Gah! My vacuum pump fragged itself

[Nathan the Machinist]

It literally ended up in shards of broken metal, it threw a rod and beat itself to death. This was a nice multi stage four cylinder 30 CFM pump I used for all of my vacuum fixturing. I've run it pretty regularly for years and today it started sounding funny. First it was "Tat Tat Tat", then with a few clunks in there and before the end of the program I was running it made a loud bang, a hum then tripped off as it seized. I was, of course, in the bathroom when it really hit the fan. Literally. Chunks of metal hit a cooling fan.

So tomorrow morning I'll be going down into Charlotte to get something else in a hurry, otherwise I'm dead in the water.

Do you guys think a multi stage rotary vane oil pump would hold up better than a positive displacement piston pump? I have a big air/water separator in line but I worry about coolant finding its way into the oil. I had thought a piston pump would tolerate that better but now I'm not so sure.

 

[Bill Burke]

integrated circuit manufactures use rotary vane pumps that reach insane levels of vacuum and hold it for many hours. I would think that one would work for you.

 

[gammarad]

I use a two-stage rotary vane pump for composite fabrication. It's a cheap, china-made, pump, and I'm always uneasy to leave it running on it's own. That being said, it has been running for the last two years with monthly use of 12-24hs straight.

One problem those pumps have is that they are not built with a good oil separator. If you don't need a lot of volume, it's ok. But if you do (either because of leakage, or because you're controlling pressure through bleeding) it emits a fine mist of oil covering everything around.

Alejandro.

 

[ron_m80]

If you need parts.... http://www.precisionplus.com