Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

Want to make a simple water recirculating system... trying to find out what size pump I need... was told by brew shop I need a pump that is 3 head lift pump.... seems high... anyone got ideas?? Doing a run tomorrow... can go to Bunnings before I start

Ozito 700w in a 200l drum or ibc is possible looks like this https://www.bunnings.com.au/ozito-750w-dirty-water-submersible-water-pump_p4816360
Personally I have an aquarium pump hailea about 1700l/h but have a felling I need to upgrade..

Pist n broke wrote:Want to make a simple water recirculating system... trying to find out what size pump I need... was told by brew shop I need a pump that is 3 head lift pump.... seems high... anyone got ideas?? Doing a run tomorrow... can go to Bunnings before I start

Depends on the water source and distance to your still, also depends on the rise from water source to still.
I use the bunnings Ozito pump Bluc links to it and gives me plenty of head room

If the drum is higher than the still, you need very little head rating
I saw someone in a post using a pump from one of those kmart blow up ring top pools, head slap, I have one from last Christmas - the pools can last 2 summers, but at $50 who cares
It barely manages 10 cm of head, but the flow rate is plenty for a small still if you keep the source above the highest watered section of your rig. Most of the output of mine is bypassed
It's rated at a massive 16 watts

I also use this submersible pump with a 240L wheelie bin to pump the cooling water back into one of my 1000l IBC Bulk containers that catch rain water off my shed.
(Having trouble with photo so will leave it out)

The Stig wrote:

Pist n broke wrote:Want to make a simple water recirculating system... trying to find out what size pump I need... was told by brew shop I need a pump that is 3 head lift pump.... seems high... anyone got ideas?? Doing a run tomorrow... can go to Bunnings before I start

Depends on the water source and distance to your still, also depends on the rise from water source to still.
I use the bunnings Ozito pump Bluc links to it and gives me plenty of head room

:text-+1: I have one of these. For around $80 it kicks arse

It can also depend on your cooling water lines. If they are long and narrow then you'll lose pressure.

I use a $50 bunnings pond pump with 19 mm clear pvc tubing. The tubing is nice and wide and I can also see what my cooling water is doing without having a flow meter. Water coming out of the condensers has bubbles of air in it from the higher temp and the speed the bubbles flow at tells you about your flow. Also I do strip runs with the RC empty of cooling water and the RC tap completely off, if I didn't have the tap all the way off my clear cooling lines would let me know. Another advantage is that I can make the lines just the right length to reduce the pressure drop on the pump. It also means they take up less space when it's all set up and when it's stored.

The pump is rated at 1.75 m head, 1400 L/hr and 24 W.

I originally set my bubbler up with stainless braided lines but found the pump lost too much pressure.

Has anybody run into problems with submersible pumps getting too hot?

pat_00 wrote:Has anybody run into problems with submersible pumps getting too hot?

I have run one for up to 12 hours before and it's been fine.

That has been with cooling water below 30 degrees :handgestures-thumbupleft:

In my mini hydroponic garden I run a small submersible pump that runs daylight hours, so this time of year about 14 hours. It cost me all of $2 from China (with free postage) 3 years ago. It was supposed to be just proof of concept but the little champ hasn’t missed a beat. Even sitting in a silk bed and has all the crap in the world through it. Even when I clean the resiviour once a year, when I take the pump out it’s never hot.

pat_00 wrote:Has anybody run into problems with submersible pumps getting too hot?

Because they are submerged they will only get hot if the water they are in gets hot. Before I had my radiator up and running I did a stripping run with 4000 W and only my 20 L of cooling water which I had planned to replace periodically through the run. Well I forgot to do this and the water temp got up to 55 degrees before I remembered. After that I kept on top of the temp and it was fine. My pump says not to run it above 35 but it's still kicking on just as good as it did when I bought it.