Just wanted to throw out a couple vacuum photos. Its not hard to make & use. I built the pump for right around $200. Got all the brass fittings, hose, ABS pipe, and switch & box at OSH. Bought the pump from ACP ($130!) and the vac switch too. Got the vac pressure guage from a friend who owns motive products (they make shade-tree mechanic auto tools)…
It works great. I started with just one tank, but it was so easy & seals so well with silicone, that I added two more just because I could. Now it cycles, with a board in a bag, for 30 seconds every 7-8 minutes…
Nice Job! It looks like it turned out great. I recently finished my own system. I made it so that it will be a drawer on my rolling workbench (soon to be built.
Here’s mine which comes on the aps2500 machine. Benny, my 1/64th HP pump burnt up after about 100 pulls. I bought a 1/8 HP pump for $180 and its done 500+ pulls. I use 3 other 1/2HP pumps which I scored for from an auction. Individual shock absorbers on each leg, quit, real work horses.
Both you guys have nicely organized set-ups!!! I bet they really suck!!!
APS2500 vacuum system(optional).
I knew that youthful bong use would pay off some day.
but i dont get the fancy tank fixturing…seems like you could just throw everything in a box…if something needs replacing just pull it out and fix it…i guess im simple minded
The tanks are used to keep the pump from cycling on and off as frequently. For me there were two major benifits for the pump not cycling on and off as frequently. The first is that the pump will not wear out as quickly and the second is even though the pump is pretty quiet I think the neighbors will be much happier not having as much noise.
The pump is a 1/8 hp model. I looked at the little ones, but I don’t like replacing tools. The tanks are fixed tight to the frame because the whole mess vibrates when the pump is running. I didn’t want vibration to shake anything loose and cause leaks, so its all mounted tight.
DanB, your pump is killer. I love the box/drawyer. Did you do the small 3rd tank because your pump won’t restart under vac, or did you just put it in because you had space?
Benny1, it looks like you have 3 resevoirs, or is that a sub-resevior and 2 reseviors. What size diameter and length are your reseviors? Does the ABS seem good enough? (vs the sched-40 pvc)
All 3 are vacuum reservoirs. Just the standard 2’ pre-cut 4" ABS chunks from Orchard. I’m not the slightest bit worried about the ABS. When I went out to ACP to get the pump, they were building up some of their full-auto pump kits - spraying 4" ABS pipe with metallic blue paint to make it look like titanilumiutinnium or something. If its good enough for them…
That’s about how I set up my system at first, after seeing the ones they were building at ACP. Then I added 2 more tanks just for kicks, because I had bought extra hose & fittings and the scrap plywood pieces I had were tall enough. $20 more for pipe & caps…and there you have it.
Yep, it wouldn’t start under pressure. I’ve heard that it is a good pump (at least according to joewoodworks) that should give me years of service. By the way, your board is looking great! When are you going to post pictures.
Here’s my little beast. Took a industrial refrigerant pump, which had been converted to a homemade shop aircompressor, and took it apart, and got the little sucker pulling vacumm. I can bottom out my gauge at 30 hg. I’ve gotta get bagging now… 3/4 hp, cord connected, dairy pump vacuum regulator/bleeder to control the pressure. Resevoir tank under platrom. All mounted onto an old push lawnmower for portability…
“The tanks are fixed tight to the frame because the whole mess vibrates when the pump is running. I didn’t want vibration to shake anything loose and cause leaks, so its all mounted tight”
Thanks Benny for answering my question.
Hey Dan, you’d be very surprised at what I know…you’d drool at what Im working on right now…im just not big on advertizing…
Sorry, I misread what you wrote. When you mentioned tank fixturing I thought you were talking about the tanks themselves. After seeing Ben’s response and rereading your post I see what you were talking about. I’ve seen some of the pictures of the boards that you’ve built and they look incredible. I didn’t mean to imply that you didn’t know what you were talking about or weren’t skilled at board making.
I just got my frig compressor. Three copper tube connections. a terminal block for three wires. I think I can figure out the wiring, but what do I do with the tubes? I’ve printed a bunch of stuff about the cheap littler sucker and am reading to catch up with the rest of the crew. The drawing doesn’t seem to show the third tube? This seemed like a good thread to post the question. thanks.
If its a fridge compressor, its my understanding that the 3rd tube might be an exhaust that contains some oil. Most guys run a bend down hard pipe from there into a little can or something to catch the oil. Some recycle it. Some pumps have a higher volume/lower pressure tube and a lower volume/higher pressure tube. I’m afraid I don’t know much about those pumps.
RedThorn, I love the lawnmower mounting. That’s awesome!
Thats awesome how that inlay looks on the balsa. I was going to try something like that but I was overcomplicating the whole process. I thought that I would need to splice in a layer of divinycle and put the inlay over that. Now I know better.
The wood rails were only glued on after the deck & bottom skins were bagged and the rails squared. The deck has enough crown that the rails are pretty pinched already. It only took 4 pieces of 1/4" on each rail before I had enough to shape. The rails are eggs until the leading edge of the keels, where they start to harden and go hard out the tail. Inside the crack, each side took 7 pieces of 1/8" balsa to fit the curve right and build up enough to shape down from the deck to the hard bottom edge.
