Bernard Releaser Hesitating

[jrgagne99]

Wondering if others have experienced this releaser problem before...

I have 150 taps on a Bernard Giles single releaser (mechanical). Pretty tight system, usually running about 28 inches of vacuum on a 3.5 cfm Amazon vacuum pump. The problem is that often times, when the releaser is about to dump, the float only pushes the rod up about 1" so that the follower wheel at the back of the polycarbonate slide doesn't quite go up-and-over the hump to fully trigger a release. The wheel only makes it half way and then just sits there teetering on tip of tooth at the back. When this hang-up occurs, the vacuum to the releaser is shut off and my inlet flow slows a fair bit. For periods with slow to moderate flow, the hang-up and subsequent lack of new vacuum power to the lines means they slowly leak back up towards atmospheric until enough sap trickles down into the releaser to fully trigger a dump. If flow is slow enough, it can take up to 10 minutes to fully trigger, and vacuum in the lines drops from 28 inches down to 18 or less. When the sap is running well, the hang-up doesn't matter because more sap flows in quickly enough to raise the float the rest of the way to fully trigger the release (like within 15-30 seconds). But for periods of slow/moderate flow, it can be a problem when it hangs there for a prolonged period.

This even happens after I fully clean and lightly oil the float rod, polycarbonate slide sealing surfaces, follower wheel bearings and wheel contact surface. I also use a little bit of food-grade grease on the o-ring that the float rod slides through. Also I've tried adjusting the spring-loaded axle that the polycarbonate slide rotates on. No luck.

Any suggestions?

[Bricklayer]

Is your float cracked or have sap inside it ? I had the same kinda problem this year and it was a small pinhole in the bottom of my float. Was just enough to cause it to not have enough floatation to trip the switch.
I had a spare. But I actually put another float ( CDL releaser stainless float ) on top of the pvc float to give it more power. Havnt had a problem since. Works way better.

[JoeJ]

In my opinion, get a different releaser. I bought 2 Bernard releasers 20 years ago when I added vacuum to my woods. Nothing but problems with them. I used them one season and then I sold the 2 Bernards and bought Lappiere releasers and have NEVER had a problem with them. As I expanded to 1,000 taps I added 2 more Lapierre releasers and they just continue to work perfectly.

Joe

[darkmachine]

I have an old Bernard double with the similar issue...only on one barrel though, it would hang between cylinders, vacuum would drop to about 10 inches and neither side would dump and the manifold would fill up. It especially happened on low flow days. My solution was to buy a Lappiere, it works flawlessly. It's not the solution that i wanted because it cost a pile of money...but waiting to pull the trigger cost me at least half the season.