Downside to this pump?

Looks fine to me but why not save up the money for a stainless steel pump and never worry about replacing it.

 

The polysulfone heads have the drawback of potential for stripped threads on the inlet and outlet. You might want to get QDs for those so that you don't have that potential.

 

From the one review of this product:

“Solid pump, brittle plastic.

Great little pump overall, small, quiet, good flow rate, primes about as easy as a chugger. However if you purchase this factor in the cost of the stainless steel pump ($30) head and replace it before even using it. I was putting together a half barrel system and without even getting to use one of the pumps I busted the threads off one head by hand tightening a fitting onto it. Totally worth it if you plan to grab the SS head.”

Cheers!

 

The plastic heads can also break if dropped on a hard surface. This happened to a friend's March pump head, and he had to buy a stainless steel replacement before he ever got to use the pump. I bought my pump after him and went directly to stainless steel.

 

As always, when two dissimilar materials meet, the softer one suffers...especially threads, so do as hofenunmaltz says and get a QD so you don't have to thread and unthread but once. A ball valve on the outlet will do the same thing and comes in handy anyway. Cheers

If you are even remotely careful, you shouldn't have a problem.

 

Quick Disconnect. The concept is to apply a coupler only once to the plastic thread and use the other end of the QD coupler for multiple use connections thereafter.

Cheers!

 

Quick Disconnect, as Jack pointed out. You use the threads once, so they don't get stripped through use.

Edit - guys in my club like Camlock fittings.

 

I have a chugger with the plastic head. I wish I had the SS head. I have 2 ball valves on the out port and run camlocks.

 

Because it's shinier?

 

Because I stripped out the threads on the first run of brass fittings and when I swapped to the 2 BV SS style I had issues getting it to thread correctly. And it is shiny.

 

I have the SS heads and all of my pump problems have been motor related (thermal overload)

 

Seems interesting, like you said 50$ less than a chugger, Im curious is anybody has a pump curve for this little guy?

 

5 gpm at 0 head so probably 1/2 that at 10' ...just a guess

 

Kind of. I used high temp hose for the bulk of my tubing with high temp silicone for the final foot on both ends. Allows me to see the flow. Eventually want to get a sight glass when I get a conical and roll to tri clamps.

 

I have both a march w/ poly head and a stainless chugger. I've had the polysulfone one much longer (at least 5 or 6 years now). I've always used Blichmann stainless connectors on it. I've threaded them on and removed them by hand more times than I could count (before/after every use). Gently hand-tight is all you ever need. Sure, you have to use some care to not cross-thread - but that goes for ANY material.

The SS chugger has been around for about a year now, and it's nice. To be honest, the biggest difference I notice is when pumping very hot liquids (near boiling). The pump w poly head seems to struggle more with that -,particularly if pumping up a foot or two. The flow could get painfully slow at times. The stainless head has no such trouble, fwiw.