Impressed with Shurflo vacuum

[heus]

This winter I hastily threw together a 12 volt Shurflo 4008 setup on 75 of my taps. I am highly impressed with this thing. I used to have "real" vacuum and an electric releaser on 1000 taps, and did not expect much from this thing. I have to say that I am amazed with how well it is working. My laterals are new and tight, with no squirrel chews (yet), so no air leaks to deal with (yet). I am getting more sap from these 75 taps than my other 140 or so on gravity. I do not even have a recirculation line, either.

[Father & Son]

Jason,
Do you have a vacuum gauge on the system to know how much it pulls?

[tombaisley]

I have 80 taps on four 3/16" lines. Two lines are flowing downhill, and two lines pulling uphill. When the the sap is flowing my 4008 runs at 20in/hg with the recirc line closed.

[Biz]

I have a Shurflo 4008 pump with four 3/16 lines feeding it, about 120 taps, no recirculation, and it pulls 25" of vacuum all day long. Two lines have no slope and lengths range from 150' to about 500' Trees are mostly red maples. End of lines read over 20" vacuum.

Dave

[West Sumner Sugar]

They are good little rigs. We have a few systems. Just checked one here that has 80 taps on 5/16. 2 lines are pulling 27" and the others are 20-25".

[RileySugarbush]

That is all we use on out tubing runs. If the lines are leak tight, they work great. Recirculation is only needed on low flow days. Simple, no releaser, and we even pump the output a couple hundred feet through 5/16 tubing to the sugarhouse tank.

[mainebackswoodssyrup]

Should be our first decent run today/tomorrow to see what we can do with ours. Happy to report that after some tweaking, Biz's S3 maple controller is working great!

[heus]

Jason,
Do you have a vacuum gauge on the system to know how much it pulls?

Jim at the pump it is pulling around 25. No gauges at the end of the lines.

[ndtempel]

Has anyone run 5/16” taps and lines with a Shurflo? Thinking of trying one quick to finish the season but I already have 5/16” taps in and enough 5/16” tubing to give it a try.

[heus]

That's what I am doing.