Pond Pump Laminar Flow Splitter Adapter

thingiverse

This is to take the output of a larger pond/aquarium/fountain pump and split the output into multiple smaller hoses. The cool thing about this it tries to create a laminar flow using a series of small hexagon tubes (http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:41703) before running the water through a very gradual transition to the hoses. In theory, this will reduce the flow losses caused by turbulent flow and sudden changes in pipe diameters. In practice, I was able to get the same amount of flow as a singular 1/4 inch tube about 25 feet long while including 2 additional 10 foot tubes with much more flow through each. The photos are stereoscopic, it appears that you need to click into them to view them correctly. Instructions Laminar flow is created by running water through smooth, straight tubes much longer than across. We can approximate this by using a honeycomb feature inside 2/3rds of the adapter to clean up the water flow from the pump before reducing it down to the right hose size(s). This is a parametric adapter. It currently only works with the same sized output hose(s) which are smaller than the pump housing hole. This is a work in progress, as I've not tested very many variations in pump housing diameters and hose sizes and counts. If you find any issues, let me know. Once printed, I used a small drill bit to smooth out any stringing inside the honeycomb feature.