How to Make a Visible Water Pump

How to make a transparent plastic water pump DC motor

Wouldn’t it be cool to be able to make a transparent water pump, so that you can visibly see all the liquid moving, tumbling amd circling around inside?

Today we’re going to make a sea through submersible pump with unusual items. There’s are various types of pumps, but we’re going to make a centrifugal pump. Centrifugal pumps are designed with a rotating impeller which can be used for pulling the water into the pump and force the discharge flow. By using these pumps, all types of liquids can be pumped with low-viscosity. And also these pumps work fine with thin fluids & gives high flow rates.

One important thing to note is that, you can have a very well made pump but by using a not-so powerful motor, your water pump may not pump to its full capacity. So it’s a good idea to use a powerful dc motor. Eg 775 dc motor

Unfortunately couldn’t get one, so I used a less powerful motor. But it works very good though

Supplies

1. 12v dc motor

2. Transparent plastic perfume/cologne bottle with cap

3. Hard plastic

4. 3 syringes

5. Some wires

Tools

1. Hack saw or dremel

2. Sandpaper

3. Super glue and hot glue

4. Compass

5. Drill or hot nail

Making the Pump’s Body

Take the transparent perfume cap and make a hole at the center top of the cap just big enough so that your motor’s neck fits in. Mark the two motor mount screws, take out the motor and make the hole with something like a hot compass or screwdriver. Take the syringe and cut both ends so that you have a tube. Use a marker to copy the curvature of cap to one end of the syringe tube and then cut it along the line.(Refer to the pictures above).

Now to make a correctly sized hole, Smear some toothpaste to the curved end of the tube. With the open end of the perfume cap looking at you, position the the syringe tube at the top left side of cap. Remove the tube and you’ll have an outline of a oval. Cut this outline and glue the syringe tube to the cap. Remember to first wipe clean the toothpaste before glue. Run a thin bead of hotglue along the joint to make it watertight. This’s the output of the pump.

The Impeller

To make the impeller, you’re gonna need to use a harder plastic sheet. Using a small ruler, draw two lines perpendicular to each other having a point where they intersect. Make a hole the size of your motor shaft with a hot nail or drill. Use a compass and cut out a circle whose diameter is slightly smaller than that of the perfume cap. Let’s say the internal diameter of the cap is 60mm, then let your circle be somewhere around 55mm. You don’t want the size difference to be too much(loss of efficiency) or too little(problems with installing).

Again with a compass draw another circle that’s around 1~1.5cm in diameter. Now you should have a circle with four lines dividing it and a smaller circle at the middle. Use a ruler to draw a slanted line from the outermost end of one of the four lines to that its almost at a tangent to the smaller circle. Do this for the remaining three lines. Measure the length of the line with a ruler, Please refer to the pictures above. It’s really hard to explain in words.

Impeller Fins

Depending on the height of your perfume cap, cut four rectangular/square pieces 1cm high and it’s length equal to the line you measured earlier. These are the impeller fins. Slightly sand the four slanted lines so that glue will adhere. I first used superglue to glue each of the fin in place to the circular base. To make the joint stronger, mix some 2-part epoxy and then run it along the joints.

After the epoxy cures, push the impeller into motor shaft in the pump housing so it reaches the bottom. Add some superglue to secure the impeller in place. If you see that there’s a large gap between the outside edge of the cap(pump housing) and the top of the impeller, then cut/reduce the height of the pump housing. Having a large gap will seriously affect the pump’s performance.

The Intake

Take two of the syringes and cut both ends off. Then make a 45 degree cut at one end of each of the two syringe tubes. Glue the two tubes together. It’s important that the joint is airtight as a leaking joint will reduce the pump’s performance. Take a transparent plastic and cut it to a circle the size of the perfume cap.

Make a smaller hole the diameter of the syringe tube at the middle. Glue one end of the tube to the transparent plastic, again making sure that the joint is sealed. Hot glue the intake on top of the pump housing with the open end looking down. Again, the joint needs to be airtight.

Making It Submersible

Cut the remaining part of the plastic perfume bottle so that it’s about 1cm taller than the motor. Make a small hole at the bottom of the bottle. Pass the long motor wires through the hole and solder them to the motor. Glue the bottle to the back of the pump thereby waterproofing the motor. Also seal the hole where the wires pass through. Your submersible pump is done. You can test it with a 12v battery or power supply. The motor needs to be spinning counter-clockwise. At first the pump might not work, so check the next step.

First Thing to Try If It Doesn’t Work

Water pumps need to be primed in order for them to work. Some pumps are self-priming while some are not. Priming a water pump simply means pouring so that it fills the entire body of the pump.

Why does priming matter? We’ll because, without the water inside, the pump first tries to suck out the air inside the pump which the impeller is pretty bad at. i.e it’s not a propeller. The impeller can’t grab and such the thin air out of the pump’s body for the water to come in. Filling the pump with water already removes the air, so the impeller gets to work and starts pushing the water.

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