VacDaddy Collaboration

Here at Adept Engineering, blogging isn’t our strong suit… hence why it’s been a while since our last post. Fortunately, we have been quite busy throughout the pandemic. While I hope this post finds everyone happy and healthy as we emerge on the other side of a tough year. And let’s hope things continue to improve.

Although this is not what brought about this post.

During the pandemic an important milestone was reached for one of our clients which we’d like to share with you.

Adept has brought dreams to reality for many clients, both within the United States and abroad. Generally, we recommend – when possible – the introduction of new products within the United States. But we understand that this isn’t always a good fit for all business models.

So, for some clients we have supported setting up production abroad. This always presents additional challenges with language barriers, time differences, customs, and tariffs.

I am going to share with you a pleasant surprise. Due to the pandemic the ability to travel to Asia was obviously prohibitive. However, as we entered 2020, Adept had a project whose development was nearing final prototype stages, engineering builds, and production releases… and we were already committed to production in Asia.

Inevitably (especially when releasing a design for production) a visit to Asia with the client becomes necessary and proper. Knowing that this was impossible left us with an unsettled feeling. Despite this, we found that the impossibility of visiting Asia was met with good communications and – what we were surprised by – a better overall experience while the product was launched. Our counterparts in Asia met the challenge along with us. Mind you… this was a client new to production in Asia with limited resources.

Regardless, together we were able to endeavor through and the client is now receiving regular containers of their product in the US. Of course, the process wasn’t a bed of roses and was filled with what you would expect while conveying hundreds of details to the other side of the world. But with that said, we would like you to join us in applauding Advanced Pool Technologies (APT) with a job well done.

The design – which Adept engineered, developed, and brought to market – is a new form of Pool Vacuum. Traditionally, pools are vacuumed utilizing a one horsepower or more pump with large filters mounted to a cart using long corrugated hoses (or those same hoses are hooked to the pools filtration system and taxing the same).

APT came up with the idea of mounting a pump with filter directly to the pool vacuum while discharging the filtered water directly back into the pool. This would alleviate the need for dozens of feet of heavy hose. The product (known as the VacDaddy) is simple enough for any homeowner to operate and can reduce setup time significantly for a professional pool maintenance person. As a matter of fact, one of the VacDaddy’s selling slogans is that “Nobody taught you to vacuum your house”!

Utilizing Priority Impeller blade profile design software, Computational Fluid Dynamics Software and Solidworks; Adept matched a 364 W 24 VDC motor with mixed flow impeller to reach the design goal of 60 GPM and 12 plus feet of head! This granted the VacDaddy great suction while also permitting a vacuum-to-waste option to pump water from the pool through 100 ft of hose. The motor, impeller, and filter are housed in a robust ABS/PC housing.

This was an exciting and rewarding project and we look forward to seeing APT’s continued success. If you need engineering design consultation on your next concept or project, look no further than the team at Adept Engineering. To speak with an engineering professional, give us a call today.