey Wolf, what are you using for a power supply? Do you have a link or a pic? I'm trying to figure out how I can wire one of these up. Thank you!

All I did was twist the wires together with the power supply leads. Just find any old DC12V or DC24V (most old electronics power adapters provide this), strip the wires, and touch them. DC24V is harmless to touch directly. If you have it wired right, the pump will spin up and move water (don't do this dry!) if it's reversed, the pump won't spin, and switch the leads for success.
 
I also like the higher capacity ones, 3 pumps off one supply and have yet to have so much as a hiccup
 
You should be able to, I think the 12v ones are rated at 1200mA
800ma I think but I find that they do run better on a 2amp supply than a 1 amp supply.. when I tried the 1 amp supply the pump struggled and actually stalled at one point which is why I believe a lot of people had less than steller results using the cheap wall wort style supplies that are advertised a a higher amp rating than they are really capable of..
 
All I did was twist the wires together with the power supply leads. Just find any old DC12V or DC24V (most old electronics power adapters provide this), strip the wires, and touch them. DC24V is harmless to touch directly. If you have it wired right, the pump will spin up and move water (don't do this dry!) if it's reversed, the pump won't spin, and switch the leads for success.

but the power supply needs to be at least 800ma and even then something like 2 amp will be more reliable as I just mentioned in my previous post... If you read through this thread youll find all sorts of complaints about the pumps failing and some indications why were power related like one person who was using a 9v calculator power supply because it was "close enough" and another who was using very crud e 14v battery Charger power with no smoothing capacitor to give a clean dc waveform... The power source does matter guys.. I wouldn't buy less than a 2 amp supply for 1 pump... I use a 7 amp supply in my panel to power all 3 of my pumps and have no problems for years now.
 
I don't understand all this talk about power supplies? I bought mine on Amazon and it came with a plug
 
With my current cheap pump I clean after every brew by taking the head off and removing the impeller, I always get hop gunk there that wont flush out and needs manual cleaning.

I have one of these tan pumps that I'm looking to use but I'm curious about cleaning. The impeller looks to be designed not to be removed easily? Is it possible to get behind the stainless steel plate to check for cleanliness?

For the hot side I'm sure its not a huge issue but ideally Id like to use one for cold side transfers so any info would be appreciated.
 
It comes right out. The stainless washer is attached to the impeller. Put a flat head behind it and gently pop it out of the pump body.
 
I don't understand all this talk about power supplies? I bought mine on Amazon and it came with a plug

yes and it came with one of the wall wort ones that normally sell for like 3-5 bucks that was designed to power low amp elctrical devices like a router or camera... It may have an advertised rating of 1 amp but in reality it may not be able to handle a sustained load that large... Many of those power supplies are clones of someone elses design originally rated for less and they use even cheaper knock off components like no name capacitors and such which can often mean they dont perform as well as the originals they were modeled after...

I have had many many of these cheap wall wort supplies become unreliable and "sort of work" for example I bought a bunch of android tv boxes for myself and friends and had 3 of the power supplies act up causing the box to lock up or reboot. When I put a monitor on it the voltage was the correct amount of volts until you put a load on it and then it dropped...

in a nutshell , cheap crap power supply can = cheap crap power = crappy results... You could get lucky and have no issues or the pump could be working but be a lot weaker than it could be which was the results I had when I tried a cheap 1 amp power supply..
 
With my current cheap pump I clean after every brew by taking the head off and removing the impeller, I always get hop gunk there that wont flush out and needs manual cleaning.

I have one of these tan pumps that I'm looking to use but I'm curious about cleaning. The impeller looks to be designed not to be removed easily? Is it possible to get behind the stainless steel plate to check for cleanliness?

For the hot side I'm sure its not a huge issue but ideally Id like to use one for cold side transfers so any info would be appreciated.
You could use a braided stainless filter on your dip tube like I do to prevent the solids from getting in the pump.. I never take mine apart. I run pbw through them every 3 brews or so to dissolve any buildup but they stay clean... I have pulled them aprt after many brews to check them and then decided it was no longer worth the effort.

As far as cold side transfers... I use mine on the hot side of my plate chiller to push my wort through my chiller... I just recirculate through the pump and chiller for a couple minutes at boiling (or near) temps to sanitize prior to turning on the cooling water... never in issue in years of doing this.
 
My hop sock fell in during the boil and I sucked some hops into the pump when I was trying to pump through my CFC...

I have a feeling I fried this pump, I haven't used it since I cleaned it out, but the output of the pump was clogged solid and it was running for a good couple mins before I turned it off :(
 
Currently I am using an IBM laptop supply I had lying around: 24v 1.5a. I am making an electric brew controller and I will have 2 of the speed controllers ect mounted in that box and run cords to my pumps and in that I have a 24v 8.3a unit similar to these: http://www.ebay.com/itm/AC-110V-220...hash=item3f58dab91b:m:mb99FY6-QDEki15M2d8KfXQ
Brewed last Tues and again today. No issues. I use them to recirc my mash for 10 min before transferring to my brew kettle. I also whirlpool the last 5-10min to sanitize my whirlpool arm. Never issues with bubbles (my pick up is to the side of my bottom). You can see how well I like these since I have them incorporated into my electric brew controller. Once I get my electric system going, I will be constantly recirc my mash in a HERMES system.
 
I use a hops spider. My Tues brew day I used whole hops. Some fell outside the hop bag. Still had no issues pumping or whirlpooling. I only found the chunks of hops when I was cleaning up. Was actually surprised with the hops that came out. I put my garden hose and flush both ends and then I also turn them on and pump clean water through them. Every 3 brews or so I pbw them.
 
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