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Upgrade from backpack system.

Azz1

Member
Messages
57
Location
Manchester
evening everyone I believe that they could be a ' upgrade ' as to the backpack system. E.g I have seen green Pro clean strip down his back pack. Is this the only way ? is anyone have been manual for this please car any ideas how to go on about doing this. I know I can get a 500 litre tank and do our that way but I don't have the space for this on my car. thank you

 
Sorry, I can't really tell what you're trying to do. You can strip the parts out of a backpack and make it so you can put one end of the hose in a barrel if that's what you mean? That would mean only having to change the lid over when switching barrels. 

I did this at one point, think I did a pretty poor job of it as it would very rarely actually work.

Another option (and what i'm doing within the next few weeks), is to get a submersible pump and transfer the water to the backpack that way.

You could also make a DIY trolley out of the parts from a backpack. 

 
Sorry, I can't really tell what you're trying to do. You can strip the parts out of a backpack and make it so you can put one end of the hose in a barrel if that's what you mean? That would mean only having to change the lid over when switching barrels. 

I did this at one point, think I did a pretty poor job of it as it would very rarely actually work.

Another option (and what i'm doing within the next few weeks), is to get a submersible pump and transfer the water to the backpack that way.

You could also make a DIY trolley out of the parts from a backpack. 
Sorry. Yeah I was thinking of the usual way for wfp. Take the pole straight out of the van. And it's ready to go straight away. I have a back pack at the minute and lots of 25 litre barrels. It's back breaking keep filling the backpack up with barreled water. I have now got a submersible pump like yourself and just keep transferring when I need it. Thanks anyway ?

 
@Azz1 you’re the same boat as me mate. Hoping to get a much bigger car/pickup in a couple of months to have a proper little system in it (I’ll build it myself). I think with regards to stripping the the backpack down is that the pump can struggle if you have a lot of hose - the backpack and a pole would normally say have 40 feet of hose between it and up to the top of the pole. If you add on a hose reel it can struggle to pump water with enough pressure. Have a look at this guys video on YouTube. His setup is done very cheap and very well by the look of it. You might want a tank rather than barrels and maybe slightly better components etc, but it shows it doesn’t need to cost a fortune to start with and can always upgrade in the future.

PS. I have got some 10 litre barrels I’m using at the moment instead of 25’s. Bit of a faff filling the backpack more often but it makes an amazing difference on my back and shoulders ?




 
Sorry. Yeah I was thinking of the usual way for wfp. Take the pole straight out of the van. And it's ready to go straight away. I have a back pack at the minute and lots of 25 litre barrels. It's back breaking keep filling the backpack up with barreled water. I have now got a submersible pump like yourself and just keep transferring when I need it. Thanks anyway ?
Most of my work is more suited to trolley use and this is why I never went the backpack route. I opted to spend my money on a trolley that would take 25L barrels. That way all I have to do is lift the barrel onto my trolley. I fill the barrels is situ using a 1" transfer hose so the only time I lift a full barrel is between the car and the trolley when at work. When they go back in the car they are empty and so are nice and light.

By the way my trolley is a stripped down Pure Freedom trolley that uses backpack parts, except for the PWM controller which I sourced from eBay. It's almost half the weight of the original trolley.

 
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I think Gardiner recommend no more than 20m of hose on their backpacks. So smaller motors will struggle/burn out on 100m of hose you might also burn out the controller?

 
evening everyone I believe that they could be a ' upgrade ' as to the backpack system. E.g I have seen green Pro clean strip down his back pack. Is this the only way ? is anyone have been manual for this please car any ideas how to go on about doing this. I know I can get a 500 litre tank and do our that way but I don't have the space for this on my car. thank you
If you are thinking about butchering a backpack to make a van mounted system then don't bother. It will not last as the small diaphragm pumps bore is tiny and they are never robust enough. They use a piddly RC car motor which zero torque. 

You'd need a far greater sized leisure battery longer hoses and then the pump won't give you pressure and flow more than 25m away. 

I use my own trolley system and a van mount system I built myself.

Self builds are simple

Ps

Don't think about using the family school run car with a 500L tank ratchet strapped into it 

 
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I think Gardiner recommend no more than 20m of hose on their backpacks. So smaller motors will struggle/burn out on 100m of hose you might also burn out the controller?
This is because the pumps are only rated at 40psi if memory serves. If you run them with no controller or flat out with long lengths of hose, they will start cycling (switching on and of really quickly). If you are working away from your van you won’t hear it and they will burn through micro switches like crazy. With short lengths of hose this is less likely to happen. So if you work with a trolley or backpack with short lengths of hose your fine. I use a 70psi version acquired from eBay. Been running it for three years with no issues.

 
This is because the pumps are only rated at 40psi if memory serves. If you run them with no controller or flat out with long lengths of hose, they will start cycling (switching on and of really quickly). If you are working away from your van you won’t hear it and they will burn through micro switches like crazy. With short lengths of hose this is less likely to happen. So if you work with a trolley or backpack with short lengths of hose your fine. I use a 70psi version acquired from eBay. Been running it for three years with no issues.
And you also use the pump in conjunction with a relay.

 
I use a backpack (Gardiner), hose reel with 100m of hose and barrels. Never had a burn out of any switches etc, pack doesn't struggle to give me plenty of pressure either, even at full extension and doing three storie homes. I did try the dismantling route on a old backpack I had but it didn't work at all.

Lugging barrels I still a bit of a pain but in my vw t5 I have enough space to move them about easy enough to empty them out when a top up is required.

 
And you also use the pump in conjunction with a relay.
Indeed I do!  That was a very good tip shared by someone on the forums a few years back. I only do this because I find the 4 sec test cycle on the Digital controllers more than a bit irritating when working with a short length of inflexible PU pole hose as I do.

It's interesting to see how the different jets affect the pump. If I'm using 50 or 100° fans I can't run the pump flat out as its too powerful.  There's only so much water you can force through them before the back pressure reaches 70psi and trips the pressure switch. The pressure switch and relay will start chattering at about 70-75% on the controller. I find with my current setup, 60-65% is plenty to get a nice flood of water on the glass for cleaning. Any more pressure and the water vaporises too much. You see clouds of it floating up and over the rooftops on a sunny day. It's quite entertaining but wasteful ?

 
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I use a backpack (Gardiner), hose reel with 100m of hose and barrels. Never had a burn out of any switches etc, pack doesn't struggle to give me plenty of pressure either, even at full extension and doing three storie homes. I did try the dismantling route on a old backpack I had but it didn't work at all.

Lugging barrels I still a bit of a pain but in my vw t5 I have enough space to move them about easy enough to empty them out when a top up is required.
If you are using 100m of hose on a reel I guess it's not PU pole hose. It's likely to be a bigger bore (ID) which will reduce the load on the pump considerably especially if its 8mm ID. I started out with 25m of mini bore, then switched to 25m microbore but just didn't like lugging the weight around. I find now that 20m of PU pole hose does just about everything on my round. In many places I'm only using a 12m length when doing a run of fronts. Lovely and light but does mean I can't use a full spec digital controller for the reason explained in my other post.

 
I use a backpack (Gardiner), hose reel with 100m of hose and barrels. Never had a burn out of any switches etc, pack doesn't struggle to give me plenty of pressure either, even at full extension and doing three storie homes. I did try the dismantling route on a old backpack I had but it didn't work at all.

Lugging barrels I still a bit of a pain but in my vw t5 I have enough space to move them about easy enough to empty them out when a top up is required.
I did the same for a bout a year, no trouble. I used microbore. The only issue i had was the noise of the pump, i used to sound like it was shaking my van! I know have a shurflo pump and you can hardly hear it... bliss ??

 
If you are using 100m of hose on a reel I guess it's not PU pole hose. It's likely to be a bigger bore (ID) which will reduce the load on the pump considerably especially if its 8mm ID. I started out with 25m of mini bore, then switched to 25m microbore but just didn't like lugging the weight around. I find now that 20m of PU pole hose does just about everything on my round. In many places I'm only using a 12m length when doing a run of fronts. Lovely and light but does mean I can't use a full spec digital controller for the reason explained in my other post.
Your right @Marko067 it's 100m of pure freedom hose on a reel and then connected to some Gardiner reinforced pole hose, I rarely use the full length. I'd guess I use 30-50 meters typically gets used but it's nice to know there's plenty in reserve. You mention pencil and fan jets before, I wonder the same, If the jet makes a marked difference. I use two 50 degree fan jets in my 30cm supreme brush with the dial on the back pack around 50% power, maybe less but certainly not any more.

For me this works well, not perfect but without a dedicated van system being installed well enough for my work load of 5-6 hours a day. I use my van for all sorts of stuff including sleeping when camping so I never want anything bolted down or to bulky to get in and out.

 
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I did the same for a bout a year, no trouble. I used microbore. The only issue i had was the noise of the pump, i used to sound like it was shaking my van! I know have a shurflo pump and you can hardly hear it... bliss ??
The noise will likely be because it was cycling rapidly causing the pressure switch to chatter. Sounds awful when it does this. You can't help but know something is not right. The small pumps should sound rapid but smooth as opposed the the slow quite Sureflo's

Even my 100psi Sureflo when I was using it couldn't cope with 25m PU pole hose on full power even with 2mm pencil jets. It was fine with 6mm ID microbore but not the 5.5mm of the PU.

 
The thing I found with trolley was pumps lasted a year or 2 then died think cos used smaller pumps hence quality not as good. I'm hoping now I got expensive Gardiner pump it will last 3/4 years...

Then again bought expensive controller once from pure freedom lasted 11 months. ?

 
One of the problems with using these small pumps for window cleaning is that the pumps were not designed for our use. They are designed to service faucets in caravans and boats where they are used just a few times each day and with hardly any back pressure for the pump to work against.

When we put them in our systems and they fail it's not because the pumps are rubbish. It's because they are being used for something they weren't designed for. It's like taking a household vacuum cleaner and vacuuming the road outside our house. It will suck up dirt for a while, but not for long.

If we take their design into consideration when we fit them in our systems and build in protection they can be made to work quite well.

Ie: #1. Use either a good controller that will look after it with proper CAL settings that will kick in before the onboard pressure switch which is not designed to be switched on and off continually throughout the day. 

Or #2. A much cheaper alternative, use a plain PWM controller with no CAL feature, and fit a 40amp relay to handle the switching current to the pump. (Wiring diagrams have been posted on the forums showing how to do this)
This will still need to be calibrated, but manually.

To calibrate such a system manually, connect your reel and pole with preferred Jets. Turn your system on and open your preferred tap. (Example: Univalve) 
Start with a low flow setting and turn it up gradually till you hear the pump starting to cycle (run rough) then dial it back till it runs smooth. Job done 

Having done this, if you don't get enough flow for cleaning then you need a pump with a higher PSI rating, not necessarily a higher flow rating (4-5lpm should be fine)

Also if using more than 20-30m of hose, use a larger bore hose, say 6mm or even better 8mm ID to reduce back pressure and internal turbulence issues.

Out of interest I recently stripped down my trolley for maintenance and took apart my pump. After nearly three years there were hardly any signs of wear to either the motor brushes or the internals of the actual pump mechanism. I was quite impressed to say it's used three to four days a week and is worked pretty hard during that time.

 
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