Charles on… anything that comes along

The following is written entirely for the benefit of Google, and you, dear reader, who probably like me has a Secoh EL 80 15 pump or similar that has stopped working. It may have been one year or it might have been three. (That’s what happened with us.) Maybe it’s powering a cess pit or a koi carp pond or whatever.

You’re thinking you might need to buy a new one. What!! TWO HUNDRED POUNDS!!

Don’t worry. The thing that goes wrong is the rubber-ish diaphragm that vibrates back and forth to pump the air around. You can buy spare parts for these. They’re much cheaper - about 60 pounds.

If the pump is a few years old, then you should probably replace both diaphragms - they’re arranged one each side of an electromagnet in the centre of the device.

Replacement isn’t hard at all. If you have a Philips (cross-head) screwdriver and about 20 minutes to spare you can do it yourself. Try not to do what I did and crossthread one of the screws so it breaks off when you’re doing the replacement. Gah.

You also have to change the position of the centre rocker so that it’s evenly placed between the electromagnet (you’ll find it’s on one side when you open the pump up - usually over to the diaphragm that’s intact. Shift it back to the middle).

You can download the manuals for Secoh pumps. Useful.

Hope that helps.

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