Vacuum pump for the small producer

[Mr. Red Maple]

Hey everyone. I have a releaser and am now looking for a vacuum pump. I have about 250 taps and don't want to spend the money on large scale pumps. I am looking in to some of the Robinair pumps. Has anyone tried any of the pumps I linked to. My only fear is that they might over heat. I believe they are rotary vane pumps

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...f_rd_i=desktop

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...f_rd_i=desktop

Any help appreciated.

[lpakiz]

For 250 taps and a reasonably tight system, don't overlook dairy pumps. I am using a Surge SP-11 (2 cylinder piston pump) on 180 taps and I can easily hold 26 inches, some days/periods I am at 27.5 HG.
It is driven by a 79 cc Predator motor running approximately 1000 RPM with a 2 1/2 inch pulley. Havnt done the math, but I suspect we are turning the flywheel at 200 RPM or less.
With a little patient searching, you might find the pump for $100. Beware, the vacuum tanks are sometimes rusted out in the bottom.

[BreezyHill]

other dairy pumps that will work well also are the delaval 73 & 75, univerals or boumatic M3 or M5, Mc cormick made a pump, the surge RV pumps are two generations prior to the sp series. BB was between the two series. The BB1 or BB2 will work just fine for you. The bb3 and 4 are just bigger and will work fine but will require arger motors and just have a higher fuel useage if running gas power plant or more watts if using the grid.

Larger pumps can be spun at slower rpm and achieve the same cfms of a smaller pump. Some times a large pump can be owned for less money than a smaller pump. Unless it is a piston pump. These require designed speed to splash the cylinder walls to cool and lube the pistons and rings properly.

Also in the surge there is the Alamo series that is newer and was made til around 2000. a 30 or 40 or and of the larger ( 60, 70 100+ units) will work fine.

As lp[akiz said...patience and if you find a unit feel free to ask what she can do. My Delaval 73 runs 750 plus ladders and injectors on 750 taps. and holds 28+" the 75 was the standby pump.

There are many other pumps that will do the job also like gast and lobe style pumps.

Good Luck!

Ben

[MT Pockets Producer]

We have used a Harbor Freight 2.5 CFM pump similar to what you are looking at on 100 taps for two seasons and overheating was not an issue. It barely gets warm and consistently pulls 27-28 " of vacuum. Two factors to keep in mind is you need to drain the water out of the oil daily and you need to vent your exhaust away from you releaser and tank. They give of a lot of oil mist. We have purchased a gast 1550 to use for next season though. Looking to get more CFMs for our mechanical releaser.

[lpakiz]

While I understand the logic for not running a piston pump too slow, or for that matter, a small air cooled gas engine, I have to say that I have put in excess of 500 hours per year on the SP-11 pump for 6 years now, turning it pretty darn slow. I use the spit/sizzle test that some members on the forum prescribes. If you spit on the cylinder head and it don't sizzle, you are good to go.
Hope Breezy doesn't turn out to be right and next year is the year the pump or motor blows!! And I have nothing against a vane style dairy pump, i just have no xperience with them.
Nothing personal Ben, just my experience so far.

[BreezyHill]

No offense taken...this is a great spot to transfer knowledge. I would highly recommend an infared temp unit. Harbor freight is having their annual parking lot sale and they should be there for around $10.

Sizzle is around 200 and up. I lost a pump at that level, so be careful.

[Mr. Red Maple]

We have used a Harbor Freight 2.5 CFM pump similar to what you are looking at on 100 taps for two seasons and overheating was not an issue. It barely gets warm and consistently pulls 27-28 " of vacuum. Two factors to keep in mind is you need to drain the water out of the oil daily and you need to vent your exhaust away from you releaser and tank. They give of a lot of oil mist. We have purchased a gast 1550 to use for next season though. Looking to get more CFMs for our mechanical releaser.

Thanks for the info. That's what im going to do. The 8cfm pump should be plenty for 250 taps on a releaser.how much oil did you go through in a season.

[DrTimPerkins]

We have used a Harbor Freight 2.5 CFM pump similar to what you are looking at on 100 taps for two seasons and overheating was not an issue.

Just be aware that this pump is not rated for continuous duty, so even though it has not yet heated up doesn't mean that it won't some day under certain conditions. So keep it a safe distance away from combustible materials.

They give of a lot of oil mist.

That is quite true. You might consider a small oil mist filter on the top of the unit.

[MT Pockets Producer]

About a quart of oil per season, maybe a touch more. That's with it running while temps were above freezing and into the night as long as the generator would run on a tank of fuel. Dr. Tim raises a good point about not being continuous duty so they would have the potential to fail at any point. We piped our exhaust into a piece of 1" pvc pipe to a plastic container and collected the oil mist.

[DrTimPerkins]

I should have added that these are not bad little pumps overall, and will pull decent vacuum. We use them in the lab when we're testing something before deploying equipment into the woods. Keeps us from having to fire up the big pumps.