Vacuum travels!

[blissville maples]

Wanted to just write that anyone worried about length of vac lines not to worry!!

I've had a releaser 1800 feet from the pump(60cfm) from that releaser there is approximately 4000 feet of mainline and taps. That releaser tees to another releaser another 1600 feet away which has another 3500 feet of mainline behind it. The vacuum level is the same as it always was which I'm very pleased about. That's over 2 miles of mainline and many miles of lateral line, pretty impressive I thought


If no leaks your good the mainline itself in all reality doesn't hold much air. 3'x3'x3' is 27cubic feet which I think is comparable to a 500' roll of 1 1/2

[Russell Lampron]

My releaser is 1500' away from my vacuum pump and the wet and dry lines branch out from there. I haven't figured out how many feet or miles of mainlines and laterals that I have but my 700 taps are spread out so there's a lot. I keep my system tight and my SP 22 has no problem maintaining 27" of vacuum to the furthest point which is about 2000' away from the releaser.

[blissville maples]

I hear about the sp22 alot on Maple trader and I'm unfamiliar. Who makes this unit, and how many cfm does it deliver?

[Haynes Forest Products]

Blissville do you have any vacuum tanks along the way?

[blissville maples]

I do not, I have yet to see or understand when and where you would need one. I think if you can't maintain vacuum then something is not sized right. Maybe when using a large releaser that dumps 20+ gallons this would come into play

[blissville maples]

I also run 1 1/2 vac lines to all releaser, I feel anything less would be cutting your own throat since it's the most important part I believe

[JoeJ]

When it comes to vacuum, size really does matter. Six years ago, I got the NY State tubing and vacuum note book while preparing to set up my new 2,200 tap woods. As I was studying the tables to set up the wet dry line, I realized that my neighboring sugar maker friend with 14,000 taps had incorrectly set up his vacuum line. He had 2- 10 HP 105 CFM pumps hooked up to one 2" line that went 1,600' to his releaser. He contacted CDL and Leader to have a technician come to his woods to test the CFM output. With both pumps running, both technicians measured 64-65 CFM at the releaser 1,600' from the pumps, not 210 CFM or any where near it. At the suggested 1 CFM per 100 taps, his vac line was providing enough CFM's for 6,400 taps, not 14,000. The technicians shut off one pump and they still measured 64 CFM at 1,600'. He was running one pump for nothing, just burning kilowatts for no gain in CFM. The solution, run 2-3" vac lines 1,600' and get 72 CFM to the releaser or run main line power to the releaser station and get 105 CFM from each pump. He spent the money to run main line power right next to his releaser shed.

You can't defeat physics. Long runs of small pipe will not deliver enough CFM's to over come the line loss and air leaks.

Joe

[Russell Lampron]

I hear about the sp22 alot on Maple trader and I'm unfamiliar. Who makes this unit, and how many cfm does it deliver?

The SP 22 is an old Surge piston type dairy vacuum pump. It's a very reliable design that eliminates the problems with rotary vane pumps. It is 22 cfm free flowing but at load it's only around 8 cfm. When everything is tight it will maintain 26" to 27" of vacuum with no problem. It doesn't take many leaks to lose a couple of inches of vacuum though. I've been hammering mine for years, sometimes 24 hours a day for several days in a row and it just keeps on sucking.

[DrTimPerkins]

You can't defeat physics.

But that doesn't stop people from trying again and again! :)

Joe is obviously absolutely spot on about the issue of air transfer in undersized pipeline systems, but Blissville also has a good point....that keeping the system very tight is important. If you keep everything VERY tight, you can get away with a LOT less than 1 CFM/100 taps in many situations. Many people thing the brute force approach...a bigger pump...is the important thing. More appropriately, it is proper sizing of pump, releaser, and pipeline system as a unit, along with fastidious leak-checking that will determine the success or failure of your sap collection system.

We typically will run two matched pumps side-by-side for each of our bushes where one would do. This is not so much to get extra CFM as it is to have redundancy. If one pump goes down, the other pump will keep on chugging. We can't afford to have the pumps off when the sap is running with the season as short as it is.

[maple flats]

I run a BB4 pump, it is an older version of the SP22. BB stands for Babson Bros, they eventually either founded Surge or sold out to Surge. I never checked which.
My old BB4 gets 24-25" vacuum routinely, if it drops below 22-23" at the far ends of the 2 mains, I check for leaks, if those gauges show 22" or more, I do other things that need doing. As far as I know, the bearings and rings are original. The pump just gets an oil change 2xs a season, once after the first hour's use, and again after 2 weeks, if I get a 5+ week season, it is changed again. Then after pulling the taps with the vacuum on, I change it again and put it to bed.
Maybe new rings and a valve job might gain even more vacuum.

[Haynes Forest Products]

Dr Perkins on the systems that you run 2 pumps and because its for "Redundancy" do you go with single pump plumbing. Now if the pump is within 20 ft. of the releaser its not a cost issue but 1,000 it is.

[DrTimPerkins]

Dr Perkins on the systems that you run 2 pumps and because its for "Redundancy" do you go with single pump plumbing.

We actually use two separate moisture traps and two separate lines to the releaser. The pumps are in the lab basement, where we have plenty of power and where we can easily service the pumps and program the VFD if needed. Working on pumps, traps, VFDs in the cold got to be a pain in the butt, we had better electrical service in the lab, and moisture traps work better if in a heated space. The pumps are about 200' from the releaser. We also do it this way so, if necessary, we can dedicate one pump to the research areas and one to the production bush simply by changing a few valves.

[Haynes Forest Products]

I cant imagine that you don't have a data sheet on yields with or without the 2 pumps running. Small test for you

What was the results

1) twice as much sap.
2) No change what so ever.
3) slight increase.
4) Pump house gets so hot you cant breath in there.
5) Never ran a test.
6) None of the above.

Thanks in advance for your excellent research.