Water Cooled Pumps

[emericksmaple]

Does anyone have any experience with water cooled vaccum pumps? If so was it good,bad? We are thinking of buying one for the new woods we are putting out and we don't know much about them. Any input will be appericated. Thanks.

[nhmaple48]

Yup, we've got a 5hp. direct coupled pump on a 2200 tap woods that Glen Goodrich set up. Works well but you need a heated pump house so elec. is nice.

[lew]

WE had one on a 2500 tap woods. The pump worked great, but we had lots of trouble with our releaser. We set it up with antifreeze so no heat was needed with the vacuum pump or water related to it. We had a 100 gallon tank filled with 50/50 antifreeze to feed the vacuum pump. On warm days we had to haul water to the pump due to evaporation loss. On those 50 and 60 degree days at the end of the season you had to add 20+ gallons per day, sometimes more. One plus with the water cooled pump versus oil cooled is that if your releaser fails and sap goes through the check ball that is supposed kepp sap from getting to your pump your only loss is the sap and the liquid you use to cool the pump. I know this can be expenseive with antifreeze (been there and done that), but it's cheaper and a lot easier to fix than a vacuum pump.

[emericksmaple]

Ok here is another question for those of you that use water cooled pumps. Do you have a check valve on the inlet side of the pump where the water comes into the pump to help keep it primed? I am planning on putting our pump on a theromstat to start so it will be starting up without anyone there. Or do I have to be there when it starts? How do you fill them up with water to prime them??? Do you dump the water in where tha vaccum line goes to the releaser? We just recieved our SIHI about a week ago and it did not have a operators manual with it!! Go Figure!!

[lew]

The centerline of your pump shaft should be at the same level as the top of the water in your resevoir. With the water and pump set up this way, the pump is always full of water. The inlet line (located on the side of the pump towards the bottom, ours was a 1/2 inch line)should be equipped with a gate valve and a pressure/vacuum gauge. You will adjust this valve so (when the pump is running) so that there is just a slight amount of vacuum on it. Check with a dealer on the right amount of vacuum, it's not much. We ran ours on a thermostat also. Never had a problem with the pump starting or stopping, just the releaser problems I spoke of before.

[sgsommers]

Lew- Can you elaborate on the releaser problems. I am also in the process of getting a Sihi pump. I previously had a mechanical releaser over a tank but had problems with ice in the releaser so in the process of building a heated RO room I made the room large enough to keep the releaser inside with a small "catch" tank and transfer pump but then maybe I would be better with an eletric belly releaser with a transfer pump.
Steve

[lew]

The releaser we had was a vertical electric with a float iin the center that raised up to trigger a switch to turn on the pump. The problem we had was also with ice/slush. Whe the first sap/slush came down the line, it would fill the releaser with slush staying on top of the float system making the float not float, if that makes sense. Therefor the sap would not be pumped out of the releaser and would get pulled past water trap, that was supposed to protect the vacuum pump from getting sap into it, and into the vacuum pump. We finally got past this problem by going to a big belly releaser. They work with 2 small micro floats that are protected from the slush by a piece of pvc pipe. It worked flawlessly for us.

[mapleguy]

I think the mechanical releasers work best in most situations, they require less care and no pumps to freeze up.

[802maple]

We have 7.5 horse sihi and we get our water from a outside source that allows us to have a constant supply of cold water. How we do this the pump pulls water from a reservior that we put in a brook outside. On the inlet flange on a sihi there are 1/4 plugs that can be replaced with barb style fittings and you put sap line on the fitting and go to your source of water. Our pump is over a 100 gallon tank that the coolant water goes into with a overflow so that the tank doesn't run over. The only time that water is taken out of the tank is on start up when our feed line might be frozen. As long as the water in the tank is not below 18" it will start pumping on start up on its own without priming. The outside water can be as low as 15' below the pump and as soon as the our line thaws it will start bringing in that water to keep the pump ice cold. This setup will also keep the cfm's higher as it doesn't allow the pump to warm at all according to Donald Lappiere as this where we found out how to set this up. We have been doing this for 5 years with no problems

[sgsommers]

802

Does your feed line coming from the 100 gal resevoir have a valve and gauge to regulate the amount of water going to the pump as stated by lew? Seems like if the flow is not somewhat controlled the pump would use a lot of exess water, or maybe it needs every drop?

Steve

[802maple]

We do not have a valve at all on the line coming up and we haven't had any problems. If our pump was flooded like Lews would be by keeping the water at the center line of the pump then we would probably have to have a valve to slow down the feed of water. Believe it or not the water that cools the pump comes mostly from our outside source of water through the 5/16 line.

If you have a older 7/16ths plastic spout, that will screw right in where you take out 1/4 inch fitting, by first forcing it in than it will thread itself and it seals tight

[Maple Hill Sugarhouse]

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[NH Maplemaker]

802maple, Is it OK to just return water back to the brook? The way you have yours hooked up, what determines were the water will come from (Brook or Tank)? Then how did you plum the two lines together, are they too different lines or manifold together with a T?
Monday I'm off to buy a new liquid ring pump and trying to determine water cooled or oil! Like most here not at all knowledgeable about this type of pump! Thank you for any help.
JimL.