tried making an inductor for MJ1200

[kwirky]

Bored and broke tonight, so I dug through various stuff I had kicking around and thought about making an inductor for a maxijet 1200.

made it with a 3/4" threaded plug, a piece of 3/4" pvc pipe, and a peice of 1/4" flex tubing. used a dremel and superglue.

I used this chart here to help in it's design, but I couldn't quite figure out exactly how to read it: http://www.kthsales.com/website/Misc/Low%20pressure%20eductor%20flow%20rates.pdf

information on the MJ1200 here: http://www.reefs.org/library/pumps/pumps/mj1200.html

It didn't even give equal flow to the maxijet with nothing attached to it. I'm suspecting it's one, or a combination of the three:

the maxijet can't provide enough head pressure
the 1/4" flex tubing gives too small a hole
the cut out area of the 3/4" pvc pipe is too large


Any suggestions on how to make it work? I'm thinking of making one using 2" pvc pipe, and using piping the same diameter as the MJ output for the "nozzle". I'm pretty sure the ammount of cut-out area is very important to make it work.

I think it would be cool to turn a $30 pump into an induction pump without having to take it apart and put a model boat prop in it :).

http://www.kwirky88.com/images/aquarium/07-04-19/inductor.jpg
http://www.kwirky88.com/images/aquarium/07-04-19/inductor45.jpg
http://www.kwirky88.com/images/aquarium/07-04-19/inductor90.jpg

[andsoitgoes]

tagging along - I want to modify my MJ1200's to go this route! :)

[kwirky]

Ok I think I have it working. It's very hard to "rate" whether it's improved the flow, but it definately appears to have done so. Basically what I noticed is the water jet coming out of the MJ is wider, which is definately a bonus even if it were to push the exact same gph of water movement.

Without the inductor, at the far end of the tank the water stream's about 8 inches wide. With the inductor it's about 14" wide.

I turkey basted my rocks to put stuff in the water column and turned off all the other pumps in the tank. I noticed about as much stuff being sucked into the openings of the inductor as there was being sucked into the intake of the pump.

I also put my finger inside the inductor so it was about 1/2" away from the nozzle (parallel to it). Then felt the difference in the water flow with my finger next to the nozzle of the MJ pump without the inductor. Again it felt like more flow.

I just wish I had a better way to test how much more flow this is giving. It's quite promising though :)

I think it would work best if the inductor tubing was like 10" long or so, letting the water act in the same way air bubbles pull water in the tubing of an undergravel filter. That would be ridiculous though and not logical to put inside a display tank.

http://www.kwirky88.com/images/aquarium/07-04-19/secondtryclose.jpg

http://www.kwirky88.com/images/aquarium/07-04-19/secondtryfar.jpg