Lift

[PATheron]

Guys- I have a spot across the road where I could have maybe 4 or 500 taps that would come to the road but Id have to lift them about 15'. Can I do it with multiple ladders or is that pushing the envelope? Theron

[Grade "A"]

Leader sells a 20' sap ladder system, so if they can do it so can you.

[Brian Ryther]

I lift 250 taps 22' with a two ladder system. Each ladder has two six way stars and a 3/4" lift tube. This works well for this meny taps, but I don't think it would work with more taps. You would have to use more stars.

[mountainvan]

I have 500+ taps on 3 6 way stars. Works great and I have 19" of vacuum not the 22" or more you're pulling.

[Brian Ryther]

I was lifting the sap 22' with 19" at the releaser, and 15" at the bottom of the ladders. I was using a dary pump last year, this year will be the year of the liquid ring, I hope to have 25" at the releaser and 22" at the bottom of the ladder. I do not know the cfm of the dary pump. does any one know what a Massport M5 is rated for? It will be interesting to compare 30-35 cfm liquid ring @ 25" vs the oil vein ??cfm @ 19".

[Maple Hill Sugarhouse]

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[Amber Gold]

I thought I’d jump on this thread to explain my situation instead of creating another to discuss a similar topic.

Considering vacuum in my sugarbush for two reasons: increase sap yield and allow me to build sap ladders in key areas. One ladder would allow me to go up and over a lightly used path so the 30+ taps on one side of the road can dump into the same collection tank as the main part of my bush. The other sap ladder(s) would be to grab trees I have on the back side of a hill. I have the option of having those run to a separate tank with no vacuum (I think the tank would be 100’ +/- in the woods to the site’s low point) or build sap ladder(s) and bring it up and over. I’m not sure what the total height I’d need to bring the sap up because I haven’t run a level through there. It seems like a realistic height for a ladder is 20’, which I think would be enough to get me over the crest. If not could I do it in two lifts, say two 15' lifts, or maybe three?

To size a pump is it 1cfm per 100 taps and does that allow for leaks in the system? Obviously I would try to keep this to a minimum, but I’m sure I’ll have some. If sap ladders are used does it require a larger pump, say 1cfm per 75 taps? Is it the CFM or the vacuum level attained by the pump that increases the ladder performance?

Thanks

[PATheron]

Josh- We try to run 3 cfm per hundred down here. 1 is sufficient but if you have some leaks with the 3 you wont lose your vac if your not around during the day or something. I think the higher the vac level the better youll probly get the lift. The vac level is the power and cfm is the continued delivery of that power. Thats my take on it anyway. You know when sometimes guys have a hard time achieving good vac levels with an oversize pump it is a lot easier. The first time Matt and I fired mine up, 59 cfm, on roughly 1600 taps we had drops off all over the place and we still had 15" at the pump. Im talking a lot of drops. The cfm level was so high per tap it could just keep feeding the leaks and still keep some vac up. Im not saying run big pumps and be lazy on leaks Im just saying run plenty of pump and keep it tight too but if your gone and you get a leak you still get the days run pretty much. Another real good example. Id normally be running 27" on the gage on the releaser, who knows how accurate it is, twice I had a half inch line come off completely and both times it would put that gage to 24" at the releaser with a half inch line completely off. That was at 4 cfm per humdred. My cfm level this year will only be at about two so I may struggle to keep the high levels up. Theron

[Maple Hill Sugarhouse]

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[Maple Hill Sugarhouse]

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[PATheron]

Kevin- I think thats why I like the ring pumps. You get the highest vac levels and then are able to sustain that power with the cfm levels. I think the 20" that you get with the dairy pumps is darn serious but You about have to see 25" plus at work to believe it. After seeing mine running when I watch 15 or even 20" when say the lines clean out in the morning its literally like slow motion compared to 27". That sap runs through the lines like little rockets. Theron

[Maple Hill Sugarhouse]

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[PATheron]

When I say going through the lines like a rocket I mean in the morning when the sap thaws from ice that was in the lines. Then it just goes flying. When its running normally it usually just runs steady through the mains. If I get a low point sometimes it starts slugging and a full column will come thats several feet long and just fill the primary stage. Doesnt really hurt anything becouse I have a dry over it anyway but I still try to avoid it. The sap in lats runs real slow like you say. If thats racing I start tunking spiles. When the mains clear in the morning though stuff really flys. Theron

[Maple Hill Sugarhouse]

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[Maple Hill Sugarhouse]

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[Big maple]

What is a sap lifting cannister and who makes them?

[royalmaple]

I think all the big guys sell them now with a little different variation on each. Lapierre has one that is the hobby releaser, or you can order it as a sap lifter. Leader has one as well, and Ls bilodeau.

Basically an inline releaser but instead of dumping in a tank, the unit allows air into the chamber and when this happens the sap races up the vacuum line into the wet line above.

Much more expensive than a sap ladder to install but single best way to lift sap.

[Amber Gold]

I think I understand what's going on. The vacuum that's created (whether it's 18" or 25") creates the environment in the tubing to pull the sap. In a perfect tubing system without leaks you wouldn't need many cfm's because what's the environments created it's not getting lost anywhere. But if you have leaks in the system you need the CFM's to make up for any incoming atmospheric air in the system.

Am I correct in understanding you need a slight leak (valve) in your sap ladder to get it to lift up? I think when I was at Matt's woods he showed me his sap ladder and he used a tee for the sap ladder and just beyond the tee he had a valve and I think he said he'd crack it open to get the sap to lift. Did I understand this correct?

[Russell Lampron]

Josh that is correct. It is easier for the vacuum to lift a column of sap if there is an air bubble below it. It also takes an inch of vacuum to lift a column of sap 1 foot. The more inches of vacuum that you have the higher you can lift it.

[royalmaple]

Josh you got it.

More cfm's the more forgiving the pump will be to leaks to allow you to maintain a certain vacuum level.

Cracking a valve at the bottom of a ladder will definately help lift the sap. Problem with opening a valve is that is now a leak, constant leak. You really don't need to but it does help get the sap moving.

The lifter makes a leak but only a small temporary leak and then when it has lifted all the sap, no leak. Tank fills up, little leak, empties resets, no leak, on and on 146,782.3 times a day.

[Maple Hill Sugarhouse]

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[Amber Gold]

Hay, hay, I think I'm catching on here.

What is a vacuum booster tank and if it boosts vacuum how does that work? And what is a lifter? I'm guessing it takes the place of a sap ladder and does the same thing. Line coming in and line going out the top lifting sap up to an upper mainline? What is a sap piston pump?

Governor, if Mikey had a dairy pump on it’s last leg producing 17“ Hg and needed to make a 73’ lift I’d say he’d need to have (4) 17’ lifts and one 5’ lift based on 1” of vacuum per foot. Also he’d need a pump pulling a lot of CFM’s to make up for all the ladders. Is this correct?


Another question. Does vacuum increase the amount of sap you’ll get on a BIGSAP day or just allow you to get more sap when conditions are marginal? I was figuring 300 taps without vacuum on my 2.5x6.5. Unless someone says otherwise I’d think this would be the max number of taps I’d be able to handle with an evap. that gets about 45 gph. If I add vacuum should I still plan on 300 taps or reduce it say 200 to account for the additional sap I’d be getting? Also out of those 300 taps I was planning on more time being spent on collection, but if I have everything on tubing running to a single tank and only a few buckets, I’m only running next door with my truck to collect sap so my collection time is much lower ½ hr +/-. I obviously want to make as much syrup as I can to maximize my return on the equipment I bought this year, and the equipment I’ll be buying next year, but at the same time I don’t want to get inundated with sap and not be able to keep up. It seems like it’d be a waste.

Thanks

[Valley View Sugarhouse]

you can never have too much sap... If there is a bigger sugar maker around, sell any extra to them.. I buy from a few smaller producers, in years where they can't keep up..

[Russell Lampron]

Josh,

If I remember correctly I was told at a seminar that you can only lift sap about 28' with vacuum. That would be with a liquid ring pump pulling at max vacuum. With a tired old dairy pump that will only pull 17" you would be lucky to lift it 15' figuring in the vacuum leak needed to help lift the sap and that there are no other leaks in Mikey's sugar bush.

An absolute vacuum is 30" at sea level. After that gravity takes over and it is hard to pull 30" of vacuum with a conventional pump and it is harder still as you go up in elevation.

To answer the Governors question Mikey would have to use the Lapierre vacuum operated piston pump or a gasoline powered pump to raise his sap 73' and it would have to be at the bottom of the hill to push it up.

A vacuum booster is a cylinder of some sort that is just an empty space that holds vacuum in a reservoir so to speak. It helps maintain the vacuum level farther out into your woods.

Go for the 300 taps with vacuum. On a day when it is above freezing and not running on gravity you will get sap. On a good day when everything is running you will get even more sap. You will find a way to boil it all in and you can sell it if you have to.

[Maple Hill Sugarhouse]

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[Amber Gold]

I'm tracking...didn't realize there was vacuum loss in a ladder...are there sap ladders that don't lose vacuum or is that just the nature of the beast?

[Maple Hill Sugarhouse]

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[Parker]

Dont forget that a tap give sap AND gasses,,,for the pump to maintain the level of Hg in the system (set at the relief valve) the pump has to move (displace) the volume of sap/gases comming into the releaser AND overcome all the leaks in the system (CFM),,,,,,towards the end of the season you will see you vacuum levels drop some=lots of gasses
Kinda off topic but relates to what was said earlier,,,,and applies to one of my basic princapls of sugaring,,=RTBP= Run the BIGGEST pump,,you can

[Maple Hill Sugarhouse]

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[Maple Hill Sugarhouse]

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[Brian Ryther]

I ran the M5 with a 3hp 1300 rpm motor. "Back to the drawing board" Do you think the 35cfm liquid ring might not be enough to replace the M5? If the deer don't destroy all of my laterials I have a pretty tight system. After you have a good tap to cfm ratio (3:1) how important is are inches? Would 70cfm at 19" be better then 30 cfm at 26"?
Brian

[Haynes Forest Products]

I hope I have this right well it works in my bush. High CFMs will over come alot of leaks tight system low CFMs High HGs (vacuum ). High CFMs and High vacuum good. low CFMs low vacuum bad I would rather have the 30X26 any day. You can always tighten up your system and let the high HGs do thair thing. A leaf blower has high CFM and low vacuum on the intake side.

[royalmaple]

Brian-

You can throw the cfm thing out the window, if you can maintain high inches the cfms don't matter. cfm's will help you get to your main goal of high vacuum.

Plus if the bigger pump is not rated to run above a certain amount of vacuum it doesn't matter how many cfms you have. Say you had a 3000 cfm pump but it was rated for 12", send it out for scrap metal.

Your bigger pump was more than likely rated at a fairly low vacuum and you would really need to see the power curve of the pump to see how quickly the cfm's dropped off based on higher vacuum. You might be very surprised how few of cfm's you actually had at higher vacuum than the rating. And you have to factor in the heat of the pump. Those suckers get hot and the performance falls right off.

[tuckermtn]

did anyone else out there in mapleland get the flyer from Tuthill vacuum on their liquid ring pumps? Looks like their pumps were rated to a max of 27-28" of hg...looked like nice pumps, but I was surprised they were not rated higher...

[Haynes Forest Products]

Then having a multible choice I picked the right one. Now with that said you are saying if you use a small high vacuum pump that is about 5 CFM and can run all day long at 25 HGs at the pump less in the woods on about 500 taps that would be a good thing ?????????????
I have a big massport that is all set with oil coolers big oil tank and reclaimer pully fan to cool the pump and it run at low RPMs and I get about 25 HGs at the pump when its hot and I will be running 2 releasers on 1200 taps so I think im good.

[royalmaple]

Eric-

29.92" is all you can get here on earth at sea level. The maximum vacuum possible no matter what is about 1" less per 1000' gain in elevation.

So realistically 27-28" would be the maximum in alot of locations in a perfect world. But they will go higher, they are just tested at the factory up to 27-28" before they are shipped out.

[tuckermtn]

Matt- thanks for the clarification...was I halucinating remembering that Theron the BIGSAP czar was shooting for something like 29" last year...must have been a dream..

[Maple Hill Sugarhouse]

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[Haynes Forest Products]

I follow what your saying This year im going to run a dry line out to 2 releasers over tanks and use some sap ladders and try and keep from running into the mud all day lone.

[Maple Hill Sugarhouse]

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[Homestead Maple]

I thought that 27-28" would easily satisfy anyone's vacuum needs. How many people run 29"? I liked the idea of the self contained oil system so that you don't have to be concerned about having to run a sealing liquid that would freeze. Their self contained oil system looks very compact compared to others that I've seen.

[Big maple]

Above 26" mercury your sugar content drops significantly.

[Maple Hill Sugarhouse]

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[sapman]

I appologize if this was discussed much, but I don't really recall it. Does everyone use the 5/16s with star fittings for their ladders? On the Ontario website, posted on the trader in the past I think, they seemed to think using mainline with two tees and four elbows (if you know what I mean) worked better than anything. Seems like this would be less susceptible to freeze-up damage, as well.

Thanks,
Tim

[Homestead Maple]

The high vacuum level research report sure answers a lot of the negative thinking on using high vacuum. Very nice report.

[Russell Lampron]

Sapman,

I have read the study you are talking about and don't think that we have discussed it before. Has anyone set up a ladder this way and what were the results?

[Maple Hill Sugarhouse]

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