Tiny Might skimmer rockin'

The piston in that pumps travels back and forth in a bored pathway. It would be rather hard to bend it. My guess is that the blunt for shock has broken a seal on one of the end plates or in some way damaged one of the check valves. I would take it all apart and do some forensic eyeballing... then clean it up and put it back together.

Bean
 
I also had a pump that took a header and was not working all that great so I figured that the damage was done and took it all apart. I could not find anything that was broken or bent and put it all back together. When I fired it back up it worked fine. I think that when it took the spill it must have just knocked it out of whack.
 
Well no such luck. I took it apart and don't really see any apparent damage. Put it back together and it is still only pushing about 70-80 scfh. This is just not cool. Good news is the skimmer is still pumping the crap out. I guess I will just run it at 70 or so until I can find a good deal on a small Alita. I think the
Alita 40 will be too much for it, but that is as small as you can get now. I guess I can turn it down with a gate valve like Spazz and I talked about. I hooked the Alita 60 on it and nearly blew the top off the skimmer. Way too much pump for the job!
 
Don't just restrict the output of the air pumps, but rather bleed it out. If you just restrict it with a valve, it will cause a ton of back pressure on the pump and may rupture your diaphragms very quickly. Bleeding the air instead causes no back pressure to the pump and you can still use al the air you need.
 
Yeah, that is what I have been doing from the start. I ran the Alita 60 bleeding air the whole time it was in operation. Scott mentioned that it won't hurt the alita pumps because of the way they are built. I forget the exact reason it was OK to do, but it sounded logical to me at the time. When you restrict the pump, it does drop the wattage draw. Maybe he can chime in as to the reason it is OK again.
 
the alita pumps are made to handle the head pressures of a deep pond. where other pumps cant. it also has to do with the pumps designs. they can handle the increased back pressure if you put a valve in line because there working on magnetism for its ability to pump the air. its just 2 magnets with a solid steel core that vibrates back and forth with 2 diaphragms with check valves in them. yes there will be increased stress on the diaphragms form the higher pressure, but the alitia pumps can handle that very well because of the better quality diaphragms they use. that is part of the reason there pumps are more expensive. I wouldn't restrict the pump more than 20% though. just to be safe, and have a lot longer life out of the diaphragms.

this is just my opinion though.
 
The alitas may handle more pressure before stalling, but the added pressure is still very hard on the diaphragms.

Scott I hate to disagree with you on this point, but I have spent a lot of time talking to Alita engineers as of late. Let me simply paste a quote in from the lead engineer.

Since we do not have an AL-20A in stock, I cannot test one out, but according to our original pump data, it will deliver ~40 SCFH at ~2 psi.

If you use fine bubble diffusers, than the operating pressure will be higher, our concern is that the 6-20 pump series diaphragm will not last very long against 2+ psi. We cannot say how long because other operating factor is involved. Typically for 24/7, year round operation with diffuser at depth of 2 to 4 ft, the diaphragms on the AL-6A and AL-15A can last over 3 years. At higher pressures, diaphragm life will be reduced, diaphragm replacement period will appear to be frequent, maybe once a year.

And lastly, without a base housing for the air to collect and attenuate the pulsing, the B models have slightly lower maximum pressure capacity.
Click to expand...

The rest of the conversation concerned the AL-40 and up. Though the pressure rating is higher, the advice was the same. He made it very clear that the higher the operating pressure, the shorter the diaphragm life. The advice direct from the factory was to bleed all unused air, as it will increase the diaphragm life significantly.

Not trying to be disagreable... just trying to get the good advice out there.

As for the pumps and wear parts being better and able to handle more pressure and incur less wear than the competition... YES you are 100% accurate! If you kill the Alita diaphragm in 6 months, you can rest assured that the whitewater would NOT have lasted as long.

SMJ..PM me.. I may be able to 'find' you a pump. They are also not badly priced on eBay.

Your pump has likely suffered a hairline crack someplace... spray some soapsuds on the piston covers and gaskets... The wattage goes down under pressure, because the piston slows down. The same idea as the motor drawing less current at reduced flow rates.
 
I am pretty sure it does have a crack somewhere. I put it back together and am running it as is for the time being. It seems to stay at 70-80 scfh and the skimmer is putting out just as much junk as before. I have had it with this thing so it will remain this way until I find a replacement.
 
fiber material

fiber material

Does anyone recognize this stuff? It is a synthetic fiber mat used in construction of some kind. A guy on another forum used this stuff to duplicate the ATI mesh wheel. His results are great to say the least. The problem is that he won't say where he gets it or the name of the product. I would like to try this on the tiny might.
PICT0784.jpg

PICT0785.jpg

PICT0788-1.jpg

PICT0762.jpg
 
Hos is it that you guys are attaching these flowmeters to the pumps? My air pump has a 1/2" diameter outlet that is connected to the skimmer via 1/2" PVC pipes. The outlet of the skimmer cup is also 1/2" pipe. All these dwyer flowmeters I see ahve a 1/4" diameter holes. I don't want to use one of those and reduce the airflow out fo the skimmer increasing the back pressure in it big time. So, how are you guys doing it?
 
I am feeding the air with 3/8 poly tubing. The tubing actually is soft enough that I screwed it into the threaded connection.
 
That is what I thought too. It does have a different density and weave pattern than the dls material. I would like to get my hands on the stuff he used. Where can we get the old DLS material without the other stuff?
 
What forum is that from? What kind of nimrod would post that then not tell anyone where he got it or what it is?
 
He likely thinks he is going to make a fortune reselling the stuff.

Geotextiles are pretty common. Show that photo to any number of vendors that deal with geotextiles and they can tell you what it is and who makes it.

DLS filter material was the biggest rip-off that I can remember from my early fish days. They were selling that stuff for BIG BUCKS... you know back when bio-balls cost a few bucks EACH.
 
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