Thrust Measuring Test Stand

I found this idea for measuring thrusts on another site and thought I would try it out. Basically you make this arm lever setup up out of PVC, making sure both vertical arms have are the same exact length

I used a standard storage tote I all ready had from another project and made two cut outs to hold the arm setup in place.

The thruster gets attached to the bottom arm (in this case with rubber bands)

A scale is attached to the top arm.

The thruster is turned on and pushes on the bottom arm of the lever which transfers to the top arm pulling on the scale giving a reading of how much thrust (in pounds) the thruster is putting out. If you arms are not exactly the same sizes this reading will be off because of the off set forces of the lever.

The fishing scale I used is kind of weird where it doesn't read pounds and ounces but it reads pounds and tenths of a pound. You can see from the picture about my converted bilge pumps put out a little over 2 pounds of thrust. I tested out a standard bilge pump also and that only pulled about .6 which is a little over a 1/2 pound of thrust, so you can see the converted bilge pumps are a big improvement.