Was hoping you would wind it up to the full 12v

Rubber flaps? I barely know 'er!

From led bulbs to air pumps, I always seem to come back to your videos even though I search for something completely different. You explain well so thank you!

6:22 I hate to correct you but that was an eccentric shaft. Not concentric.

Why didn't you go up to 12V? I wanted to see bubbles! :)

Welcome to 2020, where appliances have resistors specifically to waste energy _when on battery power_

I've had one of these running as the sole air pump on my aquarium since this video came out. I have it plugged into a power bank that is always charging so in the event of a power outage I get about 3 days runtime before the power bank is depleted. I was originally very sceptical of the longevity of the pump, but a year later at 24h/day run time it's still going strong.

the Same construcrion of the pump is used in my old "Fischertechnik" pneumatic compressor(it was running for more than 200h in the last years. My one Runs always at 9v (0.8 to 1bar max) and I had to clean the Rubber flaps for 2 times now, becourse it cant get the full pressure if there is dust on them (They cant realy close ) I as i had it open i Use a little Bit oil on the Motorshaft. on the Rubber flaps and the other moving Parts i used a little Bit of Silikonfat. Now i much more silent and the pressure and airflow stays the Same. Also the Powerdraw Got decresed a lot. So i like it 😉

That was a really cool stroboscopic effect! Almost like you had a high speed camera.

I've bought a few of these. Some are sold as "used" and seem to have been recovered from coffee machines where they're used as frothers.

Thank you so much. This video answered so many questions I had about this pump. I'm building a micro fog machine for electric RC airplanes and needed a micro air pump that would meet certain specs. This video saved me from having to test a bunch of motor combos. This setup will do exactly what I need.

Shove 12 volts into it. I bet that will pump some air then

Fishy Fun Fact: It's not the bubbles coming up through the water that adds air, it's the movement in the surface of the water they cause that does it.

Looks an excellent pump - little to go wrong and a great little motor that even starts at 1V.

Clive I absolutely love how you make yourself laugh with Innuendos. Little rubber flaps is just funny no matter what context but to add in shafts sucking, blowing, silicone covers and pinned flaps is priceless.

Works like an RV water pump, just much smaller and pumps air. Thanks for explaining the need for that resistor. Love your channel.

Got ten of these. Not only can you use them in emergencies or when shipping fish, it is very valuable as a standard air pump because it is alot more quite than other air pumps. Air pumps are usually noisy!

My roommate in 1993 had a fish tank. During a multi day power outage we took turns sitting next to the tank blowing air in. This device would have been much appreciated

Big Clive! Cheers mate fron Texas! You teach me alot, and I have been a commercial high voltage electrician 30+ yrs, 480/277 3 phase...Now, Im into micro-circuitry beyond PLCs! Thank You!!!

Now this was a good recommendation from KZfaq. I am about to buy some of these. So I am glad you made this video. Nice to see how it works

would have liked to see it run at its maximum rated voltage. i think 12 volts it said on the label

Hey, that's the electric supercharger for my Kia Rio.

I know this is an older video (relatively speaking), but just saw this come up. Aquarium Co-Op actually sells a usb air pump. Several uses in the aquarium trade are: low power outdoor pond aeration, low power alternative for running a sponge filter, transporting live fish in a bucket (larger fish for example would be one benefit or as a breeder transporting to a local store to sell), and as mentioned, a backup way to at least keep water flow going.

That is an excentric shaft and no 12 V test?

Everyone wants to see 12V. I myself want 20V

I want to hear BigClive say "Rubber Flaps" more.

This is exactly what I was searching for. Thank you.

That motor is incredible!!

"3-12V" I'm unfulfilled!

That pump would be perfect for agitating PCB etchant.

I live on a narrowboat and am off mains electricity when I travel for four months in the summer. I have four fish tanks onboard and I run five of these pumps on power banks. The pumps run 24/7 and so far this summer they have run for over three months without failing. Brilliant little pumps that can easily replace mains powered units and not just be used for fish transportation etc. Added bonus is they are virtually silent.

Well Clive. I have been looking for one of these to use on my scroll saw to blow the saw dust away. Scroll saw have a bellows pump that run off the arm as the blade runs, but they put out enough air to remove the dust. This one would work perfect. Just need to hook it to the main off/on switch. Thanks for the reminder.

I love my pinned flaps with air holes, also the vibrating is a nice option too.

Ditto on the 12v, but I would also love to see it with as well as without the silicon wrap to see how affects its ability to move air.

Amazed it actually started up on just over a volt! Wow. Great video.

These are really useful. Last year most of the fish in my aquarium died as the power tripped out when we were on holiday. I have connected one of these to a solar panel I put by the window in case the same happens. Disconnecting the resistor improves the performance no end.

Thank you for the idea! I got one of these for my fishing bait bucket. Removed the resistor, attached 4 AAA batteries in a pack with a switch, and am now giving it a longevity test. Way smaller and lighter than the pump I was using that took 2 D cell batteries. I'll report back with success or failure.

I was expecting 12v and some dish soap in the water. What a disappointment.

That is a neat little pump. Good review.

4:41 Definitely almost gave my laptop a good beer based baptism!

the holes on the back are not intakes. They are breathing wholes, they allow the under-piston space to breathe, so that it doesn't have pressurise the chamber.

mmm, this with a vape pen and I could finally have a slow-smoke generator to visualize airflow over heatsinks & such 😳

really enjoyed the format and info there. i wish i knew how to play about with ohms law as good as yourself. You can find out many interesting parameters from using it

A lot of us in the aquarium hobby use these for brine shrimp hatching, good to know the resister is sucking a lot of power, and hell we all use them plugged into the wall XD

What is the load with it at the bottom of the aquarium?

No water splashing everywhere at 12v? =(

I’m in an electronics of automation class in college and I am learning resistors rn. That resistor is a 5 band resistor. If my colors are correct, that is a 51 Ohm resistor. The first three bands are numbers, the 4th band is a multiplier, and the 5th is for tolerance (black means it has no +/- tolerance.)

Thank you

In case I want to take my goldfish backpacking.

Ooh, hey, an "X" rated Big Clive video! - Steady laddie, you'll be getting censored!

I think one of your piezo air pump videos was one of the very first ones I ever saw, so this brings back good memories. If you could somehow isolate the motor from the pump section I wonder how well this would work to pump water. Motor would probably draw a lot more current.

Just found your channel - as an electronic numpty I envy your knowledge - but excited by the knowledge I will gain by watching your channel - reverse engineering at its best ! Thank you !

I'd be interested in seeing it at lower voltages with the rubber condom installed. It might reduce the air flow. When you come right down to it, at 1.5V it made plenty of air for a 1 gallon (4 liter) fish tank.

A continuous Foamy whoofler!

Effective and efficient designers are cool and skilled

thanks! i really need to know what inside of those air pump ! great useful video

I’ve gone through 3 of these in 6 month. Really quiet but don’t last long. I don’t think the motors are designed for constant running.

It occurs to me that, if the current draw is low enough, you could get one of those Dollar Tree (or Poundland, etc... I live in the US, plz don't judge lol) solar pathway lights and replace the LED with one of these. Obviously a little circuit trickery would be necessary to make it run continuously, since the pathway lights generally turn off in daylight... and of course a bigger battery would be in order as well. If you then completely sealed the motor and the mechanical connection from motor to pump, so water absolutely couldn't get into the motor, you'd have a submersible pond pump for an incredibly low cost overall... and with a few bits, here and there, of outdoor rated plastic (or stuff that isn't, such as polypropylene food containers, but covered in something that is, like a cheap tarpaulin or UV-resistant black plastic sheet for the garden, if you can get it in non-perforated form), along with a bit of rock and some cheap plants... hey, water garden on a "the rent is too **** high" (which it always is :-/ ) kinda budget. I may have to do that myself someday. I'm not so great with plants, to say the least (I have stories... ohhh, believe me, I have stories!) but, hey, if they water themselves... ;)

I'm using the same pumps for our outdoor "water feature" that somehow got some gold fish in it. It's running off solar power battery citcuit ..... that resistor is getting chopped off tomorrow ! I should add that one of them survived for almost 12 months and only the recent -5 degree C managed to kill it :) Thanks Clive :) 3 months later... Just took another one apart and fixed the motor brushes to keep it working until a replacement arrives. Noticed it works at 30mA only when there is no load on it. If you stick the stone in water it rises to 70mA. This is without the resistor. Still a lot better than without chopping it off :)

I'm glad you looked at these I've been trying to come up with a economical air pump for my fish tanks the comments are inspiring AC pump etc

I think it's called a swashplate pump; fairly common in hydraulic systems, though running much higher pressures. Interestingly, some hydraulic motors also use this to take compressed fluid and produce rotary motion from it. Though, the construction is slightly different, rather than an eccentric drive, they use two plates parallel but at an angle to the axis of rotation, and the pistons align the plates with ball and socket joints on the driven (load) end, and fluid intake / outlet split. Particularly handy as you also get a universal joint built into the motor.

You could use it to bubble your drink on this nights stream...maybe exchange air by something different :)

There are a lot of impressive things in modern consumer electronics. But one of the things that consistently surprises me the most is what can be done by a simple DC motor like this.

Nice little backup pump. and it would be perfect for fishing!

That's a 3 phase air compressor! I was just taking apart a similar pump used for bait - it takes 2 D batteries. Not having any I was trying to modify it to take AA. To my surprise, the batteries were wired in parallel, only 1.5v total, and the pump pumps as much as yours does with full voltage. The motor is smaller and only has one chamber though. Runs forever on a pair of 1.2v rechargeable AAs, but I didn't measure the current. I've taken several of these apart over the years and never could quite figure out where the air intake is!

I guess the motor is a typical DC brushed motor, which creates some interesting high voltage spikes as the commutator disconnects, so I wonder if the resistor is there to suppress those voltage spikes. A capacitor would have been easier and more reliable so perhaps not. Either way, I don't think I would risk it putting noise back down the USB 5V line to a PC. A remarkably efficient wee beastie though.

I used one of these battery air pumps with a E cig heater to make a smoke machine for a Robot project and a space ship project I did years ago. Great little air pumps.

I have a couple of usb power backups that don't do mains passthrough, though they do allow solar passthrough. This would be perfect for those because as soon as the mains went down it would power the pump. Since they are also solar you could set it in the window and it would give you a little more time.

Interesting, looks like a miniature car ac compressor.

By the way: The pump current consumption will be reliant on the backpressure so deeper water means more current.

Similar design to a little dual port pump I have that can pull a surprisingly decent vacuum. Also very useful for popping out rubber syringe pistons if the head gets stuck and the shaft pulls out.

3:20 Notice the current draw increase when blocking the output.

5-1-0 is 51ohms

I've got one of these air pumps disassembled on my desk right now. It's a really clever design! If you put the end of the hose in your mouth, you can make talk-box sounds! :) Also, the motor windings measure 3.6 Ω.

Swash plate pump principle. Offers great flow rate and power control options.

I actually wanna buy this, this video make me more confident

WAT NO 12v?!

I would assume the resistor is either to increase the voltage dropped across the cable and thus slow down the motor or a poorly conceived back EMF protection device. If so, not sure why they didn’t just use a diode, maybe they got a good deal on 2W resistors that day in the Shenzhen? Also not that it matters with the symmetrical design but looks to me like they're running it in reverse, red dot on the motor isn't connected to the red wire?

Now you know how a car air conditioner pump works. It’s just a smaller version. Great video 👏

Those little pumps are great, make nice solder suckers as well as hot air pens. Very nice plant waterers too, the one I bought it used as a water dispenser, it plonks on top of a jug, contains a battery and usb charger.

With that resistor removed it looks like a great candidate for running off a small solar cell with a couple of NiHM... Clive, cross-breed it with an LED garden lamp!

When the pump was running open, those looked like the pistons in a tiny Wenkel Rotary engines like the one in the Mazda RX cars!

I have an almost identical pump that's ment for water instead of air. The only difference is that it has a second intake nozzle on the front, as a result it has a slightly different valve setup but apart from that it's the same (though it's a lot more powerful and A LOT louder when pumping air). I'll check if it also has those passages that this one uses for the intake.

I use one of these for a little hydroponics setup in a noodle pot. I grow a chilli plant, it's small but nearly 2 years old. I can't wait to see inside. I almost forgot to add I run it from a solar panel when I can.

1:45 circumcision on screen man you gotta censor that kind of thing these days

These little 3 diaphragm pumps are all over the place in various sizes. They pump the air in automatic sphygmomanometers (blood pressure meters) and in the cheap newer low voltage compressors for medication nebulizers, they are in Keurig style coffee brewers to pressurize the boiler tank with air and push the water out through the K-Cup, and they are even used to pump the fresh water in RVs/campers/travel trailers/caravans and in water pressure booster pumps for reverse osmosis water filter systems.

I like it..Lots of uses..

Are you sure that component was a resistor? I've seen several inductors in that package, size and colouring. Saying that not sure what use an inductor across a dc motor would be as the obvious choice for noise suppression would be a capacitor.

I beat Clive to working out the pump resistor value! The gold multiplier on the resistor is 0.1 so 510 x 0.1 = 51 Ohms. Do I get a gold star?

Good video! 👍🏾

Hi Clive, I have just pulled exactly the same pump out of an old faulty blood pressure meter (battery leakage damage). The one I pulled from the meter also came “other goodies” including a miniature 6V air solenoid valve and a pressure relief valve.

I been running one non stop for over a year without issue in a small aquarium. super quiet also.

oh such a handy video for my main hobby.Thanks clive

Awesome tear down, i have this running my nano shallow tank, connected to a 27000 mah powerbank with pass through charging.

It would be interesting to see how it fares in deeper water, I've found with my small mains powered aquarium pumps that the air flow decreases the deeper the stone is in.

Very good video!!

Very nice pump.

if i would have ever thought of that pump mechanism, i would have thought it wouldn't be power efficiant enough for any pocket size pump, but it's actually really genious in mu eyes :)

This would be great for those with aquariums in their cars. Super handy.