El Sid Circulating pump

[Roger Long]

I went with the non-marine El Sid pump for the hot water heating loop in my heating system.

http://www.rogerlongboats.com/10Winter.htm

This nifty little pump has just one moving part. No shafts, rotors, seals, or brushes. It's made for the solar heating industry and is intended to be connected to a small solar panel so it will automatically go on and off with the sun.

The "motor" is a ring of metal rods on a circuit board that surround a magnet inside the sealed pump housing. The electronics set up a rotating field. It draws only .42 amps and will not overheat if debris should jam the pump rotor.

 

[Ross]

Ingenious!

 

[rpwillia]

Could Roger be having too much fun?

Pretty cool pump design.

 

[Ross]

Re: Could Roger be having too much fun?

How long did it take to creat an electronically rotating field? This is a DC motor that runs like an AC motor. I think it is a grand advance in technology. We shall certainly see more.

 

[sailaway78]

Capacity

I am curious as to the capacity of this thing. How much will it actually pump. At .42 amps it seems like a dream come true for some other applications, if it has the capacity. Is it safe to presume that if not used on solar, that simply putting 12 volts to it will have it up and running. Didn't see this info. on your web site.

 

[Roger Long]

I am curious as to the capacity of this thing. How much will it actually pump.

It's strictly a circulating pump. Maximum head is only 2 feet so it will only work in closed loop or nearly level transfer situations. It will move water from rooftop solar panels to basement heat storage but the weight of the water going is nearly the same as what is going up. It's not going to pump out your bilges.

I was going to put in a Johnson circulating pump as in bait well circulation. Since the heating loop will be most efficient at low flow rates, I would have had to throttle that one way down with a valve creating heat and wasting a lot of battery juice. This pump starts out about right.

I put in a throttling valve just in case but I won't be surprised if I don't need it.

I expect this technology will get more powerful though with time.