So, four months or so down the line and no progress. Given up? Nope, just "side-tracked". To cut a long story short (-ish!) it turns out that if you have a new downstairs toilet fitted, it doesn't work very well for very long if they connect it to a (shared) soakaway instead of an actual sewer. More fun when it rains and your new toilet has become the lowest opening *facepalm* So much fun ensued, some colourful language, almost literal throwing money down a hole and on top of that my workshop (small though it is) was the route between the BIG hole and the skip. So everything had to be packed up and has only just come out of storage.
Just for comedy, this is how you temporarily 'fix' the problem when you're told "Yeah, good luck with that!"
Right, and back to the point. Having previously made some proof of concept bits out of scrap acrylic, I got in some Delrin that was thick enough to take back-to-back fittings (inlet and anti-splash cone) and cut a 6mm circle into the bottom for the glass and a 2mm circle into the bottom of that for the o-ring:
Same was done to the top of the pump and I was forced to have a little lighting test. I'm hoping that it might illuminate the res more once it's filled but I'll need to wait until it's actually water-tight before I test that
I've started making the struts to compress the whole thing together. The astute of you (or those who still have enough fingers left to count up to four!) will notice what's wrong. I bought enough aluminium square bar to make four....but when the plan was for a wider, shorter glass tube. Now it's longer, I don't have enough...so that's in the post.
Why the numbers? Well each one is hand-fitted to the hole top and bottom so they're unique. I'll polish off the numbers when I'm done and have tested it. Shouldn't they all be identical? Well, yes but one of the top holes is off by about half a mm and one of the bottom holes has wandered by something similar. Not a lot but enough to make them all slightly different. Who needs simple anyway?!
There's a bit of a gap showing at the top but once I have the last strut done, I can tighten them down and squish the o-rings. Worst case if there's still too much of a gap, I can shim it but there glass isn't perfectly square so some slack for adjustment is necessary unless I start lapping the ends of the glass....and I don't want to unless I'm absolutely forced to!
So at least there's some progress for you. One more strut and we get to see if it leaks horribly!
