180g Tank Build - 11 mos. and counting.

Hi Joeogio,

My guess is the marketing claim would be that by spinning less rpm (higher head, less flow, impeller doesn't spin as fast) the seals wouldn't wear as fast, which would seem a reasonable statement.

Blakew

PS If anyone has a Snapper/Dart Hybrid and has a kill-a-watt, I'd love to see what wattage they're actually drawing, cause if they really are drawing 100 watts at 1500 gallons per minute they're pretty damn good. Most of the other pumps don't provide a breakdown of wattage at specific flows like Reeflo does, however, based on max wattage draws, in the few mins I've searched the pumps that can produce similar flows at similar heads as the Snapper, use quite a bit more electricity. So I'm willing to eat my words about wattage draw in the interest of making sure other reefers are helped. It would seem based on published data that using the Snapper impeller on the Snapper/Dart hybrid is more energy efficient than most pumps that can provide similar outputs even when using a partially closed gate valve to restrict the flow. Nothing I found that could provide 1000-1500 gph at between 6 and 9 feet of head came close to matching the published 100 watt draw. Would really love to see someone plug one in to a kill-a-watt and see if it draws more than 105 watts or not.

Ah - I haven't been logged in to see the hoopla! Blakew actually caught me on one thing. I had the impeller names reversed. The Snapper is actually the smaller one, the dart is the larger one. My original question (I must admit I asked it before drawing some efficiency curves or knowing how for that matter) had to do with finding the best efficiency point of your pump - i.e. getting the most work (the physics term) done per watt. After stewing on it for a night, I understand how to calculate everything on paper, but I don't have a way to "tune" the output restriction valve to the BEP. I can probably wing it and get sort of close with a kill-a-watt assuming the power numbers advertised on reeflo's website are accurate, but my original question was whether there was a simple way to do this in the midst of a system with a complex manifold and several different drop points set up.

I'm an engineer! I like efficiency!

BTW, blake - I DO have a kill-a-watt somewhere at home and will certainly be running some numbers with the various states of valve closure. Unfortunately, it doesn't do a whole lot of good to measure this without measuring the head and pipe resistance as you alluded to earlier as it's all relative to the delivery system. I'll do my best though...

Blennyman, the only way to actually tune the pump for best efficiency is with a kill-a-watt and flow meters....you can come close enough for most things with calculations, but to find the best efficiency for your system at your altitude you have to actually take "insitu" measurements...remember as the pipes slime up and "stuff" builds up in the pipes, the friction coefficients will change and the efficiency will have to be retuned all over again...tough but that's the way it is...so usually calcs are close enough

My $0.02

Blakew