Which pump would be better?

[mattoak]

I am buying a cheap china made pump to set up my e-HERMS system. I know I should spend more for a better pump, but I'm curious to see if it will work, and the pumps are only $26 and $30. Money is tight, and I think these will work fine. I've searched the forums and can't find anyone using either of these. I have a 2 tier system, with gravity fed counter flow HX so the only thing the pump will be used for (at least in the beginning) is for the recirculating mash. Everything else CAN be done by gravity, but if the pump works I'll use it. My question is which would you guys go with?

The first one is 21ft of head, 4.2 gpm at 0 head.
Pump #1

Second is 15ft of head, 4.8 gpm at 0 head.
Pump #2

Not sure which one would be the better bet. The ebay pump claims 100C while the Amazon pump claims 60C?, note the question mark. They both look similar I can't imagine them having that much of a temperature rating difference. It seems like the 60C is a guess. Should I be safer and try the ebay pump and not destroy the other one that isn't rated for 100C?

 

[JonGrafto]

See this thread in which many people are using similar pumps.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f11/cheap-compact-wort-pump-375904/

 

[Bensiff]

It really doesn't say too much about the parts...one gives a material (which I don't know if it is food safe or not) and the other I didn't see a material. As noted, 60C ? is something to be concerned about and the other doesn't indicate C of F but even then it says it doesn't run long at high temps so I would figure that to mean it would overheat and shut down which always happens at the wrong time. Further they are DC powered so you would have to deal with AC/DC issues. Finally, stuff that comes from China you want to know about, especially when it is going to be in contact with food so I would want to see an ISO9001 compliant manufacturer not some random Chinese manufacturer selling on ebay...so I would check that out. For me, I would avoid trying to skimp on this part of the build as nothing sucks more than having a primary part of your equipment fail. Chugger pumps are not too expensive and well worth saving up for IMO.

 

[mattoak]

Hey thanks for the responses guys....and thanks for the link JonGrafto that really helps. I'm pretty sure the 60 is referring to C. What type of commonly sold product would have a maximum temperature LESS than room temperature? That doesn't make much sense as most materials start becoming more brittle at temps lower than room temp. As for the DC power issue, I ALREADY have a 24V 2 amp DC power supply, and a 3 amp 12V power supply so DC power is not an issue at all since neither one draws more than ~1A. For food issues, I'm not really worried about subjecting cheap types of PE to 100C. All of the contact will be pre-boil at sparge temps not boiling water temps. Who knows maybe I'll notice some weird off flavors but I really doubt it.

For $30 I am going to buy one of them no matter what. Was just wondering more what you thought about the pros and cons of each flow/head of the pumps. I think I'm leaning towards the ebay pump since it says 100C and the other says 60.