Vaccum pump size....... Help!

[Maple Producer]

Hi all so I was wondering how big of pump it would take to pull roughly 500 taps about 2500 feet from my sugarhouse. I am kinda new to vaccum pumps and lines and all the equipment that goes with it so bear with me! This year we did around 250 taps with buckets and would like to see what it would cost to upgrade to a vac system. I also want to make sure we have capacity for 500 taps since this woods is a booming maple woods(lots of young 6 and 4 inch trees) Thanks!

[maple flats]

General guidelines are for 1 CFM per 100 taps. If you have a tight (relatively leak free) system. 2 CFM is even better, especially if you decide to add more taps.

[maple flats]

If you thin appropriately those 6" trees will get to 10" in just a few years. Most guidelines say 10" is good for 1 tap. Don't be afraid to remove a maple tree if 2 or more are too close together. But only open one side at a time. The best gauge is if the canopies touch each other. Also don't remove all non maples, a mono culture is more apt to get diseased or attract maple hungry pests. 50-75% maples is about max for a healthy forest.

[Maple Producer]

ok good to know, how about the 2500 feet from the woods to my shanty does that require more cfm as well? Thanks!

[DrTimPerkins]

ok good to know, how about the 2500 feet from the woods to my shanty does that require more cfm as well? Thanks!

Some time spent reading and consulting the charts in https://mapleresearch.org/pub/tubing-notebook-6th-edition-2/ would be very useful to you.

[Maple Producer]

Thank you I will read this! I am not that familiar with the tubing but i want to grow my operations hopfully quite a bit in the next few years!

[VT_K9]

We have a 3hp oil cooled pump in our sugarhouse. On the backside of the sugarhouse we have a 4" Schedule 4 "manifold" to feed 2 sap shacks. I did this to build storage of vacuum during dumps. I have considered building a similar "manifold" of 4" scd 40 at each sap shack, we have 2. We have a larger water trap at the vacuum pump.

Sapshack one is located 800 feet away (65' below) the sugarhouse. We have a 1 1/2" blk poly pipe for the vacuum and another 1 1/2" for the sap pump line. We have a CDL 750 tap releaser on top of a CDL 787 gallon tank. We have experienced some icing (like due to micro leaks) which built up on the float in the releaser and allowed sap to enter the vacuum supply line. We added a water trap to help handle this situation at the releaser and it helps.

Sapshack two is located 1200 feet (again 65' below) the sugarhouse. We feed it with a 1 1/2" black poly line and use a 2" sap pump line (after learning more about being able to choose the output bung on the tanks. We can move a whole lot more sap with a 2" pump and 2" feed from the sap tank. However in this line it is about 800-900 to the high point. Leaving us with about 180 gallons of sap after pumping the tank empty (the other shack has about 75 gallons). We haul this back to the sugarhouse in a cube.

At Sapshack two we have a CDL 3000 tap releaser. I choose this for three reasons. First the 750 would be maxed out in a few years after expansions. Second the 750 seemed to be affected by ice and allow sap into the vacuum side easier. Third the size in between was much taller and the way the slope works every inch in height can impair our layout.

So...herein is our problem or challenge....and not to hijack but copost....

I found 3 issues this year with the 3000 tap releaser. First the dumps were not recoverable early on....meaning I had to remove one of the 2 springs to make the door reliable for closing, but as it warmed up I needed to reattach the spring to get the door to close. Second the float did not seem to have enough weight to return the vacuum position lever (either vac to releaser or vac to bypass) to allow vacuum to return to the tank. Finally it seems like the 3000 tap releaser does not recover very well.

With those thoughts I am thinking about researching (thanks Dr. Perkins for the easy link above) a 5 hp rotary vane pump with VFD. This would provide for more CFM (maybe what is needed to help the 3000 tap releaser recover) and a device (VFD) to help reduce power consumption when the extra vacuum is not needed.

I don't see adding any other releasers....(I did not say never) but believe I will be adding a lifter off the 3000 tap releaser for about 100 taps on a 800' run of 1" tubing. I do have the opportunity to add a couple 1500-2500 foot runs (starting with 1 1/4" mainline and finishing with 1" mainline) if we needed/wanted more taps on the property. Right now we tap about 700 taps on 9 acres and should be able to end up near 1100-1200 taps in that area once finished.

So my hijack is not quite 2500 feet of vac run to the releaser. However one releaser is much larger than necessary, I would like to be able to fix my current issues, and be able to expand without having to keep buying more or bigger stuff each time.

Good luck,

Mike