It’s quite an old idea, not mine, you can google it or go here,here or here to see how other people doing it. Below my variation of same old trick. The biggest benefit IMHO is that the moisture is not building up inside air bed, and obviously is super quick. You can still splash £30 on Thermarest NeoAir Mini Pump if you like, but that’s couple bottles of wine or new Schwalbe Marathon (plus beer for fitting procedure), or 6 bags of coffee… all above better than another unnecessary gizmo.
I cut threaded part of bottleneck from PET bottle and make hole in the capfrom piece of plastic (ice cream box or sth) a circle has been cut same diameter as bottle neck with hole inside, which makes kinda washer3 inch piece of road (18-25c) inner tube for nozzleinserted plastic “washer” into inner tubelike so…everything put back togetherI made a hole in plastic bag and put nozzle throughto seal the connection, wrapped a piece of velcro ( might be a rubber band or something)alternatively the bag can be trapped underneath cap, just screw the bottleneck innow you can “grab” some air with the bag and squeeze it into sleeping mat. Once technique is mastered should be a bliss. On the picture is Big Agnes Air Core and took about a minute to inflate it. Basically 3 bags of air squeezed in, job done. The small rubber o-ring I added for extra grip on the valve.
Probably the most useful piece of camping kit I’ve made (to date) plus as a bonus you can see pretty hot porn video with this piece of kit in action ;-).
Googling the other day I came across Exped Minipump. This is an awesome idea, but I’m not sure will fit other brands than Exped. They making quite ok camping gear, but unfortunately too dear for me. So I tried recreate more less same product.
I made valve connector with cable gland. Just cut inside to fit valve.
Cut ripstop in a shape of big lollipop as below. (already looking hot ;-))
As ripstop is quite thin I had to reinforce hole with a bit of stronger fabic. Tested and sewn to leg of one “lollipop”.
A “bun” been made with foam I found at office. The additional holes are to decrease slightly volume of the foam (will pack smaller).
In other lollipop piece i made air intake hole, and everything has been put together. Voilà, ready to test. Uhh! Ohh! look at that hot pictures below!
And now promised porn. Do not watch it if you’re under 18! Camera! action!
Final thoughts. Obviously that is prototype or MK1 if you like, just to prove the concept. The pump works ok, but I didn’t pay too much attention to details (as I wanted quickly test it), so I think the air leaks are the main problem. Other than that the test was promising enough to make another iteration in the nearest future.
Mistakes. “Foam bun” is too small, should fill completely wider part. I’m planning to add valve in “hose” part of the lollipop as I got feeling that air been sucked back a bit. The hose is not acting completely as expected, I thought negative pressure will squeeze walls and act as valve). I hoped that stitching need to be air tight so next time I’m going to glue pieces together and than sew it. Intake hole need to be a bit smaller.
