Interchangeable Needlewheels

[A sea K]

Does anyone know if a needlewheel from a Sedra magnet can be used on a Eheim magnet?
I want to try a meshmod on my Ehiem but am afraid to damage it.
My plan is to get a standard Eheim impeller/magnet and swap it out with the impeller piece from my already meshed Sedra impeller but I'm not sure if this will work.

 

[luke33]

Just add some mesh to it, its not going to damage your impeller in any way.

 

[A sea K]

I had to cut the pins off and drill two extra holes for the sedra mod. only difference I can tell between the sedra and ER impeller is the ER is black and a little softer. If I follow this procedure, the ER impeller will be useless and a replacement is $100.00

 

[wife no likey]

that's exactly what I did. I cut the impeller blades off a 1262 impeller and then put the wheel off a Sedra impeller on it. I would love to find a source for just the NW heads BTW - they have to be out there somewhere.

I just had to grind a hair off of the top of the Eheim impeller to get the Sedra wheel to fit nicely.

Pete

 

[Jim_S]

Thats a good question. I don't know if they are different or not. Does anyone have any pics of a sedra NW to compare it to a pic of an eheim NW?

All ER's NW's are injection molded by ER or another company that does it for ER. I'm sure H&S and Deltec do the same. Prolly not gonna find them seperate.

Jim

 

[A sea K]

pennilessreefer, what did you have to grind, the actual magnet or just some residual glue from the original impeller?
I have no idea where to find just the Sedra needlewheel but I have a spare from both a 5000 and 9000 pump, I knew it would come in handy sooner or later. As a matter of fact, I'm having a hard time finding a Ehiem replacement impeller.

jimdogg187, My Ehiem is currently in use and hard to remove otherwise I would measure them out to see. Other than the obvious shorter needles comparing the 5000/9000 wheels, I was surprised to find that the 5000 wheel is a slightly larger diameter.

 

[Jim_S]

A sea K

YGPM.

 

[wife no likey]

I just had to cut off the paddles and then take at most a 1/2 mm off the diameter of the very top.

Just do it in multiple passes and keep testing the fit. I got it to where I had to push the wheel on by pressing against the workbench, so no adhesive/other mechanincal fastening was needed.

As for a replacement Eheim impeller, I searched far and wide myself, and happened to find this:

https://www.shop.trilbytropicals.com/displayProductDocument.hg?productId=206&categoryId=22

I managed to get an extra off someone from RC for $40 shipped, but I think that this is exactly the same as the 1260/62 version.

 

[A sea K]

Sounds like something I can handle without too much trouble.
Thanks for the link on the impeller, at the least I can call and verify if it is the right one.
I thought getting a standard impeller would be a piece of cake, I really dont understand why they're so hard to find.

 

[A sea K]

pennilessreefer,
I called on the impeller from the link you gave, the one shown is not the right impeller, and they currently do not have the 1262 in stock. They can get them and usually takes about a week. He was unsure of the cost without verifying with his supplier but estimated at around $60.00.

 

[wife no likey]

that's not too bad. . if you go off of eheimparts.com it is $90 or so.

It was a fairly easy mod though. .just go slowly with the grinding


I'm running 4 layers of PF4 on mine BTW.


Pete

 

[hahnmeister]

Heck, you know you can just get the actual needlewheel from Euroreef for $100, right? No modding, no nothing needed.

 

[wife no likey]

yes, we are aware of that . ..thank you

 

[A sea K]

pennilessreefer, I did find the eheimparts impeller, but for $90.00 and as hahnmeister pointed out, it would be easier just to buy the ER impeller. I think the $60.00 impeller from the link you gave me is going to be the cheapest and possibly only other alternative.
When I meshed my Sedra I started with 3 layers and wasnt happy. Not much improvement if any at all and had some pretty bad consistancy issues. I added layers until I got to 5, this seemed to work best, a dense layer of mesh that when trimmed was very uniform and tight. Gave excellent performance but I was too stupid to realize it and got the Eheim looking for better results. I took a step backwards, now have the Ehiem, I like the pump platform, less watts, less heat and more efficient,I just need to improve it little.