What are Hybrid Pumps?
The term hybrid is becoming commonplace in many industries and there is no exception in the ponding world either. A hybrid pump utilizes the power associated with a direct-drive pump combined with the electrical efficiency of a magnetic induction pump (mag drive pump). Understanding these 2 separate pumps that combine to make the hybrid should help you to see why these hybrid pumps might just be great addition to your pond.
Direct Drive Pumps
The rugged direct drive submersible pump has long been used in the wastewater industry where they are known for their ability to pump solids while providing high head heights. They are named direct drive because their impeller is attached directly to the motor, along with several seals on the drive shaft to ensure the motor is kept dry. All this power has a downfall: high wattage expenditures-especially the older models that have flat-bladed synchronous impellers. Synchronous impellers rotate in either direction, requiring that the impeller be flat-bladed to allow for it to spin in either direction.  Flat blades are not efficient but luckily, there have been many improvements on this design.
A huge energy efficient improvement that was made lately on the direct drive pumps was the design of asynchronous impellers.  Asynchronous impellers rotate in one direction only allowing for an efficient curved impeller blade.
Mag Drive Pumps
The magnetic induction pumps are a more energy efficient pump but also have lower head heights as a result of their inefficient synchronous impeller design. As a general rule, most mag drives are effective up to 2000 gph with a maximum head height of 15’. The replaceable magnetic impeller assembly, when charged with electricity, will spin the impeller by magnetic attraction. Clean, or pre-filtered water is needed with these pumps as they can’t handle solids.
Hybrid Pumps
A hybrid pump utilizes the best of both of both worlds: it uses the direct-drive style asynchronous impeller with a magnetic induction motor used by the mag drive pumps. The result is a high efficient pump suitable for low to medium head heights.
Check out our selection of Hybrid Pumps here.
