Pump for diy tig water cooler

[Pigeon No9]

Hello!

I have a tig welder on the top of the purchase list and thinking about building a cooler. Pump turning out to be the biggest mystery to figure out.
Currently I'm thinking about fuel pump from a car. Has anyone tried this? Info on this is scarce - one source said that these fail frequently, because internals do not like to antifreeze. Other info from a youtube video after a year of use said, to have no issues whatsoever.
Other option I have in mind is to get something from ali or ebay, meant for some generic purpose (RV water supply or similar). Can someone share their experience on what works?
I'd like to make this cheep, so I know there are some great pumps for 100 - 150 usd/eur/gbp, but that would defy the idea why I'm doing this.

Cheers

 

[tom2207]

how about a pond pump ... or a central heating pump

 

[Memmeddu]

I was thinking too about a fuel pump
Virtually no load an build to run for long time

 

[Pigeon No9]

how about a pond pump ... or a central heating pump

Was thinking about something like that. Central heating pump sound like it should
1. be compatible with antifreeze as that is often used in central heating
2. It should deliver high enough pressure
But the central heating pumps I have seen around where I live, all have huge fittings - like more than an inch definitely.

 

[Pigeon No9]

I was thinking too about a fuel pump
Virtually no load an build to run for long time

That was my idea exactly. Only thing I'm worried about is the one guy who wrote that he has gone through a ton of these. From what I understood they do not fail while operational, but rather after sitting a week or so. Maybe he used some shady coolant. not sure.

 

[tom2207]

pond pumps create a fair head of pressure for fountains etc ,,, and run for months on end

 

[hotponyshoes]

The commercial coolers use expensive pumps for several reasons, some of them..
A: they are designed for constant industrial use
B: they will have at least a 1yr warranty
C: they don't know what torch you will be using. A small 8m torch will need more pressure than a big 3m long one so they are designed for "worse case"

It's easy to test to see if any pump is suitable, just connect everything up with plain water to whatever torch you have and put the return line into a 5l bottle. If it fills it in less than a min then you have more than 5lpm of flow.
Do a search on here as the minimum flow rate needed has been mentioned a few times.

My main concern with a cheap pump would be failure. Either fit some sort of flow alarm (probably a good idea whichever pump you use) or just get a cheap torch.

A central heating pump would be easier than a fuel pump as you would need some sort of power supply for a fuel pump. You could probably find a tank connector suitable to mount the inlet side directly to the tank but might need a stack of reducers to go on the outlet or you could just weld one up?

 

[hotponyshoes]

Ps, if you only weld occasionally it will probably be cheaper to just connect the torch inlet to a tap and feed the outlet to a water butt in the garden...

 

[Matchless]

Hello!

I have a tig welder on the top of the purchase list and thinking about building a cooler. Pump turning out to be the biggest mystery to figure out.
Currently I'm thinking about fuel pump from a car. Has anyone tried this? Info on this is scarce - one source said that these fail frequently, because internals do not like to antifreeze. Other info from a youtube video after a year of use said, to have no issues whatsoever.
Other option I have in mind is to get something from ali or ebay, meant for some generic purpose (RV water supply or similar). Can someone share their experience on what works?
I'd like to make this cheep, so I know there are some great pumps for 100 - 150 usd/eur/gbp, but that would defy the idea why I'm doing this.

Cheers

Welcome, I have a very good friend in Ogre, he is an expert welder, maybe you have heard of him, Ramoto limited, Juris, or George in English! he may have something for sale?

 

[HughF]

I've had one of these in use for the last year or so:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Hot-Wate...038743?hash=item1f174efd17:g:k2QAAOSwxj1fYDZC

Seems to do the trick... I bought another two to use as coolant circulation pumps on the mill and cold saw.

 

[Pigeon No9]

Do a search on here as the minimum flow rate needed has been mentioned a few times.

My main concern with a cheap pump would be failure. Either fit some sort of flow alarm (probably a good idea whichever pump you use) or just get a cheap torch.

A central heating pump would be easier than a fuel pump as you would need some sort of power supply for a fuel pump. You could probably find a tank connector suitable to mount the inlet side directly to the tank but might need a stack of reducers to go on the outlet or you could just weld one up?

The flowrate is not my main concern as both central heating pump and fuel pump exceed that greatly (the 5L/min). What I'm most interested in, is if the internals would hold up with the coolant chemicals.
Actually from a power perspective I would much prefer to have a 12v pump rather than line voltage, as in addition to pump I will also need to power fans with rgb (joking. or am I?) and alarm for flow sensor. This definitely makes sense as not only because the pump might fail, but the lines could get clogged on the torch end or whatever else.

 

[Pigeon No9]

Welcome, I have a very good friend in Ogre, he is an expert welder, maybe you have heard of him, Ramoto limited, Juris, or George in English! he may have something for sale?

Nice to read familiar names where you expect none. I have not heard of him. but I only very recently have started to take interest in the topic, so maybe he'll come to my attention someday. If he has something used for sale, I would be willing to take a look.

 

[Pigeon No9]

I've had one of these in use for the last year or so:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Hot-Wate...038743?hash=item1f174efd17:g:k2QAAOSwxj1fYDZC

Seems to do the trick... I bought another two to use as coolant circulation pumps on the mill and cold saw.

This looks promising as the internals are all copper. What coolant do you use, if that's not a well guarded family secret?

 

[HughF]

This looks promising as the internals are all copper. What coolant do you use, if that's not a well guarded family secret?

water out of my well it looks a bit cloudy with all the suspended clay particles...

 

[Pigeon No9]

water out of my well it looks a bit cloudy with all the suspended clay particles...

Okay, was hoping you use some sort of antifreeze, to comment on internals holding up. It regularly freezes where I live during winter, so something more than water must be used and that is what usually gets these (that's what I've understood from forums, at least). But the all copper / brass inner parts give me hope, that this might be among top options. Aside from central heating pump, that is. Those things look like they are built to hold up. and I think I might have one somewhere.

 

[hotponyshoes]

The flowrate is not my main concern as both central heating pump and fuel pump exceed that greatly (the 5L/min). What I'm most interested in, is if the internals would hold up with the coolant chemicals.
Actually from a power perspective I would much prefer to have a 12v pump rather than line voltage, as in addition to pump I will also need to power fans with rgb (joking. or am I?) and alarm for flow sensor. This definitely makes sense as not only because the pump might fail, but the lines could get clogged on the torch end or whatever else.

The flow rate is the main concern as that's the only thing that's stopping the torch melting.
You will get back pressure from the torch so just because a pump is rated at 100lpm it might deliver nothing like that once connected to a tig torch with 1mm pipes compared to a heating system with 22mm pipes.

Either use a pump that is known to be good enough or test any other kind of pump you like. Or just try it and see what happens.

I would expect a central heating pump to be ok with antifreeze, and the type hugh has linked to above.
You also have plenty of choices of antifreeze or corrosion inhibitors you can use so you could choose one to suit the pump and torch.

Fuel pumps I an nkt so sure about. I have ones that have failed due to minor amounts of water build up or contaminated fuel. Petrol/diesel is nothing like water so I'm not sure how the pumps will be at coping with it and any additives in it?

12v makes sense, a pc power supply is cheap enough. You could probably build the whole thing inside a pc case if you wanted and fill it with as many led lights as possible. More useful would be the temperature display and fan speed controllers you get that fit straight into a drive bay which could easily be used to provide fan-on-demand.

You could wire up the leds so they come on blue but change to red and sound an alarm if the flow stops or the water gets too hot.

 

[tom2207]

The flowrate is not my main concern as both central heating pump and fuel pump exceed that greatly (the 5L/min). What I'm most interested in, is if the internals would hold up with the coolant chemicals.
Actually from a power perspective I would much prefer to have a 12v pump rather than line voltage, as in addition to pump I will also need to power fans with rgb (joking. or am I?) and alarm for flow sensor. This definitely makes sense as not only because the pump might fail, but the lines could get clogged on the torch end or whatever else.

just use distilled water and as long as the place it lives never freezes your grand , or add a splash of antifreeze again if its inside it wont take much and the rust inhibitors will be a bonus , it runs round car engines happily enough , and if it leaks , try another pump ,,, id not be running expensive torches either though as HPShoes mentioned.

 

[Munkul]

Use glycol based antifreeze, or ideally, the proper TIG coolant which is low-conductivity.
A WP18 sized torch needs next to no flow - I had an 8m wp18 on my old 250a AC/DC machine and used a weedy pond pump with a tiny pressure head - like 1.5m or so - and it never, ever, got hot.
A Wp20 sized torch needs a GOOD pump with 1.5 lpm + flow and a few bar pressure.

 

[Barlidge]

Mk2 Galaxy's and Sharans (prob lots of other cars also) have a run on pump which circulates hot water to the rear heater so is 12v and designed to run constantly and be exposed to heat/antifreeze, not sure of the flow rate though, the link below is the pump but I'm sure you could pick one up 2nd hand and the brushes are easy to change.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Water-Pu...epid=0&hash=item4d67919c18:g:ge8AAOSwI2xbXCR~

 

[frank horton]

there are some really nice BRONZE pumps on eBay...Look at "bronze central heating pumps".....
they can have 1/2 or 3/4 BSP fittings....around £65 each.....I bought 3 for use in the solar water heaters for the swiming pool and hot tub plus 1 spare.....