Intex Screw in pool vacuum adapter by Vaulter98c

Last crawled date: 2 years, 10 months ago

If you have a cheaper Intex pool it's a pain in the a$$ to hook up a vacuum to it with the included 1000 pump. You need to pull the intake line off the pump which causes water to go everywhere if you have the pump below the water level or takes two people to hold the pump up and then switch the hose and you still have an open hose coming from the pool you need to secure or else it starts dumping water everywhere. The more expensive ones (or larger pump kits) come with 1.5 inch tubing and shut offs to make this more manageable (if you buy them extra) but for the stock 1000 pump and 1.25 inch tubing you get on the entry pools (mine is the 15 foot 48 inch pool) you have no good way to connect the vacuum with just one person.
To add onto the mess the pump has virtually zero head pressure so if you have even the slightest bit of air in the line your pump wont pump. Keeping the vacuum hose submerged or at best at the surface of the water lightens the load as much as possible and keeps keeping the line filled with water easier. Every little thing you can do to help the flow helps with this tiny a$$ pump.
This piece is one of two (coming soon) to fix those problems. (second piece is a full stop cap, not done designing this yet)
If you have the (roughly) 83 mm threaded intake holes on the inside of the pool and your vacuum line uses 1.25 inch tubing then this is what you need. (I'm not going to make any other sizes, if you want to you can remix it to what you need) If you followed along when building the pool your strainer caps are screwed in place with two set screws. No idea why but they are. Remove the top and bottom set screws. Unscrew the strainer piece. Screw this cap on in it's place. You can leave it like this for normal usage if you want, or switch back to the strainer, your call, it just sticks out a bit more into the pool but isn't an issue for me. Once connected, just slip your vacuum hose on the end (once it's 100% pre-filled with water) and away you go.
This concept was my own but there are already similar ones here I found that do roughly the same thing. I made this one specifically so that it was easier to grip under water and required zero supports to print so there's no post work or chance of supports messing up. I drafted this up on my own from scratch in F360 before finding it but it's similar to Thing 3755339. The two biggest differences are that mine needs zero supports and that my threads actually go on perfectly. Intex uses their own custom thread size and it doesn't match any other industry standard. Huge props to User Avri, he has a comment on that Thing and using his suggestion for a custom thread profile this has made the cap screw on perfectly!. Avri or RT3DWorkshop never made a remix of the closest design to this that includes the proper threads so this solves that issue.
Eventually I will upload a blank cover cap to block the other input (these pools have 2 input lines) and will link that here when ready. For the moment I'm just using my test print to cover the other inlet. This gives maximum sucking power to the one line that has the vacuum on it for better cleaning. Check back for that in a few days.
Only thing to note is be sure to line the threads up, it's easy to cross thread a 3d print but if you line it up right this will screw all the way to the wall of the pool with no resistance if your printer tolerances are correct. Thread cavity is a bit deeper than male side on the pool wall so you can't over tighten it and damage the threads, just stop when you naturally stop to not damage pool wall.
Also, if you have any heavy debris on the bottom it will clog the grate on the threaded intake through the pool wall. There's no way around this as it's part of the threaded piece itself so just pop the vacuum line off and brush it off with your finger, you can easily reach this with the adapter still in place.
Designed in F360. Not for commercial use. If you want to sell this please reach out to me for a share of the cut that you thing is fair. Intended to be free but tips are always welcome! Just wanted to give something to the community because F this pool and all the hassles that come with a cheap pool kit lol.