Pump head
The first test we did was to measure the head. As you know, head is the ability of the pump to elevate water above a certain elevation. To do this we measured the water level reached inside a rubber hose. In our video we are going to explain in great detail the whole procedure, which you can then, in case, also reproduce at home.
As you can see in the previous archival photograph, we clamp the pipe to the terrace. Then we turn on the pump we need to measure, and after waiting 10 minutes for it to stabilize, we measure its head.
We then measured a maximum head of 109 cm against the declared 110 cm.
The deviation between declared and measured head is therefore practically insignificant. Less than 1%, which could safely fall within a small instrumental error. Perfect result.
Flow rate
Measuring the flow rate was easy thanks to the DigiSavant DIGIFLOW 6710M flow meter. First we proceeded to connect our pipe fittings to our flow meter.
We tried to make the meter fit snugly against the pump outlet.
The measurement is expressed in liters per minute. Then simply multiply the result by 60 to get the liters per hour. Of course we point out that the measurement is valid within the conditions under which we made the measurements. The connecting pipe so designed may have induced leaks in the system.
The system thus designed gave us a value of 8.7 liters per minute.
The maximum flow rate was thus 522 l/h (i.e., 8.7 l/m*60), for practical purposes coincident with the claimed 550 l/h. Something that happens very rarely. The pump thus achieved 95% of its claimed value under the test conditions. An excellent result when we consider the 66% of the Ecotech Marine Vectra M1 (article), 67% of the Waveline DC6000 (article), 70% of the Hydor Seltz D6000 (article) and 86% of the Rossmont RX 3200 (article), just to name a few of the pumps we tested. Although all larger than the one under test.
Energy Consumption Test
The detection of instantaneous consumption was made possible through the use of the convenient RCE PM600 instrument, which is also capable of measuring Cos(fi) (or phase shift). The result is given directly in watts.
The maximum declared consumption of the MaxiJet MJ500 is 5.3 watts; according to our measurements we are at about 5.1 watts, practically 4% less than the declared value, which may also be due to the voltage at that precise moment, which is perhaps a little lower than the stabilized value that companies use when doing their tests.
Considering a consumption of 5.1 watts, and an energy cost of 0.27 euros per kwh, we could use this pump continuously for a whole year with a consumption of about 44.7 kwh, from which comes a cost of 12 euros per year, or 1 euro per month.
On page three you will find our final evaluations of the pump.
