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Powered water can

smritte

smritte

Well-known member
This is one of the projects I've had on my list for a while. I wanted a water can I can use as shower, washing dish's or whatever.
All the ones I saw didn't quite fit what I needed so, here's mine.
Pic first then parts list and description.

Assembled water Can.jpg


Parts list

1. Scepter Can lid
2. Submersible water pump
3. Small 12 volt battery
4. Anderson connectors (2 red 2 black)
5. Quick release fitting (if needed). Lid side ........... Hose side
6. Small Gland nut (if needed). Link is for a box of them. I have a bunch so I didn't buy any for project.
7. ½” clear tubing
8. Stainless hose clamps
9. Zip Ties
10.Small switch (if needed)
11.Small LED (if needed)
12. Small box for battery (if needed). I had a few of these left over from another project.
13. Velcro
14. Spray nozzle. Home Depo garden section.

First was drilling a hole and mounting the Quick release. Then a hole for the wiring. I used a gland nut for the wiring but if the hole was drilled tight, it wouldn't be necessary. Cut tubing to length, mount pump and run wire. The pump comes prewired with THREE wires. The colors are Yellow, Blue, brown. The Brown and Blue are cut and tinned. I used the Brown for Pos and Blue for neg. It actually didn't seem to care which way I wired it.
Once the wire was through the lid, I cut it down to where I had enough to plug into another battery box with Anderson connectors. As you can see, I have covers on my Anderson plugs. I got those off Amazon when I ordered them last. This is the first time I've used them. Zip tied the wire and installed the clamps.
Congratulations, your halfway there.

Lid over.jpgLid under.jpg





Next was the Battery. I opted for a 1.8AH Lithium. I wanted it small so I could attach it to the side of the can. Its on a Velcro tab so I could take it off to charge. The battery is rated to 14 volts. I literally just hooked it up to my trailer battery and left it there for 12 hours (forgot to unhook it). The charged voltage matched my 12.3 trailer voltage and it didn't blow up.
My battery came with a built in on/off switch and led. That told me, the battery was smaller and inside its own box. I wanted better access to the switch so, I opened the box. The actual battery was a bit smaller and was two 6volt Prismatic cells. Not bad.
The battery switch was on the side, I wanted it top and it was a bit awkward. My original plan was, remove it, put it in one of my project boxes with my own switch and light. Fortunately I was able to use both and didn't have to buy anything. At this point you have two choices, mount it anyway (nothing wrong with that) or get a battery with a better located switch.

Here's my battery pic's. I didn't get one of the battery in the original box. You can see it in the link. The battery would fit in my plastic box but I would have had to cut the mount posts off and glue the case together. I notched the lid for the switch, drilled a hole to see the light and a hole for the wire. Added the Anderson Connectors and Velcro.

Battery.jpgBattery in box.jpg





Test
Spray pattern.jpg


Final Thoughts.
The pump could be more powerful. Its actually on par with the others I've seen. I ran it long enough to pump the water can half way with juice left in the battery. I didn't anticipate having to mod the battery but I had the extra parts so no big deal. You could save a bit of money by not installing quick connects and do something else for the connectors. You could even get an inline rocker switch to control it.
Over all I think it will work just fine.
 
Impressive! So are you going to go with a larger battery or whats the charge time on that battery? Personally I like the idea of the quick connects. This is a home run in my book!
 
I'm going to use it for a while with the current battery. Charge time wise, thats something else I need to see. The problem with lithium's is overcharging or leaving them at zero. When I first tested it, I wanted to see if I could hurt the battery by leaving it hooked to another battery and charging it that way. I didnt think it would be an issue but I didn't want to charge it out camping and find a problem. All of my vehicles have anderson connectors. I just plug it in and let it go.
One part i didnt add in was, when I first hooked it up the battery only had 5volts in it. It still powered the pump fast enough to push water. Obviously 12 volt is better.
I will update the thread as time goes on but my next trip out will tell me something.
 
Seeing this gives me some ideas. Now when you get to location can you add a small solar panel like a 30w to trickle charge this and keep it ready? Have you thought about painting the can black and allow the sun to heat up?
 
The small solar idea is great. That would actually work. It would be easy to tap into it.

I would rather buy a black one even though painting would work. I have 4 tan ones kicking around, that’s why I used that. But yes, people do paint them for warm showers.
 
Excellent. Now do you need to add any chemicals to keep the water fresh in something like that?
 
Anything you add will breakdown over time and effect the taste. I run my water through an inline garden hose water filter. Normally these are carbon filters. This removes all chemicals and sediments. The city adds in chlorine to prevent bacteria as well as other nasty things from growing. Even though I have purified water, it wont store more than a month or so because I removed the chlorine.
I found leaving the water alone allowed it to be good for a few months. That seems to be the limit of the cities chlorine If it was going to be stored longer, I would add more chlorine. All of this would get filtered out with a carbon filter added past my pump.
I went through a pretty big learning curve with the water tank on my motor home.
 
UPDATE

Been using this for about a year. The only drawback has been water flow. I finally found a good pump (took 3). This one also upgraded the battery pack to twice the size. I still velcro it to the side but it's a bit heavy. It "stays" in place but I need to make a holder of some kind (OCD is a pain).

Output is great and the battery hasn't gone dead on me, I do charge it between trips though. I cant give a good estimate, I've never killed it.

I cant give a part number on the battery pack. I cant find it in my Amazon orders

New Pump Number here

The spray goes out about 3 feet and the stream (bac picture) about 10 feet. Way farther then the old pump.

Pictures

New Pump.jpgFinal pic.jpg

New Spray.jpgNew stream.jpg

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