Printable View
Haven't been here in awhile, but it's nice to see you guys are up to the same old same old. While you'all spend lots o'money trying to figure out how to make something that works, your spending money you could spend on the real deal. But if you must experiment, why not work on something that has a chance of working? Build an electric releaser. There is nothing simplier to build, and have a decent chance of working than that.
:lol: :lol: :lol:
Where the heck have you been? Pounding rocks?
Kevin:
You're funny. No I haven't been pounding rocks, just didn't have the internet on. Needed a break ya know. This internet thing can be adictive.
Anyway you'll hear from me once in awhile. I always have some insight to share, good or bad. I'll leave it at that. :lol: :lol: :lol:
The gravity releaser works! A modification in the design allows for either gravity flow or vacuum operation. More details to follow; absic diagram is in my photo album. Low cost, no moving parts, a miracle of physics. No idea how much vacuum we're pulling; the gauge says 14", but we think the gauge is faulty. Good vacuum at the end taps, based on feel and sap movement.
Great job russ, and cool reserch too, may have something there!!!
Thinking about this releaser a little more...
Appreciating that the laws of physics and gravity are constant, I was wondering how the 3" tower works.
Wonder if the secret to success is in the small holes at the base of the main lines before they go up 25' into the main 3" tube?
As someone stated earlier, if it was truly a 25' water (sap) column, there would not be much vacuum at the taps. But if the holes introduce air, now it's an air and water mixture column which has a much less specific gravity than pure water. Therefore, the 25' column would allow vacuum at the taps yet the sap would condense once it entered the 3" column.
Guess you better oversize your vacuum pump in this scenerio as well?
Brian
Alright Russ and Kevin - what was the final verdict on this? Were you able to get some vacuum at the trees or not? If so, how much?
As was mentioned earlier, could you use a PVC swing check at the bottom of the 3" column to start out with when there is no sap, then when the column fills up, the check would release from the pressure of the water and open. You could then have a bypass to let the sap out at night past the check. McMaster carries the zero pressure PVC swing checks that have a rubber seat.
Another comment after reading this again...you can pull the same water column height, no matter what the diameter, that is correct. But, your CFM and corresponding Vacuum pump HP will limit how much volume you can pull at at time. Therefore, the smaller diameter will rise faster that the larger diameter, but still the same height in the end.
I need to decide whether or not to build one of these or my design for a standard releaser.
Thanks,
Brian
post edited
post edited
Was just reading that when I bounced back on the Trader and saw your post. Google is great. (except in China, :wink: )
What's better on the sap ladder concept is looking up how a coffee maker works. http://home.howstuffworks.com/coffee-maker4.htm.
This is why you can inject some air and the sap can travel up. Called a water boiling pump, only we are injecting the air without heat, but still using energy created by the vac pump. Buoyancy is what helps the water up, riding on the bubbles. Aquarium filters work under the same concept. As this article states, smaller lines might tend to allow the liquid to rise higher than larger diameter lines.
On the current ladder concept of 5/16 stars and a dry line bypass, it sounds like the bypass could be a hindrance on lift of sap, but a bonus on transferring the vacuum down the line to the next taps. The only way around it is to inject the air WITHIN the ladder (poke tiny holes in the 5/16 lines). Or, is it the fact that the sap really doesn't start to flow up the 5/16 lines until the sap level in the tubing get's high enough to start to plug off the bypass tube Tee in the lower ladder? Otherwise, wouldn't the air flow just go through the dry line and not help the sap up the 5/16 lines?
So, all this begs the question, are you really limited by the 1" HG = 1 ft of total sap rise in your sugar bush? If you had a zillion HP and CFM to work with (therefore, lots of energy into the system), couldn't you pull sap up indefinately as long as your ladders never exceeded 18' or whatever for each one?
I think the bottom line is that under perfectly sealed conditions, the most you can bring water up is 29", so you MUST have air for any of these concepts to work. It's the placement or timing or ? of air that maybe allows the injector that D&G sells to be better at lifting the sap.
Brian