• Equipment

  Potential Problems with Belt-Driven Impeller Pumps

  Posted by broken anvil distilleries on October 13, 2022 at 2:28 am

  We have been running our distillery successfully using a EURO50 2″ 2.5hp direct drive Impeller pump to pump our mash around for years now. We have an electrical issue which I was unable to troubleshoot and the supplier is of no help, so off to a motor company which is backlogged for weeks. To keep the place running with a minimal spend, we are looking to pick up a EURO50 belt driven impeller pump for a fraction of the cost of the direct drive. However, since I never see any other distilleries using belt drive pumps and they are cheap, I was wondering if there is a drawback that I don’t know about other than maybe a small decrease in power. Anyone out there able to provide some insight?

  adamovd replied 2 years, 2 months ago 4 Members · 4 Replies
• 4 Replies

• 

  bier distillery

  Member

  October 15, 2022 at 1:15 am

  Slipping/inefficiency/wear would be the main drawback.  Can’t see any functional difference.

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  michaelattcw

  Member

  October 17, 2022 at 4:53 pm

  You don’t see much belt-driven stuff nowadays. It doesn’t make sense now that electronic speed control/power tranmission is so inexpensive and ubiquitous, and direct drive is so much more reliable.

  If the pump is cheap, I doubt the belt is the main factor driving the cost down. It’d likely be just as cheap to directly couple the motor to the head. It’s probably just a cheaply-made pump.

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  broken anvil distilleries

  Member

  October 19, 2022 at 11:03 am

  Thanks. The price is cheap and their direct drive pump has worked great, but I don’t know beyond that.

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  adamovd

  Member

  October 19, 2022 at 8:54 pm

  I got a free lobe pump that had a bent drive shaft. I put a pulley wheel on it and it works fine even with a slight wobble in the shaft.

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