Inexpensive Suds Pump

[Deleted]

I was looking at buying a suds pump, but they range from £68.99 to around £150. As I'm basically mean, I thought about it and visited the local truck scrappy and found a large capacity windscreen washer reservoir with high output pump: total cost five pounds! I've powered it from the variable speed Minicraft transformer fitted on the wall. It's a bit Heath Robinson at the moment, as I need some more tubing to site the unit below the lathe to achieve a circulation, and a control valve would be good, and I should put a cover on the sawn off stem, but it works a treat and provides anything from a trickle to a deluge. You have to save a little where you can......
JB

[brozier]

Nice one ;D

I'm all for saving money...

Cheers
Bryan

[circlip]

But give your Maxi a treat and dump the copper tube and get one of the Plastic "Poppet" type suds pipes, they're much more aimable and some have got a tap/flow controller built in.
Regards Ian.

[Deleted]

Ah! I forgot to mention I do have a fancy blue poppet conduit: I just have to figure out how to connect it.......JB

[weldsol]

Yes the car screen pumps do work but when you set up the full system make sure you provide a good filter of sorts (a sump with a side exit 30mm off the bottom so you can trap the sludge / slurry ) as those pumps do not like debris especially those bigger than a gnat's kneecap

Paul

[russell]

There are two common types of windscreen washer pumps. One has a mechanism using a rubber diaphragm and the other uses a gear pump with tufnol gears. Make sure you use the gear type. I have been using one of these for a couple of years now with no problems.

Russell.

[davediy]

Hi good idea, I myself am using an old external fluval 304 filter pump I salvaged from my fish tank.
I've hooked it up to a 30ltr water container which provides the tank bit. and works better than i expected and as the fluval has its own filter built in suits the job.
But a bit of advice here. I found that if you put a small magnet into the bottom of your tank it helps keep the coolant clean because even with filters in the system there will always be tiny particles of metal floating around the coolant which can shorten the life of the impellers,
Of course if you only cut non ferrous that won't be much help ;D
dave

[dickdastardly40]

Good Tip JB and inexpensive too!

I've gone rather more low tech with my suds set up; I have a 2 litre plastic bottle inverted hung from the rafter above the lathe. I have made 2 fittings from brass to attach tubing to, one fits to the bottom of the bottle which has a shot length of tube and a fish tank non return valve, the second fits to the lid for the feed to the tool.





The flow is adjusted by a small valve, again from a fish tank. I have considered fitting a bulb type squeezer for extra flow if required but so far it has not been necessary.



Returns are back into a tub from the lathe bed and it is filtered before return to the bottle.

The set up can be moved easily to my small mill if required. So far works well and no leaks.

Al

[Deleted]

Thanks for the positive responses: the suds now escape via a tea strainer which contains a strong magnet! There's also a similar magnet in the suds reservoir, 'to be sure, to be sure'.
JB
Now where did I put that old fish tank......

[circlip]

Lurv the gravity feed Al, ........... Specially hung on the same bit of wood as a light fitting ;D ;D

[nbmike]

i am considering buying a small parts washer and cannibalising the contents to make a suds pump/filter set-up. Anyone ever tried this?

[Arnak]

Hi,

One tip that I found useful is to put the resevoir above the machine to be cooled.

Then with a car windscreen washer sump under the bench.

Then purchase a float switch which can be fitted into the top of the supply tank.

Wire the whole lot up using a wall wart power supply but through the float switch so that each time the supply tank runs down a bit the washer pump is turned on and automatically tops up the supply tank.

Just open a supply tap when required to use the coolant.

Arnak

[ilvaporista]

I must be really mean...

I too have the 2L bottle hung in mid air with drip feed. Down below I collect into a 5L container. Transfer from bottom to top is manual. I have three 2L bottles that I top up and can exchange when the top one is empty. Thins 'only temporary' solution has been in place for some years and I have never got round to fitting a pump.

Total system cost about 1 Euro for some plastic tube and a valve.

I know where I get it from my father has just published his Make Do And Mend in MEW...