There is an Australian homepage (would have to dig deep to find it in my bookmarks) which describes the results of the tests they did with many pumps. The only one that gave a high reliability factor was the (at that time) Rule 400 now called Rule 500. All others failed over time with such problems as the pump's impeler desintegrating. I use a Rule 500 powered with 2 6V lantern batteries connected in series inside a tupperware box. It pumps water much faster than I would with a hand held pump. The circuitry and arrangement is a lot simpler than what was describe in the Sea Kayaker article. Since I do not use rechargable batteries, I do not have to worry about the batteries having enough energy after being recharged multiple times. Just connect on wire of the pump to the waterproof switch, and then directly to the batteries (forget about the fuse, lantern batteries can not put out the 2 Amps needed to burn the fuse anyway). To that respect, it is important to note that the best battiers are dry batteries, not alkaline. With dry batteries you can tell when the batteries are running low as the water flow decreases slightly, but still have a long way to go. Alkaline batteries, on the contrary, maintain their voltage at the same level all the way to the end of their life, when the voltage drops suddently. That means that someone would think that the alkaline batteries are in good shape, and then they would die suddenly when one needs them the most. By the way, I only have to replace my two lantern batteries about once a year. - Julio > This strikes me as excellent advice, but I am wondering why so many > people choose the Rule 500 instead of the Rule 800. The 800 comes in two > Dan Hagen *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - All postings copyright the author and not to be reproduced outside PaddleWise without author's permission Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************Received on Tue Oct 12 1999 - 11:38:10 PDT
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.4.0 : Thu Aug 21 2025 - 16:30:14 PDT