Gas engine driven surge/alamo with cooling

[Sunny Hill Farm]

I'll try my hand at posting a link to my gas engine driving surge almo vacuum system.


http://s842.photobucket.com/user/lsameis/library/Vacuum%20Pump%20Build



The system has 12V fan cooling of the vacuum pump and flood oil cooling with forced fans. Added a GM delco 1 wire alternator (DL7140M) to keep everything charge and run a convertor for lights in the sap house. Tied into the motor charging system (stator 30VAC w/o diode) to run a RIB1UC remote relay to pull in the cooling fans via a "fog light" relay. This way when the engine runs out of gas or stops for any reason the cooling fans will drop out and not run the battery down. Future will include adding a 12V timing relay to the kill circuit to shut pump down at a preset time or hook to remote thermostat. Still some thing to finish, but first run at 45 deg. temp, 21"hg for 6hrs resulted in oil temp in reclaim of only 165degrees.

[BreezyHill]

That is a nice unit!
What are the vanes in the pump? If the newer Kevlar and the housing is in good shape you should be able to pull more vac than 21".

I would suggest the thermo not a timer. No reason to shut down the vac on a warm evening or on those all night runs.

Great job. Let me know if you want to get the vac up more.

Ben

[Sunny Hill Farm]

Had new vanes from partsdepot.......don't know the material. Reworked an engine hone to work for the 8" bore of the pump housing. It will go over 25", but the goal was to try to get the heat down on the pump and the oil. For the first run I set the regulator at he 21" and all seemed good. If it ever warms up I'll see what it can really do and still stay cool.

[collinsmapleman2012]

i'm glad you posted this, i have been trying to think of ways to keep a battery charged for a battery sump pump, and an alternator is definitely a good solution. that way I can run the sump pump to pump sap to the road, as well as have vacuum. the battery should take care of the sump pump when the motor isn't running. great idea!

[boron1034]

If you put different pulleys on the pump to slow it down and help with heat you should have no problem pulling 25+ all season. I made a similar setup last year (not nearly as nice) with an old beat up Alamo pump we had stored in one of the old buildings around the farm and it pulled 27" all season. The hardest part to deal with for me was setting everything up to withstand the constant vibration of the Gas Engine.

[Sunny Hill Farm]

I'll give the lower speed a try.....Turning the pump head at about 850-900 RPM with a motor speed of about 2800-2900 RPM right now. I know what you mean about vibration, I used snowmobile engine mounts to attach the main mounting plate to the frame. Also the fan shrouds are all mounted with rubber bushings........nylon lock nuts and Loc-tite are your friend:)

Grainger also has the rubber mounts....#2NPC6.....$8/ea

[murferd]

How are you pushing oil through your oil cooler & back up to the oil drippers?

[Sunny Hill Farm]

The oil moves via gravity/vacuum. Since the reclaim is higher than the pump it flows down and back up. The vacuum from the pump really "sucks" the oil right into the pump. I was a little worried about an air lock in the oil lines at first, but once the pump starts to make vacuum the oil flows right it. I did put a tee fitting with a plug at the bottom of the oil cooler so that I can drain all the oil in the system when changing the oil. The only problem so far is getting the Oil-Right flow valves sealed up. It seems that the glass sight glass is not sealing to the gasket they have top and bottom. I was going to contact them or make a thin (.032") silicone gasket to put in. I Used Oil-Rite B1631-3X00 for each line.....Approx..$16/ea

[murferd]

Wondering if you could cool the oil before it goes back to the reclaimer? It seems to me that it would be more effective if there was a way to do it. Yes? No?

[Sunny Hill Farm]

The oil is still "airborne" in the exhaust of the pump before it hits the reclaimer. The job of the reclaimer is to "pull" the oil out of the pump exhaust. So to answer your question..No (or it would be hard to). I have seen some use a closed system oil cooler/ pump to circulate the reclaimer oil through the cooler. I went the way I did to dump the cooled oil directly into the pump to help keep it cool.

[Sunny Hill Farm]

After contacting Oil-Rite I figured out that I ordered the "vented" units. I needed to change out the gaskets to solid ones and should be good to go with no oil leaks and best of all no vacuum leaking into drippers. He is the part number for the correct units with 1/16" dia flow and hand wheel adjust:

B1631-3-S03X00 ADJ SFV SLD GSK 1/8 F IN 1/8 M OUT HNDW

[BreezyHill]

Sunny Hill,
I am a little concerned. The normal setup for drippers is they operate on vacuum. When the vacuum rises due to a moisture trap full the vac level will jump and more oil will be pulled to col the pump. The seal is not an issue. When I rebuild I only use bearings with no inner seal. If there is a seal you run the risk of the seal getting sucked into the pump eventually and causing damage as it can get caught in a vane and stay there. I would not run an Alamo over 1000 rpm ever. It actually is often run at 750.

The job of the reclaimer is to have the oil come to it hot in the exhaust and to contact the sides and internal plates to condense. The condensing releases the heat energy into the metal of the reclaimer to be dissipated into the air. The oil in the reclaimer is coolest at the bottom but a water trap of some kind should be installed. The use of an oil filter to pull the oil thru to clean it before it goes to the drippers is a good idea as to remove foreign material(FM) and moisture. The filter will also cool the oil. I discourage the use of plastic lines for the drippers...use copper as it will dissipate heat better and wont melt on warm end of season days and destroy a pump.

Vibration is a huge issue with gas motors. Great idea on the sled mounts! Slow moor speeds of just over ideal work well. A strong frame and vibration isolation is a must when designing. Direct drive often helps by eliminating the belt slap.

[Sunny Hill Farm]

Yes, drippers are on vacuum, but the drippers I ordered were not OEM.....The seal I was talking about was the seal for the "glass" sight tube in the drippers. They come in two styles "vented" for gravity system and "closed" or solid for pressure/vacuum systems. I just selected the wrong ones at first, but converted over by changing the "seals" on top of the glass. I went with these since they are about $16/ea and they have the larger flow of 1/16"dia. already instead of clipping the wire or drilling out the factory ones. I also remove the inner seal on the pump main shaft bearing so the oil flows through them better and the seal does not go into pump. The "plastic" lines are teflon (-450F to 500F rated).....Mcmaster #5239K12......Your right, copper would cool the oil better, but I like to see the oil going to the drippers. Oil filter will be next on the list, and I did put a long drop tube in the bottom the reclaimer to draw off any water. Thanks for the comments...

[BreezyHill]

If you are still having a warm oil issue you could splice in a section of copper coiled and put in a radio shack type computer fan to blow across the coil. I like the teflons temp. Can you send me the source of that tubing.

I hate to see a good pump go to waste. Keep up the good work!

Thanks BEn

[Sunny Hill Farm]

I ordered the tubing from McMaster Carr and the part number is #5239K12. You can buy it by the foot and most of the time it is at your door the next day. Great place to get small qty's of odd ball stuff......Just don't tell the bookkeeper I told you about them:).......I'm good on cooling the oil with running it though the oil cooler....re-purposed heater core from a car.

http://www.mcmaster.com/#catalog/120/144/=qlcbe9

[Sunny Hill Farm]

Pump unit made it to the woods this weekend.... All test to the woods side of the relaser. It will be ready to go after this next cold spell. Also used the "set screw" trick to fix a turning shaft on another Alamo rotor. So far it has held great for them, they ran it all weekend so far. I added in a couple pics to the album.

[S.S.S]

What size surge pump do you have and what size gas engine?

[Sunny Hill Farm]

The Surge pump is a 75-100 unit (just depends on the rotor speed). We are turning it 800-900RPM. The motor is a 10hp LCT 291 Maxx (Honda gx270 clone) turning 2700RPM with a 4" drive pulley. The HP curve on the motor has it about 7hp at that RPM, and it run the govenor about 1/2 open. The fuel usage is about 1-1/2 qts/hr with the fans running and alternator charging. The motor seems to have plenty of reserve.

[BreezyHill]

Totally agree about McMaster & Carr...great place, quick service and quality folks on the other end of the phone is so nice to experience. Thanks
Ben

[BreezyHill]

Sunny Hill, I was just reading the specs on that tubing. The high vac level is only to 72 degrees F. You will need to keep an eye on it as I often hit 140-200 on pumps that I have checked temps on.
This would explain several of the failures I have seen. The tubing looked like it had shrunk and melted...this could be caused by the partial collapse of the line and pulling apart at the fittings.
When running tests or checking the unit check during the heat of the day to check on the integrity of the lines under higher temps than the 72.

[S.S.S]

Sunny hill, we have a surge 100 pump we are setting up right now with a gas engine so I really appricate the info thanks

[BAP]

I always use flexible copper for the oil lines. That way, the heat won't melt them like plastic lines a liable to do when they get too hot.

[Sunny Hill Farm]

The "plastic line" I used was Teflon Extreme temperature.......Good to around 500 Deg F....I like to be able to see that the line are full of oil heading into the pump. Here is a link to the tubing....

http://www.mcmaster.com/#catalog/120/144/=qxkhn4