Manifold to releaser ?

[Tappy Sap Master]

I have a 6" Pvc manifold with (3) 1"-3/4" bushings and a milk bucket washer /releaser, what is the best way to make this have continuous vac?1018410183. The pvc to the left is where the sap comes in. I was going to place this manifold on top of this pipe & add a chk valve underneath. Then up above the releaser is the incoming vac, tee this connection and run it to the top of manifold. Will this work? Any suggestions would be helpful.

[BreezyHill]

TSM, I applauded your ingenuity!

The two pics are of my classic pyrex milk releaser setup I use now...they keep moving for some reason???
I am not familiar with your unit but it looks like a bender style releaser.
10187

The pic above is my old releaser that my dad, who was a surge dealer, built and we used from 1978 to 2013 seasons. The SS part is the actual releaser with an inlet & outlet flapper valve, probe sensor and vac line to the unit.

The horizontal 3" pvc was the manifold with a filter system inside. The upright pvc pipe is a reservoir with vac supply attached at the top. The moisture trap for this unit was attached to the vac pump. The filter was installed to keep chips and tubing saddle crap out of the releaser valves.

The unit wood dump 30 oz each cycle and during peak flow would cycle every 3 seconds. I had to install a gate valve to adjust the vac flow to the reservoir; so that the releaser had priority. Prior to this upgrade the unit would flood the trap during peak flow and the releaser cycled at about 6 seconds. Not in the pic is the valve that ran the releasers vacuum supply of the 5 gallon balance tank that also worked as a moisture trap for the releaser.

Constant vac was supplied to the lines thru the vac line to the reservoir.

If you add a line off the blue gate valve you have on the vac line prior to the releaser to your manifold you will do the same. Use the valve to adjust the flow to the manifold so that the releaser has majority of flow(Priority).

When your releaser dumps the vac is closed to the jar...your valve will supply all vac to the manifold thru the valve. When the releaser closes vac will primarily pull on the releaser again filling the unit with sap.

A swing check between the releaser and the manifold will isolate the releaser from the manifold allowing vac to build on the manifold while the releaser is dumping. As soon as vac is supplied to the releaser it will build until it is equal to the manifold and the weight of the sap will force open the check and fill the releaser.

For this to work well the manifold needs to be at an equal or above the releasers inlet. I would use a supply line as large as possible to the releaser from the manifold to get the most affect of the sap weight on the check valve and to add capacity to the releaser. I think you had 1.25 bushing...that would be great pipe size.

Your goal is to have as quick of an opening of the check valve and as high of flow into the releaser as possible. The releaser having priority of vac flow helps to pull the sap into the releaser. Ball valves do not work for this fine of an adjustment...been there, done that. I added a 1" line from the pump to the reservoir for my priority valve and attached it where the orange tubing cap is on the top of the releaser, the smaller vac line went to the SS bucket water trap so if the reservoir got to that point it went to the larger trap. I found the valve open 1/4 turn was best during peak flow. This got the releaser filled the fastest and kept the system working best.

I upgraded to the pyrex unit to add more capacity and the glass is more affective for youth group tours. The sap rushing into the releaser is mesmerizing to people and different parts of the bush have their own main entering the manifold so they can see the affect the days weather is having on sap production. I had also made this the main releaser and was at its capacity at peak flow times, so a larger unit was needed to run one releaser and to continue with putting the entire farm back into maple production. Dad passed in 2010 and I didn't have the hours needed to keep the maple going. My middle son urged to get back to maple production so we hooked up around 250 on the unit. Then we added more late season and saw the limitation of the unit at around 350 or so.

If a person is looking to build this system use clear on the 3" pvc so you can see the sap levels and flow. No reason to change the filter if it is clean. Took at least 10 minutes too.
The probe system is a PITA, use a SS float valve with 2 floats to open and close a three way valve to vent the releaser. Only use swing check not spring checks or it will fail. A person can make one of these units fairly inexpensively with supplies off ebay and have a height of 6" to 8" above a tank. If elevation is an issue one could install a pump to dunp the releaser and fill a tank and save the tank height.

You will need to do a couple things to get more out of your setup:
Do not have any dips in your vac line from the trap to the releaser. This line should have a slight slope to the releaser so that any condensation flows to the releaser. A dip will make a pool that will block vac transfer.

The unit appears t be out side...freezing sap may damage your releaser so design in some sort of heat source...it could be as simple as insulative blanket and a heat tape to rap the unit so keep it from freezing solid and splitting the jar. Bubble wrap and some Velcro will work great. Large bubble is easier to see thru than is small bubble.

Just remember that the cooler the sap the better for quality of sap. So if the sap is coming in from warm mains in the sun your unit in the shade of the over hang will help to cool the sap. Mine is in the sugar house where it is warm and actually will tend to heat the sap some what. There is always a trade off.

[Tappy Sap Master]

Breezy Hill,
Your attachment won't open for some reason, it says contact administrator.

Tappy

[lpakiz]

Ben,
What was the drawback with your probe system? Wouldn't contact when it should, or would contact when it shouldnt? Gummed up, false signal, splashing sap triggering a premature signal?

[BreezyHill]

The probes system is designed for the electrical conductivity of milk which is far more than sap. So dad brazed on copper plates to increase the surface area and located them much closer. This worked well as long as you cleaned it once a week to keep the copper clean. Vinegar solution worked great.

My glass jar system's probe would only conduct 18 of the 21 volts needed to close a 24 volt relay from a 29 volt transformer. I built a few designs to increase the surface area without success. So I scraped the probe style for a float style and a delay on make timer. I just adjusted the timer to cycle the pump to dump more gallons each time.

The dual float switch can connect the relay when the jar is full and run the pump until the bottom float drops and stops the pump.

It makes the system function but not as fool proof as the probe style. I have never had a float stick but can see where it could be an end of season issue. The probe will work fine on high sugar days and end of season when the sap is contaminated from the heat of the days. Early season it wont work at all...no conductivity. The SS releasers wont trip ever with the probe system as the SS conducts to ground so easily.

If somebody wanted to get really fancy you could use a vfd with the probe style and depending on the voltage increase or decrease the pump speed. This would work very well and increase the capacity of the unit to over 20,000 taps. On high tap counts the speed of the pump is the limiting factor. I will never come close to the max on my unit.

[lpakiz]

Ben,
This summer I discovered something interesting.
Are you familiar with a device called a SSR? That is a solid state relay. Couple of $$ each. Available from 10 amps all the way to 40, or more.
The signal side is described as 3-32 (?) volts. Well, a 9 volt garage door opener battery will trip this relay.
And, if you cut one of the signal wires between the battery and one of the terminals and strip each end about a 1/2 inch, dip the ends in water, the relay will close. What are the negatives to using a system like this, other than battery life? (A well-used 9 volt still held the relay closed for about a day.)

[BreezyHill]

Yes they are pretty good but they produce large amounts of heat. I bought one for my auto draw off build and the heat sink. It wasn't much...like $5 on ebay for the heat sink.

Should work, last longer on a heat sink and if the pump cycles less often than more often it will last longer yet. Heat will be the killer of these relays.

Will it work as is...yes but due to the wide range of pickup of the relay your dump point will change fairly dramatically as the sugar content changes and the sap conducts more volts. You could install a pot to adjust the volts coming in so that your dump level could be adjusted. These are only a few $$.

I would have a second or spare relay on hand to pop in when the first goes bad...this will insure that the first lasts longer too. lol

[Tappy Sap Master]

The reason for the gate valve is the releaser wont reset above 17-18" hg so i have to bleed a little air in the system for it to work. This is why i want a manifold to keep continuous vac on my mainline!