Waylander
New member
Like everyone, I have been following the beckett vs needlewheel debate. I have beckett skimmers and have played with needlewheels but kept coming back to the becketts. Needlewheels have improved at the point of air/water mix - better needlewheels. I started wondering what could be done at the air/water point of becketts. Simple and obvious as it turns out.
The trend has been to go to larger and larger pumps to , basically, force water through faster so that it 'tears' smaller bits of air off of 4 large air inlets. I sealed the 4 large inlets and used a 1/16 bit to drill 24 smaller holes around the beckett (2 rows at the same level as original holes). It seemed logical that moving water would tear smaller bits of air off of 24 smaller inlets than 4 large air inlets. The logic is correct.
I have a DIY 10" diameter, 32" high beckett that I was driving with a mag 18. With the modified beckett, it did not matter to bubble size if I ran it with the air restricted or wide open. Of course, with unrestricted air, bubbles flooded the sump. I was getting enough air that I had to restrict it AND lower the water level in the skimmer to keep from flooding the cup. Out of curiousity, I tried a mag12 and had the same results. Basically, it becomes a matter of how much air do you want - at much lower velocity (read turbulence inside the skimmer). I don't have anything smaller but as soon as I can find a lower flow pump, I expect the resuts will be the same. I'll have to play with it this weekend to verify it but this might remove the complaint that becketts have to have such serious pumps to work efficiently.
With the size and number of holes that I used - on the mag 18 and mag 12 - it looked like whipped cream. Both pumps could fill the skimmer and start flooding the sump It will be interesting to try smaller pumps. There are several things that I would (and will probably get around to trying - sometime) like to try like varying hole size and number of holes. I definitely won't need more air but it would be interesting to see if one could use more and smaller holes, perhaps with an air pump, and really get into some large scale applications.
What do you think?
The trend has been to go to larger and larger pumps to , basically, force water through faster so that it 'tears' smaller bits of air off of 4 large air inlets. I sealed the 4 large inlets and used a 1/16 bit to drill 24 smaller holes around the beckett (2 rows at the same level as original holes). It seemed logical that moving water would tear smaller bits of air off of 24 smaller inlets than 4 large air inlets. The logic is correct.
I have a DIY 10" diameter, 32" high beckett that I was driving with a mag 18. With the modified beckett, it did not matter to bubble size if I ran it with the air restricted or wide open. Of course, with unrestricted air, bubbles flooded the sump. I was getting enough air that I had to restrict it AND lower the water level in the skimmer to keep from flooding the cup. Out of curiousity, I tried a mag12 and had the same results. Basically, it becomes a matter of how much air do you want - at much lower velocity (read turbulence inside the skimmer). I don't have anything smaller but as soon as I can find a lower flow pump, I expect the resuts will be the same. I'll have to play with it this weekend to verify it but this might remove the complaint that becketts have to have such serious pumps to work efficiently.
With the size and number of holes that I used - on the mag 18 and mag 12 - it looked like whipped cream. Both pumps could fill the skimmer and start flooding the sump It will be interesting to try smaller pumps. There are several things that I would (and will probably get around to trying - sometime) like to try like varying hole size and number of holes. I definitely won't need more air but it would be interesting to see if one could use more and smaller holes, perhaps with an air pump, and really get into some large scale applications.
What do you think?
I was totally filling the skimmer (24" of 10" body with 8" of 3 1/2" neck) and backfilling to the sump. I just don't have the 'numbers' to quantify this but I think this may actually put people to looking for smaller pumps for the beckett.
