Improved Replacement Impeller for Top Fin PowerHead 30

thingiverse

The Top Fin PowerHead 30 is an inexpensive (cheaply made), pump to move aquarium water. I purchased two of these things and even when they were new, they were not very impressive. After a month or so, they quit working completely. I took them apart to find that the impeller had broken. Worse yet, it seemed that the thing had been designed to work poorly. Maybe they didn't want to outshine the next model up or something. So I redesigned the impeller. The original one was tiny and only filled a small portion of the chamber it was in. I increased the size significantly to use more of the available space. In the photos the original is on the left, and my model is on the right. After installing these parts, the power heads are pushing water like they never have before. Much better than when they were new. I've only been running them a few days, so I can't say much about how long they will last, but if I find improvements are needed, I'll post updates. If anyone else uses these, please let me know if they work for you. [PetSmart, if you use this design, I expect some free fish or something!] Update1: One of them cracked, so I made the wall about as thick as I can and still have it fit. Instructions Print the impeller with the fins down. Support is not necessary. I used rafting because there isn't much area on the plate, but you might not need that either.