Just wanted to provide a quick comparison of 3 D5 pump tops I did a comparison on. Pump is a D5 Vario. Tops are Singularity Computer Protium D5 Top, Darkside D5 top, and Aquacomputer Ultitop.
Flow was checked by Aquacomputer High Flow meter in Aquasuite. I kept the same length of tubing and res for all tops. Only things in the loop were pump/top, flow meter, and res.
I must say, I was very surprised by the Darkside results. I redid it 3 times just in case I was doing something wrong, but got similar results. I actually got the Darkside top first but being OCD I looked at the flow path at the outlet and it looked somewhat constricted and at a 90 degree angle to where the pump would be pushing water, so I went ahead and got the other tops. The machining quality on the internals also left a lot to be desired on the Darkside, whereas it is pretty good on the other 2. The singularity is also not a straight path to the outlet but didn't seem to suffer much. The Aquacomputer top has pretty much a straight outlet so I expected it to do well.
I'll have to do a check of the actual outlet diameter on the Darkside, maybe that's causing restriction. In any event, I will not be using the Darkside top in my loop.
EDIT: I found what I was doing wrong with the Darkside top. Compared to the other tops it took much longer for the air in the top itself to clear so once it finally did clear the performance is more in-line with the other tops.
In addition I did some more testing with the other inlets of the Singularity top. Not a huge difference but the "axial" inlet was the best performing.
Flow was checked by Aquacomputer High Flow meter in Aquasuite. I kept the same length of tubing and res for all tops. Only things in the loop were pump/top, flow meter, and res.
I must say, I was very surprised by the Darkside results. I redid it 3 times just in case I was doing something wrong, but got similar results. I actually got the Darkside top first but being OCD I looked at the flow path at the outlet and it looked somewhat constricted and at a 90 degree angle to where the pump would be pushing water, so I went ahead and got the other tops. The machining quality on the internals also left a lot to be desired on the Darkside, whereas it is pretty good on the other 2. The singularity is also not a straight path to the outlet but didn't seem to suffer much. The Aquacomputer top has pretty much a straight outlet so I expected it to do well.
I'll have to do a check of the actual outlet diameter on the Darkside, maybe that's causing restriction. In any event, I will not be using the Darkside top in my loop.
EDIT: I found what I was doing wrong with the Darkside top. Compared to the other tops it took much longer for the air in the top itself to clear so once it finally did clear the performance is more in-line with the other tops.
In addition I did some more testing with the other inlets of the Singularity top. Not a huge difference but the "axial" inlet was the best performing.
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