Automating 7 Lego Water Pumps
Building and testing 7 different motorised Lego water pumps. Each electric water pump is placed in a basin. The basins are connected creating a water circulation. Each pump/basin has a water level sensor that adjusts the speed of the pump motor to avoid overflow. Things to consider: Pump type, flow rate, motor speed and pump speed.
App used to program the pumps: Lego Powered Up App
Lego Colour distance sensor: bit.ly/3LKE8Yb
Camera used for this video: amzn.to/3J50QZq
Microphones used for this video: amzn.to/405sX0X
Please note: I get a commission if you buy via Amazon or BuWizz link above. Thanks for your support.
Chapters:
00:00 Archimedes Screw
00:44 Centrifugal Pump
01:44 Chain Pump
02:26 Piston Pump
03:11 Water Wheel
03:45 Gear Pump
04:34 Peristaltic Pump
05:03 Float Switch
06:43 Outro
Where I get my Lego parts from: www.bricklink.com/v2/main.page
Music: Cold Water - Patrick Patrikios
#bricktechnology
#legotechnic
#lego
#asmr
#engineering
#waterpump
#programming
#automation
I like that the chain pump is so slow it needs to be supplemented by the peristaltic pump. For anyone that didn't notice, the peristaltic pump's inlet can be seen at ~7:14 in the chain pump's basin (just to the left of the chain pump's left support), and the outlet can be seen at ~7:24, just below the piston pump's outlet pipe. It's a bit more obvious in the overview at 8:06. Also, centrifugal pump and external gear pump are mvps!
yeh same
Mvps?
@@lutzderlurch7877 Most Valuable Player or Highest Rated Player
I was too absorbed by the cats vibing Damn they vibin hard
Most valuable pumps
I love how the float sensors work. The idea that the machines literally aren't communicating with each other but are interacting with each other. There's no sending commands to tell one to speed up when the other isn't getting enough water. The machine just compensates within its own confines, but it's able to do so with information gathered from other machines. I don't know why but I find it fascinating.
Might be safer though to slow down each pump if its target gets too full.
It's kind of like ants. Any individual ant only see what it's doing, and doesn't even understand that, but it does it. Together, you get a functioning system.
@@kindlinExactly! And you can take it a step further on humans. While we don’t necessarily work together in the end everyone functions as a giant system. We impact so many other people without even realizing and it doesn’t even take being famous! Any small social interaction we make affects people’s thoughts, even by a little, which makes them act and communicate with other people differently than they would’ve without interacting with you, which in turns affects more and more people. That’s the principle of the butterfly effect
It's an example of a dynamic system! Similar to fireflies slowly getting synced up with each other. You can read more about it in the book Sync by Steven Strogatz.
very modern machine
I'm blown away by how much Lego has added since I was a kid. I wish I knew about all the sensors and programming options they made sooner!
They had it for a long time but their first lego robotics kit was super expensive. It was like $500-700 IIRC. Way cheaper to buy actual electronics and have the kid learn how to do the real thing.
I remember getting that first mindstorms set you could program on your pc as a kid, it was cool but I was just lacking the knowledge to build something actually cool and inventive of course. I still have those electric parts somewhere, although I don't know what happened to the rest because I used to mix everything up after playing with a set for like a week, I think you know what I mean😂
@@thex6992I still have an NXT and an RCX, as well as the sets they came from and various other parts in a wheeled cart in my bedroom... I really loved them, back in the day when I had Windows machines. We never had anything like FIRST here, but I totally would have done _anything_ as a kid to get into something like that. I really loved the idea of Lego Mindstorms. I know there's some kind of open-source firmware for both that makes them run some dialect of C... but it seems like extremely capable microcontroller dev boards (and for a little more, far more powerful systems-on-a-chip able even to run regular OSes like Linux, thanks to the smartphone revolution) and accessories (motor controllers, sensors, etc.) have gotten so cheap it's almost more worthwhile to 3D print an enclosure for those than to try to hack my existing Mindstorms parts to do things... hmm... I keep looking at my little Lego and junk collection cart and my 3D printer and such and wishing I had the inspiration to build something, but the past few years I've been hit by a strange inability to commit myself (or more importantly, any resources) to any project that can't be proven 'the most practical/profitable way to accomplish the objective' ahead of time. I guess I feel generally guilty or wasteful, somehow. I really wish I could get that creativity I used to have back... Maybe I should spend some time just playing with the Lego parts again...
This must’ve been so hard to make. It looks AMAZING!
IT LEGO COOKING
WHAT ARE THEY GONNA COOK NOW 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
A perfect outro, the final show-off, the experimenting with video-editing, the cats asking themselves "What's this weirdness...". Not only a well thought out subject, it's visually presented wonderfully!
The stop motion in this video is so satisfying. And the machines are. The whole video is satisfying!
wth
It's so impressive that technology has advanced so far that we can animate every single drop of water by hand!
This whole channel is satisfying 😊
shut up
THE VID IS 9/11 SECONDS LONG
8:06 the food coloring is actually a good example on how dumping waste no matter how much will always affect the full stream of water and pollute the entire system
as much as anything, I'm impressed lego can form a strong enough seal to allow for pumping.
As far as toys go, it's a marvel of engineering.
It looks like the only one let down by Lego's water tightness was the centrifugal
Archimedes screw is supposed to be within a pipe, which drastically increases the volume moved with each rotation.
Not in this case; it only improves flow rates by reducing loss/spillage.
@@JustinShaedo uh, no? Putting it in a pipe effectively increases the scoop size dramatically.
Through all cases we have here so far, I wish they had more accessible Lego bricks that could fulfill these thoughts
Yes, but I don't think there would have been a way to make that with lego (although I really appreciate you sharing the information)
@@SqueakyNeb Yes! You're generally right: putting an Archimedes screw in a pipe might increase the effective scoop size and thus transport rate if: 1)The edges of the scoop were (too) shallow (thus reducing overflow) 2) The end was immersed deep enough in the water; so that the 'scoop' can completely fill. 3) The spirals are tight enough relative to the angle of elevation. The scoop is not immersed deep enough, and the spirals are too loose such that in this case, enclosing it won't improve transport rates at all. Have a look at some of the images of Archimedes screws, see how they have tight spirals and the ends are submerged deep enough to take a full scoop? So we whilst actually agree on the principles here, the application differs a bit in this case... If you're starting out on learning engineering principles, respect to you, and luck on your journey, it's complicated but worth it!
Love the Peristaltic Pump not only it can be run in reverse it also isolates contamination from the mechanism that's why it's often used in medical equipment.
It's also suitable for more viscous mediums than water 💩
NASA
huh. no wonder that sounds very similar to the machines the doctors use to pump medicine into my veins.
pepe
I use it in in a soap dispenser
This man making music videos out here. Absolutely pulled a 180 (crazy) at the end by making the actual center of attention become the background effect for what was the background music.
Something about water and Lego together really makes my brain tingle
would love to see more of these kinds of videos where you show of different machines with the same purpose. more spefically i would like to see more where you show ancient mechanisms and modern ones so we can see how much technology has improved
It's interesting to see that the water wheel was shifting the most water.
@@penfold7800 actually the gear pump was by far the most effective. Like the design too.
@@penfold7800 Other pumps lack seals which doesn't help
@@penfold7800 The water wheel had 22ml/s flow rate while the centrifugal pump and gear pump both had 32ml/s flow rate, not only that the water wheel is not even a pump (at least not the way he did it) and it sucks. Not only does the water wheel need 10 or 20 times more torque to do the same work depending on the wheel diameter it will also always be 10 times bigger to reach the same flow rate and to make things even worse, for the water wheel to be a pump it would need to get the water higher than the highest point of the pump, which it can't, while the other pumps are capable of at least 1 meter height if it's just the LEGO one that he made. The real centrifugal pumps are able to pump the water from 5 to 41 meters of height while the gear pumps are the same as centrifugal ones but better because they can create a lot higher amounts of pressure, that's why they are used in some hydraulic pumps which need to actually push some weight and not just pump the water. The real water wheels often require something like a river to spin the wheel which either uses buckets if you want to just get the water out of the river or if you want it to pump the water above the river it powers a piston pump, centrifugal pump or a different pump designs not shown in this video.
@@CreeplayEU centrifugal pumps r unbelievable space efficient for the massive amount of water they can move quickly, downside is they aren’t very energy efficient in their operation
Engineering is really impressive. the different ways of moving water are very creative. Good job👏
And then the cinematography and editing - also fantastic!
yeah absolutely! I'm a chemical process operator, so i work with pumps like this on a daily basis, so it's really cool to see someone make them with legos! it's amazing how you can make advanced machines with such simple blocks
Yeah dude, it's like he based his creations on designs that were/are already in use for hundreds of years all over the world! Who would've thought they actually work?
@@arcuz7862 Stop.
@@arcuz7862 why are being like that ? did you had a bad day ?
Man. I really wish KZhead (and specifically, channels like this) existed when I was a kid.
That first pump mechanism, most times the worm wheel / spiral is put in a shaft so it can take up more water.
The editing is getting insane. I’ve seen every video here and this is next level
Oh my god that montage at the end is to die for
Editing for high functioning people helps nobody else. They already know then answers. those who might want to learn whats happening find the speed of this inaccessible!
@@Mike-tv9rk Are you serious, Mike? I mean... are you really, really serious? Because, man... this is outstanding.
@@Mike-tv9rk Just lower the speed then
I think the piston is my favourite. Love those valves! And the controllers using the water level were super clever. Not sure if those would be considered Finite State or Proportional controllers though
Sorta both, it selects from a set of speeds based on water level
Proportional in discrete steps, so both. I wonder if it's possible to get an analog level and create PID control for them though?
I can't put my finger on it, but there's something appealing about the way it works.
@@drworm5007 It's the way pumpjacks move oil but its horizontal instead of vertical
It might be your favorite now but when you make one and use it in real life and have it working reliably the valves will make you go crazy, they always cause problems, they're expensive to replace, they're only ideal for clean water without anything like sand, leaves etc. inside of it and they need back pressure so it's ideal to run them 24/7, not really a ON/OFF design like the centrifugal pump, gear pump or the screw pump
The only pump missing now is a turbo pump. Centrifugal builds pressure, turbo creates high flow rate.
this video helped me understand waterpumps so well
I had zero expectations going in, but this was honestly one of my favorite videos in recent memory- snapping editing and pacing, and seeing it all come together at the end was SUPER satisfying. I couldn’t stop watching. Love this!!
This channel is literally banger after banger. Demonstrating engineering principles step by step through legos. I am always excited to see what you'll try next.
Lego*
@@Hivefleet_horror 🤓
@@braidenhebbard6120 🤓
@@Hivefleet_horror 懂王来啦
Bro why
Peristaltic pumps are super convenient for low flow applications. Super easy maintenance.
And only slightly more expensive than the real pumps! Also, cats! I reckon the Archimedes Screw would work much better if the screw was contained in an outer cylinder.
THE IMPROVEMENT IS A BANGER, the black background makes it easier to see the legos, the stop motion is incredible, the editing, and more things with water sources, and the cat of course what a cutie, love you man 🧡
Lego, not legos
1:32 cats: the enjoyers of human progress since forever. "Why should we get smarter when the humans will make these marvels and share them"?
All the stats included are super cool, but I wish you had included the yeet potential for some of the messier pumps
I'm really impressed by the amount of work put into these different constructions. I also impressed by the detailed comments you have received. As a mere engineer, just doing software work nowadays, I can just say WOW!
1:25 orange cat moment
Garfield
Technical Difficulties, please stand by.
CHINESE DINNER 🍽
@@DieselGloves Yum yum
@@raziasultana652bruh
I like how the motor and all the delicate parts are always kept safe from the water. The piston pump with visible valves is so cool !
The stop motion of the legos being built is very smooth and impressive, and the functionality of the machines is even MORE impressive!
Truly a phenomenal way to learn about different pumps. I love legos
The cats just vibing at the end 😂 My favorite pump is probably the external gear pump; it has such a large range and it's nice and compact. Great video as always :)
Each one of these pumps has pros and cons in real world applications (well not every pump per se, but you get the idea). A peristaltic pump is mandatory if you want to pump liquid without the risk of contaminating said liquid (for instance, for medical reasons) A centrifugal pump offers a good balance of head pressure, with a relatively small number of moving parts, paking it quite reliable, and cheap to produce External gear pumps can have a lot of flow rate, but the head pressure is determined by the radius of the gears, it's actually very impractical in real life. Piston pumps are pretty efficient at generating even more head pressure, most of the time you see those pumps as "membrane" pumps, which work in a similar fashion, except that instead of a piston, it's actually a membrane that is moved back and forth, either electromagnetically (think like a speaker for instance) or using pneumatics.
@@Dogeek gear pumps aren't impractical, they're used all the time for like oils and in your engine and stuff.
@@Dogeek Thanks for all of that info! Very interesting.
@@Dogeek To echo an above commenter, external gear pumps are brilliant if you need to precisely measure the flow rate of the liquid you're pumping. They're used when mixing resins for composite manufacturing
Love the little non-return valves on the piston pump!
Piston pump was by far the coolest one
2:47 just so we can all go back and re-appreciate the engineering.
I'm amazed that it worked so vell without any mechanical synchronization with piston cycles.
One of these days studs will burst out of his builds when they’re finished.
It is so cool to see the logical flow of this series.
Amazed how well the gear pump worked given the available tolerances.
Yeah, but when the ones at work get even the slightest hint of wear they just stop lol
@@selske23 good thing lego can be taken apart
The valves on the piston pump are really cool.
I can’t even describe how satisfying this was to watch!Great vid! . Love the little non-return valves on the piston pump!.
Its interesting to see the variety of pumps. We are mostly only calculating and looking at speed here though. Where each pump has its uses. The peristaltic pump is vital for aggressive chemicals or for the use in sterile environments (like during heart/lung surgery), since the fluids in them only ever come into contact with the hose.
This channel just keeps getting better. Good job.
My husband showed me this video and I'm amazed. I'm not particularly well educated in the field of engineering or LEGO, but it's super fun to watch regardless. Thanks for the hard work you put into these!
I love when you add detergent to water. It show how chemical could affect the machine and contaminated environment in real life
LEGO can go far beyond a toy sometimes, especially when used in a case like this. Extraordinary work!
i like 5:51 , when the motor goes harmonic, D6, A5, D5
Ayy someone else with perfect pitch
The outro puts the videos on a new level. I am amazed how you source your parts that quick or how you might handle so many different projects and prototypes in parallel. A making of would be amazing to see.
In the 70ties I built a gearbox with three interchangeable gears with Lego at the age of 12. I was pretty proud on that by the time. I never thought of pumps. Well done!!
4:17: "Mmmmhh meh meh meme memememe" 😆
😂😂😂
As a Civil Engineer, this is one of the coolest videos I’ve seen in a bit!!!! I love this, the centrifugal is my favorite! Love the sensors, so optimized, very smart!
I love the quiet relaxing audio without any obnoxious music or loud commentary, and the music you do use is great
Bro, you take "having too much time on your hands" to a whole new level! And for some odd reason, I can't look away.
I like how the song name is called cold water 7:28
Everything about this is so good!! Everyone’s pointed out most of the great things already, but I’d just like to give props for the subtle but excellent sound design throughout the video - it really made it “pop”! 👌
Self regulating systems are so satisfying! And using the color sensor as a water level detector was a great idea
This video made me go get a glass of water
The self adapting sensor system was honestly a very clever and cool way of the system automatically fixing itself
I would love to see you try and build the fastest water pump, by optimizing your various designs. Perhaps a gearbox too gear up the motors would be cool to have them run even faster
It seems the impeller style pump has the largest flow rate. Though im sure it wouldnt produce as much pressure as some of the other designs. Granted, with legos like this you really cant get a very good seal which would really hurt any ability to build much pressure
@@tjziegler8823The one with the highest pressure though by far is the peristaltic pump, since it directly pushes the fluid through a completely fluid-tight passage (hose).
The archimedes screw can start underwater for continues flow A flipper (for swimming) displaces water too. (Very efficient) I love the part with the music 😊
You can't get continuous flow from an Achmedes Screw pump unless you (pick one) enclose the screw and spin fast, use a less viscous fluid than water, remove gravity. Starting submerged will not create continuous flow.
Pov:you don't know how everthing works and didnt expect that lego is confusing and complicated
I became more enthralled the more I watched. I couldn't look away. It sort of felt like I should of, like I was witnessing something I shouldn't. Something in a lab or a secret area that I am not meant to be in.
The music part near the end was amazing. It channeled something of the wild era of early internet and kind of the early computing demoscene. I made the mistake of stumbling upon this video and not watching it, because a few weeks ago I already saw something with pumps and Lego and though it'd just reiterate the same knowledge. Thanks certain newsletter for pointing this video out and making me take the plunge to watch it, it was well worth the time!
The quick flip rotations at 1:44 were SLICK
8 likes and 1 reply? Lemme fix that
I can’t even describe how satisfying this was to watch! Great vid! ❤
Verified wirh no reply fix
@@Dankku_w what?
wait what i am the thrid?????
Hehe I'm early
Added challenge code pid controllers for all of them instead
i used to love to dip all my lego builds into mini pools; its just so satisfying for 7 yr old me to watch lego houses soak in water😂😂
I love the centrifugal pump
Another certified Brick Technology banger, this man simply does not know how to miss!
4:57 ayo 🧐🤨
bad brain :)
Me when anime women…
I clicked the translation button and it translated it to ok 😂
while watching the video i thought to myself "wow these are all cool but it would be really cool if they were all connected"
dude the cats every episode like either "woah whats that he made?" or "ughhh what did he make this time"
I work with this type of stuff on an industrial scale in my everyday work, and it's so fascinating to see it built in lego. Especially the piston pump really shows well how it works. It's something you don't often get to see on bigger machines. Great work.
The external gear and centrifugal pumps being the highest flow (and most compact) in this video is a good representation of why they’re used in the automotive world so commonly, especially the centrifugal type specifically being most commonly used as a water pump in lots of makes and models spanning decades. Some cars have also used the external gear type, but internal gear and gerotor pumps are also used a lot, but aren’t very different in design.
Then end felt like a DMT trip. 10/10
One of the most satisfying videos I’ve ever seen. Cannot imagine how hard it was to edit. Great job
I get so happy when you post omg
The float switch is what our livestock waterers operate on. The problem is they like to freeze in winter, but they’re pretty cool.
id imagine the lego waterpumps happy someday.
I find the piston pump the most impressive, because I didn't expect that Lego check valves could work so well! The chain pump was pretty meh, but that might be because the buckets did not fully submerge, so were not close to fully filled on the way up. Also I LOVE the stop motion animations of the pumps getting built up at the start of each segment.
6:30 - When you think about it, this is the exact opposite of a perpetual motion machine. You have 7 devices all drawing power for their operation, they do not function alone, and then they all work in tandem with a very complex computer program to keep the water level static. It's an incredible amount of work to get nothing done lol
Yeah but it’s not meant to be efficient but satisfying it never had a productive purpose
Did you forget he was just making these for fun?
These are all pump systems I've seen before made with non Lego materials, and a lot of these are even components I've seen made with Lego in GBC. And yet, seeing all of these pumps made out of lego, moving actual water, is so interesting! Lego and water are not mediums that generally interact, so seeing it here really is so astounding. I also really love the novelty of the color coded sensors. That just made me giddy.
One must imagine Lego water pump happy
Never thought I would see lego intake and exhaust valves used in that piston design...
Wow!!! Here I thought this was just a neat mechanical tech demo and you took it to level 9000 adding in the motors/sensors and programming! Fantastic job!
The float switch is actually mind blowing. I would have never come up with that.
I'm sure I can speak for others viewing this. So appreciative of the work you put toward these videos. This one was so great to watch!
OMG ur cat is so cute
8:17 nice video editing! You sped up the Archimedes Screw enough that it looks like it's going backwards. I enjoyed that!
So many clever ideas here! I love that you're using the slide pieces for a different purpose! Instead of a Great Ball Contraption this is a Great Water Contraption!! Haha your cat! 🐈 😂
Something about this channel is always just so interesting and yet so relaxing.
this man can totally create a civilization
Gracias por fortalecer la comunidad Lego Technic. Saludos desde España
This video is insane, I discovered some fun pumps here, like the external gear one, the centrifugal one and the piston one. But I'm surprised that there isn't one with a boat's propeller part, even if it is the most simple one. Great video anyway !
What a great ending!
this is one of the coolest things i have seen anyone do with technic
Okay as a process engineer / general nerd, I demand you produce pump curves for the centrifugal, piston, positive displacement (gear), and peristaltic pumps! Would be super cool to see how the hydraulic head compares for each.
Piston pump really sounds like heartbeat
ur creativety is insane
I would be interesting to see a comparison of the efficiency of the various pumps, by comparing voltage times current going into the motor with flow rate times lift height. I imagine all of them are rather inefficient, but some probably vastly more so than others. Edit: Please do a video on optimizing efficiency of a LEGO pump.
Absolutely loved the external gear pump, they’re really cool! One thing I’ll say is that there was a LOT of cavitation going on in some of these designs which might have hurt your maximum flow rate if you didn’t account for it
I love that the gear pump provides a simple visual explanation for how superchargers work. Seeing these engineering concepts in practice is awesome
This is one of the coolest audiovisual stims I've ever seen
Wet dreams... AWESOME build, mechanical and programming, congratulations!!!