Cdl vacuum pump

[tonka]

Looking to upgrade from an old dairy pump run by gas engine to electric high vacuum pump. For those who have used cdls high vacuum pump, how are you guy liking them?

[eagle lake sugar]

I see that nobody has responded, I'll give you my 2 cents. I have the 40cfm 3 phase model with a VFD, running off a generator in a remote bush. I only had 1050 taps on it this season because I'm in the process of expansion. It pulled great vacuum and functioned well. although I had an iced releaser one morning and for some reason the moisture trap didn't prevent it from swallowing gallons of sap. I drained the oil changed the filter, refilled it and it ran fine the rest of the season. It does use more oil than the Atlas Copco 70 cfm that I have in the sugarhouse. That might be because the exhaust filter needs to be changed after the sap went through it.

[bill m]

I have the L25 new this year and think it is great. I had the same thing with a flooded releaser and the vacuum pump sucked in sap. Just changed the oil and filter and was back running in no time. I really have no previous experience with high vacuum until now but based on this season I am sold on these pumps. Well worth the money.

[DrTimPerkins]

Moisture traps fail for a whole variety of reasons. Quite often it is related to installation issues. If not kept in a warm space they'll ice up and fail (in a variety of interesting ways). Sometimes takes a while to get it figured out.

[bill m]

My moisture trap failed when the ball inside collapsed.

[heus]

Not to change the subject, but are the smaller air tech pumps such as the L12 suitable for maple? It is only rated at 7cfm but would it be ok for up to 300 taps?

[TapTapTap]

Moisture traps fail for a whole variety of reasons. Quite often it is related to installation issues. If not kept in a warm space they'll ice up and fail (in a variety of interesting ways). Sometimes takes a while to get it figured out.

Yup. And for reasons I haven't figured out too! So if I was to get another mechanical releaser then I'd get one with the built in moisture trap in addition to the one at my pump room. Redundancy should count for something.

[eagle lake sugar]

My moisture trap is in a separate generator building 280' from the releaser and tank building. When the releaser port plugged, it sucked sap 280 ft. and 18' in elevation up into the other building , through the trap and into the pump. I have a large moisture trap I'm going to install next to the releaser and an electric shut off switch to hopefully prevent this from happening again. It's 1/2 mile out back, so doesn't get checked as often as I'd like.

[hogisland42]

I installed a float switch into my electric releaser that shuts the vacuum off by closing a ball valve when it is tripped. It runs off air pressure, so I needed to hook it to a mini air compressor but not a big deal. It works awesome. I had to install because on some of the below freezing nights the pump line coming from it would freeze. Best part is when line would thaw and the sap in releaser drops the switch opens and vacuum is returned to the woods on its own. Which is great when I am at work

[VT_K9]

We have a CDL 3hp oil pump. We installed a water trap at the pump. We had some sap make it's way into the vacuum line at one of our sap shacks (where the releaser and tank is located). The sap shack is 750 feet away and 60 feet below the sugarhouse with the pump. The room where the pump is located is heated to 60 degrees.

We added a water trap and also put on in at our other sap shack when we built it. The water trap worked well when it was tripped and allowed for simple clearing of the line. Whereas before we had to go back to the sugarhouse and shut down the vacuum until the line was completely drained.

At no time have we gotten sap back to the primary water trap or vacuum pump.

Mike