Three Maples
04-02-2017, 07:04 AM
Just some observations about the small diaphragm vacuum pump. I have been using the Sap Puller vacuum pump on 400 taps for about 6 years. It works OK not great but ok, the best I can get is 13in water column as it has very limited volume. I would say 400 is about the max taps for it. The biggest problem is trouble shooting vacuum leaks. A couple of real leaks and the pump cannot overcome the loss and you get none of the normal symptoms such as bubbles on the line connectors or hearing the leak. The trick I have found is to have lots of isolation valves and gages at each isolation valve. I have set up the lines with a main line up the valley, laterals off the main with 100 taps on each lateral, and branches with max 15 taps. I have a valve on each lateral and another valve and gage in the middle of each lateral. The gages should be placed on the pump side of the line. One mistake I made was to connect about 75 taps directly into the main line instead of running another lateral. This makes Isolation of the main line branches impossible. To trouble shoot leaks you need to shut down all but one lateral and then use the half way valve to split that line. This way you only have at max 75 taps at a time to trace for leaks. The little pump will hold up leaks in 75 taps. The bottom line is if you can afford a better system it is worth the money, but the diaphragm pump will work its just hard to trace leaks.