Mini USB air pump teardown.

I was hoping you'd bang it up to 12V too!

Was hoping you'd bring it up to 12V, the motor is rated at 3-12V?

Surely on the verge of Perpetual Motion if blowing air out on 1.5V. Could it push a turbine to power itself?

Andrew Donaldson

Doesn’t the regular refresh rate allow a reduction in the harmonic❓our eyes pick up on the different because of visual dissonance

Cerity

Might be a good aerator for a small ornamental fish pond where there is no mains power.

Charles Bruckner

I have never seen a screw driver that is teal and pink.

Solar panel stick light used in garden, allowing it to run whenever there’s sun 👍 and slightly after sunset... definitely want to keep the motor shaded to keep from overheating, whether on 1.2V nimh, 3V button, 3.7 lithium. That motor is really something

Cerity

The shutter speed interaction with the bellows was very interesting! Similar to the effect you get on propellers, just slightly different.

Bizarrely I just bought a packet of penguin biscuits about an hour ago. The first pack in years. I may go and test the yellow one now.

Big Clive

It is voltage dependent.

Big Clive

Yes. You win.

Big Clive

It's to raise the load to keep larger "intelligent" power banks from shutting off.

Big Clive

I think the air's being taken from the front of the pump, not the back. It doesn't go through the motor.

demonitized!

Paul Schuur

it looks like it might be pulling air through the motor from that hole in the back of the cover. that would also help cool the motor

Michael Thompson

how about a small solar cell

Charles Bruckner

I just loked these up on eBay - thought I'd get mine before the 'BigClive' effect kicks in. See a few sellers selling different colours at different pirces with the yellow ones being cheapest. Strangely, when I was young, my sister and I used to fight over who had to eat the yellow Penguin biscuit since that was the one that tasted the worst..

Gordo

A nice little device, especially once you know to remove the unnecessary resistor. Loved the slo-mo effect due to the shutter speed interaction. What frequency does it actually run at, and is that voltage dependant?

AlfaGuy

I got 4 of them. I will be cutting that resister off. I know it was something just didn't believe it it would run without it. Thanks for answering the question I hadn't got round to asking.

YouKnowHowYouAre

They use those pumps in some of the single serve coffee makers like the Keurig or Bunn. After the water pump finishes it cycle, those air pumps purge the hose up through the filter basket. The failure was the rubber tearing. The design had an upside down Y with the water on one leg and the air on the other. Once the rubber broke the water got blasted back into air pump. Terrible design from a company like Bunn who make good professional stuff. If I could change the design I’d use one of those Tesla one way water valves, no moving parts!

Jim

Could be useful in a solar application, like your Nokia battery based solar light from a few years ago. Or perhaps one of those LED array projectors, but where the lens is focussed on the bubbles being illuminated from nearby LEDs.

I clicked on the video and I got blown by blown by Big Clive... 😆

Lostngone

If that's how much air it produces at 3-5v, how much does it produce at 12v or does it self-regulate somewhere?

Simon Pain

Thanks for the innuendos they made me laugh out loud.

Nuts 'n' Proud

I'm not sure the resistor wouldn't emit magic smoke, either. I guess they added it for usb connection only.

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?

Nuts 'n' Proud

Isn't Resistor banding: 1st sig value, 2nd sig value, Multiplier, Tolerance (no band=20%, Silver=10%, Gold=5%, Red=2%)? So this would be a pretty accurate 51 Ohm resistor. ?!?

That put out a lot more air than I thought it would. The motor is rated up to 12v at which point it blows all the water out the cup.

Wim

That is one of the coolest pumps I've seen. I always wanted to know how those worked, but never had the opportunity to take one apart. I think they goofed up at assembly time and installed a resistor instead of the EMI suppression capacitor. I see no other reason for it to even exist.

MarkM