Sp22

[maple flats]

How many taps can an SP22 support, at what RPM, and how high of a vacuum should it do?

[mapleack]

I was running one on 800 taps, 22 inches at the pump. Others report running 24" but I was afraid of burning it up. I'm not sure of pump rpm off the top of my head. Leaks had to be kept up with really close.

[Russell Lampron]

I have 700 taps on my SP22. I have the vacuum regulator set to 26" and am usually in the 24" to 25" range. You should run the pump at 400rpm. In have run mine 24 hours a day for days at a time. I shut it off just long enough to top up the oil and turn it right back on again during a run. Mine is outside under my feed tank platform. If you plan to keep it inside a pump house you may want to have a fan blowing on it to keep it cool.

[Woodland Acres]

I was running mine on 900 taps on a wet/dry system. I mounted a Honda GX 160 motor on it and could get 2 days on 5 gallons of gas just running it above idle. Was pulling 23 inches at the releaser and had a 1000 feet of mainline before the 1st tap. On that many taps we needed to stay on top of leaks in the system. Furthest manifold was at 1600 feet of mainline and was getting 20 inches there. I had a pump house where i kept both doors open to keep it cool and made sure the doors were facing north to avoid the sun from heating it up. Most days it ran 24/7 with very little vacuum oil being added and I . had no issues with it heating up. Would change the oil in the gas motor every 2 days.

[Maplewalnut]

Same sort of set up as mentioned. I have 750 on wet/dry set up and run it 23-24 for days on end. I change pump oil couple times a season. Cheap insurance in my mind. Leaks have to be contolled.

[maple flats]

Thanks, that sounds better than what I have. I currently have only 17" at that bush, currently on 800 taps. I think I'll have only about 50-75 more when all possible expansion is completed. I now have a vacuum gauge at the end of some of my lines and I have now bought gauges for 8 more mains. Before next season those will be installed and I'll order as many more as necessary to have a gauge on every main to help find leaks. That should help.
I would like to set it for 25" if I can, and then hold it there. Then I need to come up with a fix to frozen transfer lines in that bush. Last year I had 1 time the 850 gal tank over flowed when the TF line was frozen and this year it was up to within about 1" of overflow when it thawed. The TF line is about 850' long with 1.5" tubing and it runs thru a cold ravine to get to the road. I have no electric there and that is the only route the friendly landowner neighbor will let me go. I'm looking to find a way to completely drain the line so it can't freeze. If my calculations are correct the line holds just under 80 gal when full, thus I don't want to just dump it each time the forecast shows a likelyhood of freezing for more than a day while the woods are still running.

[BreezyHill]

SP-22 is a solid pump to max out at 27-27.5" vac provide she is tight and the rings are good. This will require a tight system.
Production increases from a leaky system to a tight system will pay for gauges on manifolds in the first year. Then it is all profit after paying yourself for going out and checking the lines. Ball valve and a good gauge can be had for $20.

Max rpm on a 22 is 490 in the book...less than 425 is not recommended for proper oil distribution from the oil slingers onto the upper cylinders of the pump for cooling purposes.

Number of taps is all relative to your leak status. I have a 4.89 cfm pump running on a 750 bush and she hold 27 when leaks are controlled. I can tell immediately when there is a leak as the guage shows a drop. If I cant go out then a repair I throw on another pump to compensate for the vac lose.

an extra gauge on the supply or body of a manifold is a great tool also. When you close a lateral off and watch for gauge waver you can also watch the manifold gauge for increases. The closure of two valves may show on their dedicated gauge a slow drop, that can be written of to the production of those lines of gasses and sap; but if the manifold's gauge show a desired increase then there are nominal leaks that are accumulating to negatively affect your overall status. Not easy to find especially if they are along a brook as mine were.

I found three taps that were into less than desirable wood this past season. On their own were nothing big...added together and they were causing a manifold drop of 1/2" of vac. That seems like nothing but over the course of the season that can be a major production drop in the area of 7.5 gallons of syrup for 750 taps. At todays $2.30/# that's a nice $189.75 is selling at bulk and if retailing out then that can be a cool $400 return on what took about 2 hours to find.

For the 1.5" issue; you are correct 78 gallons on 850' and thru a brook area is my nightmare also on mains. I have found that smaller lines thaw faster than larger and the other option is to pump up to a elevated and sloped to the road line. If you suspend the line from High T wire at a slope of 1.5% to 2% the line will drain well on its own. Anything left in the riser should be allowed to drain back into the reservoir or collection tank at the source. The use of a 2" riser with a sweep elbow and reducer will have less of a frictional affect on the pump.
To totally clear the line in a few seconds: install a tee at the base of the line to which you connect a tire changer bottle of compressed air. These tire changer bottles will blow the line clear in a flash. One can also take a BBG grill propane tank and make one of these. I don't recommend going over 100 psi as these tanks do age and degrade. These bottles are lighter and can be found on Clist for around $5 add a 3/4"ball valve and a few nipples for connecting and a union and you can blow that line out in a flash.

Leave the riser open to the tank to drain any droplets left in the riser and you are good to go. Droplets in the 850 feet will drain to the road to a bucket or can be left to drip onto the ground. I would try the bucket to see how much you potentially will loose; then decide. If using the air tank trick then you could drop the slope to 1% and use rapid tie to attach to some trees to maintain the minimal slope.

I would change the setup in the summer and run a water test so you can check the line with a flash light at night for any low spots that could freeze and cause issues in the sap season.

We use air to clear molasses lines for cleaning and maintance using compressed air...fast, easy and way cleaner than getting all sticky.

Good Luck!

Ben

[jrmaple]

This was my first year running an SP-22 with a gas motor at aprox 480 rpm and it pulled 28 at the releaser with a closed system and pulled 27.5" for most of the season with no leaks on 300 taps. The lowest it dropped that I saw was 24" and that was a day it really ran and over 24 hours I got 700 gallons of sap from those 300 taps. If you change the oil once in the season it will be best especially once it starts to warm up; the pump never got hot enough for "spit to sizzle" and I could always put my hand on the pump for about a second before it got too hot. Great little pump, I'd buy one again any day. I'd say looking at the CFM's ratings that this pump would be good for a max of almost 1,000 taps on a tight system.

[Russell Lampron]

I need to come up with a fix to frozen transfer lines in that bush. Last year I had 1 time the 850 gal tank over flowed when the TF line was frozen and this year it was up to within about 1" of overflow when it thawed. The TF line is about 850' long with 1.5" tubing and it runs thru a cold ravine to get to the road. I have no electric there and that is the only route the friendly landowner neighbor will let me go. I'm looking to find a way to completely drain the line so it can't freeze. If my calculations are correct the line holds just under 80 gal when full, thus I don't want to just dump it each time the forecast shows a likelyhood of freezing for more than a day while the woods are still running.

I have a 1.25" transfer pipe that is 1500' long. I put an extra fitting with a valve in the manifold on my releaser. When I am done pumping sap up the hill I drain the pipe back into a gathering tank behind my tractor and then suck the pipe dry through the releaser. My pipe will drain back 110 gallons into the gathering tank and another 10 gallons gets sucked out. It takes some time to do but the pipe doesn't freeze up and the sap doesn't get dumped on the ground.

[maple flats]

I have a 1.25" transfer pipe that is 1500' long. I put an extra fitting with a valve in the manifold on my releaser. When I am done pumping sap up the hill I drain the pipe back into a gathering tank behind my tractor and then suck the pipe dry through the releaser. My pipe will drain back 110 gallons into the gathering tank and another 10 gallons gets sucked out. It takes some time to do but the pipe doesn't freeze up and the sap doesn't get dumped on the ground.
Thanks, I'll try that next year.
Breezy, I have gauges at the far end of some mains and have now bought gauges for the rest. I also have a ball valve on every main. Are you suggesting another gauge near the ball valve for faster checking on each main?

[jrmaple]

I would put a gauge at every ball valve for quick checking, my personal opinion at least. If you are only running three or four mainlines to a releaser with no T's off of the mainline or boosters then you can get away with only the one gauge on the releaser and ball valves at the releaser for the lines coming in.

[maple flats]

That woods has 3 mains directly off the releaser, and a wet/dry (1.5 over 1.25) with 5 more mains, soon to be 6 off the wet dry. I will put a gauge on each main next to the valve. At this time I only have a few with a gauge at the top end but have enough gauges I recently bought to do the rest and several of the ones near that valve. I'll get enough to do them all.
Thanks to all.

[BreezyHill]

Breezy, I have gauges at the far end of some mains and have now bought gauges for the rest. I also have a ball valve on every main. Are you suggesting another gauge near the ball valve for faster checking on each main?

Far end is nice to see if you are getting adequate reading transfer but to find a leak it is needed at the ball valve at the lateral connection to the main.

What I was talking of is a manifold where multiple laterals meet a main. I have a location that I will be rebuilding this summer. I will be using a 3" pvc tube to connect a dry and wet and three laterals. Each lateral will have a ball valve with a gauge tapped into the valve threads with a 1/8" adapter to receive the gauge. This makes for fewer threaded connections to leak. The manifold will also have a guage so that I can see what the vac reading does when the lats are closed. This season I could only check individual results and not the total of results. This would have shown me that it was small leaks on all lines that I was searching for.

When I closed the individual valves there was a very slow drop of vac over time and all lines were near the same results...as it was all lines had a spout that was leaking. I am thinking that with all the lines closed I would have seen a rise in the gauge on a manifold and that would have reduced search time tremendously. For me it is to find an issue quickly and repair and move on.

I do use a portable gauge to check readings through out the bush and it is very useful in correcting issues.

Sorry I was at future daughters college lax game yesterday afternoon..
Good Luck!

[CrossBroMaple]

i run a sp22 and it has been awesome for us. but I just did the rpm calculations and it seems that I am only running 375 rpm, while pulling 24" of vacuum at the releaser, which is 500' from my pump. do I need to increase my rpms?

[BreezyHill]

It would be best to get the rpms up to keep oil on the cylinder walls better for cooling and lubrication of the rings for longer pump life.

Not saying you did the calculations wrong but for others this is how to do it:

Diameter(D) of pulley X 3.1416 (for Pi) this is the inches of belt the pulley will move in 1 rpm
RPM of motor off the motor tag
Multiply this by the inches of belt from first calculation. This is your total drive inches per minute

D x Pi for the pump pulley ( Driven Pulley) Divide the Drive pulley by this answer and this is your rpm for the pump.

Common current mistake is to think that the motor is 1725 and many new motors are 1800 or 1740 rpm. Read the tag.

Example: Motor plate 1800 RPM, Drive pulley of 3" and Driven(pump Pulley) of 12"

3 x 3.1416 = 9.4248" x 1800 = 16964.64" per minute

12 x 3.1416 = 36.6992"

16964.64/36.6992 = 462.26 RPM for the pump still a litlle slow but better.

4" pulley would be 4x3.1416= 125664 X 1800 = 22619.52 / 36.6992 = 616.35 pump rpm...too much

3.25" pulley would be 3.25 x 3.1416= 10.2102 x 1800 = 18378.36 / 36.6992 = 500 just a little above the 490 we want but it will have to do.

There is a trick that you can use to hit the 490...which is to narrow the belt with course sand paper so the belt drops into the pulley to shave off a little speed. Stubby did this all the time...thus the nick name!!! Stubby would have the unit running to narrow the belt...not a good idea nor is it safe. have the belt in your hands and do the two sides at the same time by drawing the belt thru the sand paper in the other hand. The blood is a witch to clean of the pulley and smells bad on a hot pump or motor.

Other option is a B series pulley with an A belt to drop into the pulley to reduce the inches driven.

To check this speed: measure from center of shaft to the height of the tightened belt in the pulley and multiply by 2 for your diameter.

I got a pm from a guy that asked me to pm less and post my responses for all to see. I am sorry I did not think about the number of people that read these posts now and in the future that are missing out on all of the responses that are PMed. So I am doing as asked and urge others to do the same.

This is a great site that is used by many and a quick answer to an issue is far better than waiting for a response.

Read a great quote the other day.

It is the responsibility of those with knowledge to share it; so it not be lost.

Ben

[Bucket Head]

Guy's,

I have a Surge Specifications page in front of me and the highest "approx. R.P.M." they list for a SP22 is 420 r.p.m. with a 3 1/2" diameter motor pulley. 390 r.p.m with a 3 1/4" pulley. Theres no date on this paperwork, just a "Revision 7-71". The highest rpm listed is for a SP11 at 475 rpm with a 3 1/2" pulley.

I'm not saying r.p.m.'s approaching 500 won't work, just that it might not work for as long as it would if r.p.m.'s were kept closer to 400. Remember, these are low rpm pumps. And they have already given decades of good service at the suggested rpm's.

Steve

[maple flats]

Good advise Steve, Thanks.
Dave

[lpakiz]

My experience has been good running my SP-11 at about 175 RPM. I didn't do the math, but the gas engine has a 3 inch pully and it ran at 875-900. I could hold my hand on the cylinders forever, so it ran very cool. Spent a lot of time checking and fixing micro leaks, but was able to hold 27 HG most days. I was concerned about the low RPM of both the pump and the gas motor, since both depend on "splash" to cool and lubricate, but I have done this for 6 years now with no problems.

[BreezyHill]

Cant put my hands on my dealer manual right this second but is this the spec page that lists the sp series with the newer oil lingers on the piston connecting rod. If so it will have a paragraph that talks of the slightly higher speeds for these pumps.

I will look in the shop for the manual when I get a chance.

[Bucket Head]

All I can tell you is that it say's Revision 7-70 and lists 420 rpm for a "high". It lists rpm's for the SP11, SP22 and the older BB4 pumps.

If there's an old and new oil dipper/slinger set-up, you need to look in the manual and share with everyone how they determine which one they have.

Anything about production dates and/or serial numbers in there?

[markcasper]

Was wondering what everyone is running for gas engines on their 11's and 22's. I see someone on here was running a honda 160 on a sp22. I need to get a new engine and was considering a honda 200 thinking a 160 would be way to small.

[wiam]

I had a 5.5 horse Briggs on my sp22. It ran it fine.

[Russell Lampron]

Was wondering what everyone is running for gas engines on their 11's and 22's. I see someone on here was running a honda 160 on a sp22. I need to get a new engine and was considering a honda 200 thinking a 160 would be way to small.

I'm not 100% sure on this but I think the ratio was to use 3 hp of gas motor for every 1 hp of electric motor. A 5 hp motor would be about right for an SP22.

[maple flats]

I have a BB4 with the electric motor that was on it. I'll check the motor RPM and pulley sizes to determine the RPM it gets.
It turned out the SP22 I first posted this thread about that it is actually a BB4. I should have corrected my error when I found out it is a BB4, sorry.

[markcasper]

yes a bb4 is a little bigger than a 22.

[PATheron]

I used a Honda engine that I think is 160, Ill check and make sure. Im pretty sure it was that small. It ran the sp22 great. I could even idle it down to real low so it only used about 4 gallons every 24 hours I think. Ill check but pretty sure it was a 160. Theron

[markcasper]

4 gallons a day seems a little steep patheron. IMO. I have a 7.5 hp techumseh and it would use that much at 1/2 throttle. At about 1/4 throttle it'd burn maybe 2-3 gallons/24 hrs. It started dieing last year when i'd idle it down as soon as i would leave, so time for something else and it is burning too much oil.

[PATheron]

Mark- Im just kind of guessing. I was running the engine off of a fuel tank on a big generator so when I went back up the next day I just dumped some in and that is what it seemed like. Im always in such a rush trying to keep things working all I ever have is a feel for things never any exact numbers. That's good news if that's all yours uses because I need to run that generator and maybe that will use less than I thought. Theron

[Bolen Creek]

What size pulley should be used on a 22 with a 6.5hp predator gas motor

[markcasper]

Im always in such a rush trying to keep things working all I ever have is a feel for things never any exact numbers. I know the feeling! 4-5 gallons of gas a day is the least of my worries when things get wild.

[BreezyHill]

Me son that is attending Morrisville State is home for the day I will get him to forward some of the charts from his Ag tech books on fuel usage of small motors tha he was telling me about.

Different motors have totally different fuel usage rates. As I recall the convo...some motors have 2-3 times the fuel usage for the same Hp rating but the torque out put is very different.

Then factor in the fuel you are getting. I ran a tank of gas thru a chainsaw in the summer and the next tank was from a different station and was nonethenol. It was like having two different saws. Same saw same oil mix just all gas vs E85...that can of fuel lasted the rest of the weekend while the first didn't even last the morning of Saturday.

Shop around for nonethonal gas it is worth the $$$.

Sp 22 replaced the BB3 bb4 is the bb3's big brother. Longer stroke of a larger piston. The four is the number of bucket milkers the unit was meant for, BB1 = 1 milker, bb2-2 bb3-3 but the bb4 boast the capacity to run up to 6 buckets. My grandfather and mom milked the herd with 6 milkers with our bb4. 5hp motor on a 1.5" vacuum line.