Releaser / Extractor

[royalmaple]

I saw a few posts about a gravity type homemade releaser. I was wondering if any has plans to create one so I can try it or if anyone has tried to make a mechanical or electrical releaser with any success and also has plans to share to make one.

I was thinking about screwing with a few designs over the down time before next season.

Just curious if anyone has had any luck?

[brookledge]

The one thing I have noticed over time on this site is that some of the homemade designs will work but I have never seen anyone post how effective they are at transfering the vacuum out into the orchard. If too much vacuum is lost in the releaser than I don't feel it is feasable. If you can't get 15" or more out into the sugar bush then why waste the electricity to run the pump.
Maybe someone has posted good results and I missed it.
Keith

[Parker]

buy a real releaser,,you will find they are actually worth the money( if your system and pump are set up properly),,you can pick them up in the summer used for not as much money,,,I got one out of Agriview and one from this site,,,good luck

[sweetwoodmaple]

My homemade contraption works fine.

But, as they say, there are only so many ways to skin the cat. Mine works very similar to a mechanical releaser. And, therefore, even with getting valves from ebay and using 4" PVC pipe for the vacuum chambers, I still have $300 plus all my time and frustration.

I did have one constraint...I use 275 gallon totes for my tanks, so the way the land works out, I made my releaser so the inlet is only about 12" high so i could set the whole thing on top of the totes and not be sky high.

Moral of the story...save you pennies and buy a brand name one new or used.

[markcasper]

If your not living in Wis or maybe Minnesota then you are probably out of luck. My old milkhouse releasers work superb on operations with up to 300 taps. I know i have talked about this in previous posts and I know brookledge also has used these releasers in the past.

Since I had no directions, there was alot of trial and error, but they do work and work well IF you have a good, tight leak free system. The number one thing to get a BENDER releaser to work is what I mentioned above. I was well satisfied with my yield this spring and am not planning on any changes until I get more taps on a system. I actively search the auction bills every week for things. The last bender cost me $27 and 6 hours of waiting for the auctioneer to get there. Hmmmmmmm.........................Labor @ $99.99/ hour, $10.00 gas to get there, $7.00 lunch, and actual cost @ $27.00. It may have been cheaper to have boughten a new Lappiere. Mark

[TWhite]

We used a Bender Washer Realeaser this year and it worked great. I called local radio want ads show and had someone call to say they had one, paid $20 then he called back next week and said he had regulator and gage if I wanted them. We ran 18inches of vacuum..was all we counld get out of the old Conde pump. You had mentioned you have had up to 300 taps on one Bender Is that about the max?
Thanks,
Todd

[brookledge]

Yes 300 taps is pushing it pretty hard for a bender releaser. 250 is more comfortable. 300 will work its just that under peak flows you will lose a little vacuum out in the orchard because it can't keep up.
Otherwise for a small orchard they work good.
I have outgrown my use for them that is why I'm selling the ones I have.
Keith

[markcasper]

I am not for sure on the 300 tap max thing. The most mine ever tripped on the best day were every 18 seconds. There was plenty of time for some more in my opinion, but probably not much. It doesn't matter, I cant get any more taps in these locations other than whats there now.

From my experience though....300 would be a safe limit.

Were you getting 18 inches way out in the bush, or directly at the releaser.

The most I was running was 17 inches and that was about half way out. Mark

[TWhite]

That was 18" at the releaser we never did measure out at the tap hole. Always wanted to but since we didn't get the tubing and mainline up till about a week before we started tapping we were on the run all season. Hope its not going to be that way this year starting on the next woods as soon as turkey season is over.

[brookledge]

With my bender releaser running at max capacity it dumps every 15 seconds and each dump is about a quart. So that is 60 gallons per hour. And with more than 300 taps you will get more than 60 GPH on a good run.
Keith

[TWhite]

Our releaser looks to be 2-3 gallons. I guess we should have measured flow when we were using it this spring.