Q: At times, it is necessary for me to lay my trigger gun down to perform other tasks. How long can I leave my unit running like this without doing damage to the pump?
A: Unless you some type of thermal protection or a clutch that disengages the pump when the trigger is released, it is unwise to allow your unit to run for more than 2 minutes without depressing the trigger to allow fresh water to circulate through your pump.
Is there anytime length that a pump can stay in bypass for? My guess is no as long as water keeps going thru the pump.
That is hard to say John.
Most bypasses have a section of hose that is a foot or less. As the pump turns the friction inside the head of the pump slowly heats the water until it reaches the point that it can damage the packing. This is why we recommend pulling the trigger every 2 minutes to coll the pump, to prevent damage. Two minutes is fairly safe. I have done some test that it ran for close to 10 minutes before it actually started getting too hot.
A longer bypass hose can delay the heating process but inevitably it will get to hot.
Or you could bypass to a tank and not have to worry lol
Though, i’ve never had the machine run longer than 5-7 minutes anyway
Yes, that is an option too. I works great. It is a good option if you only downstream your chemicals. We do a lot of up-streaming of our chemicals so we can take advantage of the pressure, heat and detergent combination which allows us to use less chemical.
I have 3 Powerwashers on my flatbed that all run in bypass to a water tank so fresh water continuously recirculates thru the pump. We have ran these pumps like this for probabably at most 15-20 minutes at times when something else is going on.
With employees I’d say that all pumps should be able to run to a water tank in bypass because I learned the hard way quite a few times that if there is a Powerwasher that doesn’t have a water tank it can run thru in bypass the guys will eventually overheat the pump where the packings go numerous times…
John excellent point regarding employees. We have been converting some of our older machines to the clutch.
Here are a few pictures: machine, engaged clutch on pump, disengaged clutch when trigger is released. The machine can run till it is out of gas with the trigger released and the pump will not get damaged.
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