How do I reduce power to pond pump ?

[BADGER.BRAD]

Hello Everyone,

I have acquired a pond pump which is a lot too powerful for my needs, It has no method of controlling the pump so I am looking to control it separately has anyone any ideas ? I did think about using a dimer switch but I'm not sure if this would upset the motor ! It is over running my original filter set up .

Many thanks for any help.

Brad

 

[Profpointy]

mine had a little screw on the outlet pipe which allowed water to bypass the pipe to the filter (or wherever it was being pumped). You adjusted this bypass thing - until you got the number of buckets per minute you wanted in the filter.

A dimmer switch might or might not be suitable depending on the nature of the dimmer & the motor.

 

[Garz]

Sounds like you could look into a variable frequency drive.

 

[slowmotion]

Plumb in a by-pass circuit with a throttle valve. If it's a mains voltage pump, electronic/electrical speed control is possible, but the expense of providing it (depending on the motor type) might be quite unattractive. I have no idea what the running costs are.

 

[ayceejay]

Does the water go from the pump through a tube of some kind to a waterfall or a fountain? Is the pump flow adjustable? If not you need to restrict the flow through the 'tube' either by squeezing it or puncturing it.

 

[ufkacbln]

You can control the water input

Get a long bolt and two jubilee clips

Place the bolt along the inlet pipe and fix with the clips. Tightening the clips will act as a choke and reduce the water flow

Alternately you can get a control valve that splits the out flow (usually for a fountain and waterfall) which can feed part of the outflow back into the pond

As seen on this pump:

Turning the valve then alters how much output flow goes each way

 

[Browser]

You can control the water input

Get a long bolt and two jubilee clips

Place the bolt along the inlet pipe and fix with the clips. Tightening the clips will act as a choke and reduce the water flow

Alternately you can get a control valve that splits the out flow (usually for a fountain and waterfall) which can feed part of the outflow back into the pond

As seen on this pump:

Turning the valve then alters how much output flow goes each way

In my limited experience of pumps, don't they prefer throttled discharge to suction? I would have thought throttling the suction might lead to caavitation? Anyhoo, I wouldn't bother with the variable voltage to the motor solutions, just get a plastic Hozelock/Blagdon valve of the correct size from a garden centre and fit it on the discharge (assuming you can?) and restrict it that way. Can you remeber what make/model pump you have?

 

[BADGER.BRAD]

Thanks for you help everyone,much appreciated. I knew there was a problem with motors and the way dimmer switch's worked but wasn't sure if this was all motor types !
I managed to acquire a dimmer switch from a chap at work I wired it in circuit and gave it a try, there were two working settings full on or off ! anything in between caused the pump to start jumping around in the pond almost like a fish out of water ! I have now decided to enlarge the pond at the end of the season so the bigger pump may well come in useful but will have to either mod the output from my filter system ( use a bigger output pipe) or just build a new bigger filter. I have placed a number of ghost carp in the pond
which from everything I read will produce more waste than my goldfish and Golden Orfe ( although they are not as fussy as Koi) so the bigger filter Idea may well be the best idea.

Thanks all for your help

Brad