Cure your noisy pumps by balancing the impeller

[Frag Factory]

Hey all,

 

Literally had this brainwave about an hour ago, thought I would share.

 

I picked up a Jecod SW2 for a quarantine/frag system I'm putting together in my office. The problem was the noise, it was awful.

 

Here is before:

 

I tried tracking down the noise, I took the pump off the mount and just held it. I could not believe how much it was vibrating.

 

Taking the pump apart I was hoping to find a lose part, a poorly fitting shaft or similar. Nothing like the such was found.

 

The only moving part in pumps like these is the impeller, so the I knew the issue was there. The coil and everything else is solid state and just works by electro magnetism.

 

Then a brainwave hit... when I used to race drones I put a lot of effort into balancing the propellers to avoid vibration so I could get really smooth flight, I had to balance the impeller here.

 

The basic idea was to test the "balance" of the impeller by floating it on a steel shaft between two magnets.

 

Unfortunately we can't do that with aquarium pumps because the impeller is attached to a magnetic core... but this was a quick/ghetto solution.

 

I took the shaft out of the pump and balanced the unit on two Red Bull cans on a level surface.

 

 

The basic idea is to rock the impeller set up and identify which side always settles at the top when it stops. Do this several times to identify this, it's important you get it right or you're going to shift the balance off even further.

 

Once this is done, take some superglue gel and apply a little bit to the out edge of the high spot and test the balance again.

 

 

Keep doing this until when the impeller is rocked on the soda cans it stops because of friction, it does not rock or settle in one particular spot. 

 

It's also worth noting, when the impeller is truly balanced it will settle at any point in a 360 degree rotation. Balance is not the impeller blades settling in the horizontal position all the time.

 

Once this is done, let the glue dry and try it again. Here is my pump after 5 mins of balancing and 2 small dots of glue.

 

This is after:

 

Not perfect, but much much better.

 

I'm going to be getting a 150mm shaft and build a real magnetic jig for this to balance the impeller properly and get it perfect. My current drone balancer is far too short.

 

Hope it helps!

[Christopher Marks]

Great DIY writeup @Frag Factory, thanks for sharing! Good wisdom from your drone hobby!

[Frag Factory]

So did anyone try this?

 

I ordered some magnets from China to make up a real balancer, should I post a tutorial?