pressure washer

4 Articles

Building A Gas-Powered Pressure Washer

April 23, 2021 by 23 Comments

While you can always buy the tools you need, there’s something to be said for the satisfaction gained when you pick up a tool you built yourself. [Workshop From Scratch] has built a following out of building his own gear, the latest of which involved putting together a gas-powered pressure washer.

The key to the build was to keep things completely self-contained. All the consumables – water, soap, and wax – are kept onboard the washer to avoid having to run hoses and so on. A small gas engine is the heart of the build, hooked up to a high-pressure water pump. It even comes complete with a starter motor, making it a certified luxury garden tool. It’s also hooked up to two tanks holding cleaning solutions for car washing purposes, which feed into the pump via an auxiliary port for mixing. It’s all assembled on a custom steel frame welded together from rectangular hollow sections.

It’s a build that demonstrates how you can use your skills to build tools that suit your workflow, rather than just putting up with whatever is available off-the-shelf. We’ve seen his work before, too – building other tools like this motorised plasma cutter. Video after the break.

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A Fleet Of Pressure Washers Powers This Interactive Public Fountain

November 11, 2018 by 15 Comments

Public art installations can be cool. Adding in audience interactivity bumps up the coolness factor a bit. Throw civic pride, dancing jets of water, music, and lights into the project, and you get this very cool pressure washer powered musical fountain.

The exhibit that [Niklas Roy] came up with is called Wasserorgel, or “water organ”, an apt name for the creation. Built as part of a celebration of industry in Germany, the display was built in the small town of Winnenden, home to Kärcher, a cleaning equipment company best known for their line of pressure washers in the distinctive yellow cases. Eight of the company’s electric pressure washers were featured in the Wasserorgel, which shot streams of water and played notes in response to passersby tickling the sturdy and waterproof 3D-printed keyboard. The show was managed by an Arduino with a MIDI shield, which controlled the pressure washers via solid state relays and even accepted input from an anemometer to shut down the show if it got too windy, lest the nearby [Frau Dimitrakudi] be dampened.

The video below shows how engaging the Wasserorgel was during its weeks-long run in the town market square; there’s also one in German with build details. And while we can’t recall seeing pressure washers in public art before, we do remember one being used as the basis of a DIY water-jet cutter.

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World’s Largest Super Soaker Is Dangerously Good Clean Fun

July 21, 2017 by 10 Comments

Running around while dousing each other with Super Soakers and screaming in delight is de rigueur on suburban lawns on hot summer days, but if you build this giant replica of a Super Soaker that can double as a pressure washer, you might have the upper edge on the neighborhood gang.

You may remember [Mark Rober] from such projects as his bullseye-catching dart board and his previous entry in the awesome uncle of the year awards, the fully automatic snowball gun. We’re not entirely sure that this seven-foot long replica of the original Super Soaker will win him any uncle or neighbor plaudits, given that it the stream it produces is not far off of what a pressure washer can manage and can literally slice a watermelon in half. Fortunately, [Mark] included swappable nozzles to reduce the pressure enough that relatively safe dousing is still on the table. The housing is a pretty accurate plywood and foam replica of the original toy, but the mechanism is beefed up considerably — a pair of nitrogen tanks, some regulators, and a solenoid valve. See the gun in all its window-smashing, kid-soaking glory in the video after the break.

We realize [Mark]’s build is just a fun way to beat the heat, but it gives us a few ideas for more practical uses. Maybe a DIY water-jet cutter that’s not built around a pressure washer?

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A Water Jet Cutter From A Cheap Pressure Washer

May 31, 2017 by 67 Comments

We’ve become used to CNC mills and 3D printers becoming staples of our workshops, and thanks to the wonders of international trade even a modest laser cutter is not beyond the reach of most experimenters. But there is one tool that has so far evaded all but either commercial operations or the extremely well-heeled, the water cutter. These machines use a high-pressure water jet, usually carrying a stream of abrasive particles, to cut through the material placed beneath them. From our perspective they are interesting in that they can cut metal, something not normally possible with the laser cutters within our reach.

A water cutter is something you might think would be impossible for an experimenter to make for themself, but [Applied Science] is on hand to disprove that notion. He’s taken a cheap pressure washer, and modified it to produce a much higher water pressure for a water cutting head.

His very detailed description of the modifications makes for an extremely interesting watch, and we’ve placed the video below the break. The higher pressure is achieved by modifying the washer’s pressure on-off switch with a newly-machined sleeve and a stronger spring. The description of how the washer switch works is interesting in itself. Then we are treated to a complete teardown of a water cutting head, with abrasive feed, tungsten carbide tube, and ruby nozzle. This last component is surprisingly cheap. He then gives us a run-down of its design, particularly with respect to choosing the size of the orifices to match the pump. Finally we take a look at his abrasive feed system, and the plastic funnel he uses to keep water flow back out of his hopper.

For now the cutter is static, but his obvious next step is to bring it to some form of CNC table. If this project brings water cutting one step closer to the masses, we can’t wait!

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