Electronic Moisture Detection

[Rossell's Sugar Camp]

Hello everybody,
For those of you that do not know me. I am a college student studying Electrical Engineering. I have already designed and built prototypes for a device that would protect vacuum pumps in the event of a releaser failure by shutting the vacuum pump off and closing a motorized ball valve before the pump. I just wanted to see what kind of interest was out there and if anybody Knows of devices like this already on the market.

This is designed to work on a car battery for several runs through the seasonn or 120VAC, Therefore a perfect solution for engine driven remote vacuum systems.

[DrTimPerkins]

I have already designed and built prototypes for a device that would protect vacuum pumps in the event of a releaser failure by shutting the vacuum pump off and closing a motorized ball valve before the pump. I just wanted to see what kind of interest was out there and if anybody Knows of devices like this already on the market.

I would start by looking at the variety of moisture traps offered by the different maple equipment manufacturers. While most of them are mechanical, there are a couple of electric moisture traps out there. The Lapierre humidity trap is one that we have used. The units I have seen don't incorporate a ball-valve. These simply send a signal to the VFD to cut power to the pump as soon as liquid is detected, and are simple and reliable. Seems like a ball valve would require power, and would be slow....which would be OK if your moisture trap was big enough to handle the incoming liquid until the valve fully closed. A solenoid might work, but would have to be quite big and would lead to other types of issues.

Issues we've seen for any type of moisture trap generally relate to installation conditions. If kept in cold areas, small amounts of liquid blowing by the releasers that don't raise the float enough to shut it off will freeze the ball or flap in place and fail when enough liquid accumulates to get into the pump. We put heat tape on most of our moisture traps that have to be kept in cold areas. Better still is to put the moisture trap in a warm location.

[BreezyHill]

You will want to follow the KISS design protocol. Keep It Simple for Sappers.

These units are not in locations that are animal proof so they will get damaged and a sapper needs to be able to make quick repairs.

ben

[Tweegs]

Nix the ball valve.
Too slow, current muncher, overkill.

If you remove power from the pump upon failure detection, the check valve that most will have between the trap and pump will help keep sap from entering the pump, prevent the pump from turning backwards and will react much faster than a ball valve.

Market the trap, circuit and check valve as a single unit.
Plug and play.
Folks like easy.