Old Dairy Pump

[Clinkis]

I'm looking to take the leap to a vacume pump. A dairy farmer I know sent me a pic of a portable vac pump the used to use that he wants to sell me. He can't find a name on pump. Can anyone tell me what it is and if it would work for maple? Looking to put about 200 taps on it.13996

[Ontario Ian]

I think that is a surge alamo 30 model, i think. that would do 200 taps for sure

[Clinkis]

Any idea what kind of Vacume I could pull with this pump and, aside from a releaser, what else would I need?

[Ontario Ian]

I have the surge Alamos also, I run two 75 models and a 100 model, I run 22-24" no problem. I think the 30 model is about 20 cfm. pump and releaser, some kind of vacuum regulator ( I use a 1/4" ball valve), a moisture trap is nice but you can get by with out it.

[Clinkis]

Ok great thanks for the info. Any recommendations on a releaser? My plan is to hook it up to a gas motor as its a remote location. I will need to add some sap ladders in order to have a central collection point. This pump handle ladders ok?

[BreezyHill]

Alamo 30, definitely use a water trap. Will do 200 tap nicely, vac will depend on the vanes and the housing condition. Good condition it will do 24+.
Ben

[Ontario Ian]

lapierre Bernard style releaser, 217-m6-vc. I have a couple of these and they work very well for me, I run on gas also. I think the pump would handle lifters with no problem. I use lifters often, the land is pretty flat around here. one spot I lift 700 taps. Breezy Hill lifts more than that and some crazy height to, like 100' or something.

[BreezyHill]

It isn't the ladder that will be the issue but the height of the ladder. The taller the ladder the hard it is to over come the rise.

I do have many ladders as Ian said. I don't have time to collect sap with our farm and feed mill operation so all sap comes to the sugar house. one section has a series of 7 ladders to get the lowest taps to the releaser. The tallest is 18' and the shortest is 12'. I would not recommend going to 18 unless using 1/2" risers. It worked well for 3 seasons on 5/16" risers and a huge difference this season when it got a 1/2" make over. The friction loss in 1/2" is lower than with 5/16. This helps cfm transfer a lot. I could keep the vac up past the ladders but the cfm transfer was what was suffering.

If you have a drill press then I suggest making pvc manifolds for your ladder tops. If not then just use over sized blue mainline and tees to accept the 1/2" insert. The top of the riser wants a straight in approach and no elbows to have a rapid clearing of the riser with the best sap transfer. Elbows allow sap to run back down the riser. 3/4" main will need 2 risers and 1" will need 4. Use 1/2" ball valves so you can close off all risers for cleaning.

Ladders can be simple, hassle free tools when setup right. I suggest an injector in the event you need to aid sap lift speed to keep up with sap flow. Some have good success without them but I find on my system I need to add a tiny amount of air to get the sap up the ladder quickly to keep up with peek flow. Low flow days is no problem as is low vac levels. High flow will pool in the ladders feeder line and kill your production.
A feeder line ball valve is a valuable tool to close the line just past the injector in the event that there is a connection failure or you need to clear a pool. I added one to force sap thru a riser that had a tapping chip plug in a spider line. Worked good. It took an hour to change the 18' ladder to 1/2" risers with the use of a tractor bucket and my helpful wife throwing tools up and passing up the ladder line.

We opened another feed store so sorry if I don't respond quickly to questions.

Ben

[Clinkis]

Thanks for all the great info. You already answered a lot of question I was about to ask regarding ladders.

So here is my situation. I have very minimal slope (1-2%) max. In order to get all my main lines to a central location my releaser would have to be very low to the ground thus I would most likely need an electric releaser to pump up to a tank. I would ideally like to use a mechanical releaser as I want to run my pump with a gas motor. I would need 4 or 5 ladders to get it up high enough to dump into a tank. Or could I use just one big ladder right at the releaser? Trying to keep this as simple as possible. Which route would be best?