Pool Cleaner

I bought a little 2000 Litre pool and it quickly built up a load of dust/dirt on the bottom of it and the cheap pump it came with didn’t seem to be doing much, So I looked at what I had in the garage and figured I could make my own pool cleaning system. I realized the gist of the crap was settling at the bottom so I made a quick ‘Vacuum Cleaner’ type arrangement with some PVC piping and tubing, a pump I use for brewing beer, and some odds and end I picked up from the hard ware store.

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1x 20mm piece of hard PVC (Pressure Pipe) 1m long

2x PVC BSP to 20mm adapters

1 Cap end for the 20mm pipe

Some scraps of PVC Tubing, 20mm inner diameter

Assorted hose clamps.

A generic pool filter.

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I put the BSP to 20mm pipe adapters onto the pump so I could attach the tubing

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And used hose clamps to secure the two pieces of tubing on. the shorter of the two went onto the output.

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I cut the hard PVC pipe into two lengths, one about 300mm long and the other 700mm. With the shorter of the two pipes I used a 12mm drill bit to make some holes for the water to flow through.

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I used some PVC glue to keep the cap on strong. I wiped the excess away so I could put the filter on straight away.

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Slid the pool filter onto the pipe. fits perfectly!

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And I used a simple cable tie to keep the filter in place. it fit so well I didn’t need to use any other seals, I had expected to have to glue it on permanently or make some sort of rubber washer but it was fine.

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The whole output assembly ready to go.

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Time to have a test. I tried it without the pipe extension first but it wasn’t really long enough so I am glad I had it

2016-02-13 11.12.36Time to test, I had previously swirled the water around in the pool to get it to form in the middle

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Works great!

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It could work better though, I need a narrower nozzle, more ‘vacuum cleaner’ ish. I heated the end of the tube up with a little butane torch, put an old chisel inside to keep the shape roughly and then held it down with a hammer. ugly, but it works.

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The final system, works great!

I will probably make some sort of large flat base thing that’s better and collecting just from the bottom. but this project was a quick easy success! since I already had the pump, tubing scraps and hose-clamps it cost me next to nothing.

 

Update: I put a bucket lid on the end and it works significantly better now http://pyrocam.com/pool-cleaner-re-visited