How to Prime a March Pump for $26.25

[HarkinBanks]

I have some longer hose runs in my 3 vessel HERMS system and always labor with priming my march pumps. I have mounted them in a variety of locations, changed the head positions, and even added waste ports. The system primes itself about 10% of the time. The other 90% I have to suck on the hoses with my mouth to get the air out of the system. Once everything is primed, I rarely lose it, but getting there is a pain. I have lost prime a few times going into my whirlpool/chillzilla and always shudder sucking on a hose knowing that boiling wort is on the other side. Filling my system in reverse with tap water does work, but it doesn't help if I need to re-prime when the system is hot and I always have sanitary concerns.

So I really wanted to find an inexpensive and safe way to prime my pumps in all situations. I have a weakness for cool brew pumps so as I was trolling ebay I came across some 12v self-priming diaphragm pumps from China. High pressure, good up to 140 F, about 1.3 gpm, used for water taps in RVs. Seemed like the ticket so I pulled the trigger from a reputable seller and 13 days later it arrived, a lot quicker than I expected. I tested it out last night using the same wall wart I have from my Great Brewah pump and it works exactly as I had hoped. Man does this thing suck, literally! I have some thinner food grade tubing that I use for sparging and it collapsed the tubing while sucking the tap water through the system. I use 3/8" tubing in my entire 5 gallon system so I got the pump with the 3/8" outlets. This thing is pretty cool and will hopefully last me a long time since I will not be using it for continuous use, only for a minute or two at a time.

Here are pics of the pump and the ebay listing:


Ebay listing

 

[MidTNJasonF]

I have had difficulty priming my system as well. How do you have the new pump plumbed into everything?

I am hoping the new system I am building will not have the same issue once I have everything properly mounted and plumbed but keeping something like this on the back burner may be a good idea.

 

[HarkinBanks]

It is a really small pump so I plan to keep it hand held, no need to plumb it.

For example, I fill my MLT to 5 gallons, open all of the valves and hook this little guy up to my MLT return hose (leaving the other side of the pump open) and it pulls all of the water through the march pump, my herms coil and spits it out into the MLT. It takes about 20 seconds to get all of the air out of the lines.