All-LEGO Centrifugal Pump

30 Comments

[Yoshihito Isogawa] almost never employs non-LEGO parts in his creations. He created an excellent centrifugal pump out of 100% LEGO. While mostly a curiosity, you can definitely get a sense of how the mechanics work.

A Power Functions motor turns a 6×6 round plate that appears to have 1×2 smooth plates jammed between the studs, and secured with a 4×4 round plate on the other end. He geared up the motor so the assembly is spun very quickly, with those smooth plates forcing the water through a Technic mounting hole in one of the bricks.

[Yoshihito] is known for his utterly elegant, stripped down mechanical assemblies—-check out his books if this is your bag. According to his bio he’s twice won the Japanese medal for best manual, so I guess he’s really good at explaining things! Also, that’s a thing?

For more DIY pump creation check out the air pump made out of a PVC pipe and the DIY syringe pump we published previously.

30 thoughts on “All-LEGO Centrifugal Pump”

          1. There are some individual exceptions, like the HaD author of this article [Baichtal] who literally wrote the book on Lego, but over all it’s not something that lasts beyond a certain age.

          2. Addendum: I also don’t think it’s something that should be on HaD more than one article a week.
            To my mind, even if you like Lego, it’s not really a HaD thing.

          1. I’m old enough that I missed out on Duplo the first time around. Thanks to having a child, I’ve discovered that it’s awesome. It’s like Lego, but you can make huge things out of it… Duplo technic? Yes please.

  3. “According to his bio he’s twice won the Japanese medal for best manual, so I guess he’s really good at explaining things! Also, that’s a thing?”

    I wish we had that!

    Reply

      2. That would not only drive a point home in a pleasant manner, but might lead to a collection of excellent ideas to blag, steal and borrow.

        Part of the problem with documentation seems to be that you need to experience how it’s not done properly many times before getting an idea of how it should be done.

        Reply

          1. I don’t read man pages any more, just pages of indecipherable text with no examples, I go straight to stackoverflow.

    1. Nothing a spray can of silicon sealant can’t fix!

      Just think, if we built 100,000 of these and ran them in parallel, the water system problems caused by Harvey are over! Hey kids, bring your old legos to the Beaumont, TX water authority!

      Reply

      1. >Those drainage pumps are rated in MGD units – millions of gallons per day. Sorry, 100,000 Lego pumps won’t make a drop of difference (sorrry, couldn’t resist!).

        Reply

  5. When I was a kid I used to attempt various water related projects with Lego, but nothing even close to this clever bit of Lego engineering. Very impressive!
    As for the water leaking out from the blocks, that’s part of the experience and part of the charm (and likely part of the frustration).

    Reply

  6. “You must log in first” to view the video? O.o

    I see others commented seeing without logging, perhaps it’s location dependent but Facebook is NOT a viable souce for public-for-all news outlets, sorry to say…

    Reply

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