recommendations for vacuum and air pump

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G

grz5

Member
Joined
Jul 23, 2011
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268
Location
Upland, CA
Hello,

Can anyone recommend a good brand/model of vacuum pump and air pump I should use to create my vacuum/pressure chamber?

Thanks,
GRR
 
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For a vacuum pump, buy American if you can. JB Industries makes a great one with parts available if you should need them. Robinaire also makes a good one and a not so good one. The cheaper Robinaire is considered disposable and parts are not available. If you want to go budget, the HF has 2 models. Both Chinese and disposable when they go bad. Take a look in your local pawn shops. Most HVAC technicians are required to buy their own vac pumps and with construction in the tank, many of them have lost their jobs and pawned their pumps. I found my JB Eliminator 6VE at a local pawn shop for $120. It is around $400 retail I believe. E-bay also has good deals on good pumps sometimes. I have a customer who bought a JB Eliminator on E-bay for $100.

Here is an article I wrote on vacuum and stabilizing with a discussion on pumps.**Link has been removed due to a member complaint that it was advertising) http://www.turntex.com/vacuum
 
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MesquiteMan said:
For a vacuum pump, buy American if you can. JB Industries makes a great one with parts available if you should need them. Robinaire also makes a good one and a not so good one. The cheaper Robinaire is considered disposable and parts are not available. If you want to go budget, the HF has 2 models. Both Chinese and disposable when they go bad. Take a look in your local pawn shops. Most HVAC technicians are required to buy their own vac pumps and with construction in the tank, many of them have lost their jobs and pawned their pumps. I found my JB Eliminator 6VE at a local pawn shop for $120. It is around $400 retail I believe. E-bay also has good deals on good pumps sometimes. I have a customer who bought a JB Eliminator on E-bay for $100.

Here is an article I wrote on vacuum and stabilizing with a discussion on pumps. (It is on my commercial website and does reference my products so keep that in mind. This is not meant to be an advertisement and I believe the information presented justifies me posting the link.)
www.turntex.com/vacuum
Click to expand...


Thanks! Do the sites also provide information on the necessary piping I would need to hook the pumps up to a pressure pot? Im planning on using 1/4" not quick connects. If you could help I would really appreciate it. Thanks again.
 
What ever you do dont get the HF Vac Pump. I should be able to pull lower than -29 but it can barely hit -28. I good professional Vac pump will be in my future.
 
When I bought my vacuum pump, I didn't have much moeny to spend (sort of like now). Therefore, I bought the cheapest one that I could find. I picked up the 2.5 CFM one from HF. One day, it will die and I'll have to buy another, but it has done fine for me for the last couple years.
 
I have to agree with sbell111 I also have the 2.5 HF pump. I have had it a number of years they now have a larger one too. I haven't used it for stabilizing or casting. But for ac work on cars and a couple of home AC units. It works fine matter a fact the supply company where I bought the last bottle of oil for the pump was selling there own brand HF import type pump.

None of the HF tools and equipment are designed or sold for anything but hobbyist type use. Their ventrui type vacuum pump that is used in one of the tutorials(air in one connection and vacuum draw at the other) Works well enough also, I have two of the hand pump myt-vac squeeze pumps.
Now as to perfect vacuum, there is no such thing period even space since it is the closest thing to a perfect vacuum has matter in it, admittedly very little.

The amount of relative measurable vacuum varies with local conditions. It is also based on the following, the relative measurements are being done on Earth at sea level, at exactly 1 atmosphere of ambient atmospheric pressure.

Many inexpensive low vacuum gauges have a margin of error and may report a vacuum of −30 inHg, or 0 Torr but in practice this generally requires a two stage rotary vane or other medium type of vacuum pump to go much beyond (lower than) 25 torr.

Biggest thing in pulling and maintaining a vacuum will be the seal on the chamber you are using and the tightness of the valves.

For those of you that where in high school back a number of years and remember the small old recip vacuum pumps in science class they are modified compressors.

And another important thing to consider when using the oil filled centrifugal type vacuum pumps is the instructions clearly state that you have to change the oil after every use to remove the contamination from the pump. In AC/refrige work that is moisture and other stuff work burned oil from over heated compressors etc.

Granted for most hobbyist using it for other things, we can get by with not changing every use.

But after checking the sealing/gasket surface of your vac chamber, I would change the oil, or even check that it has oil in it. I had somebody bought one at a yard sale and told me it wouldn't work. He brought it over and we found it didn't have any oil in the pump. If your pump is suffering from poor performance.

As to the pawn shops, since the traffic has increased in them due to the TV shows the ones around here, have raised their prices on a lot of the popular stuff. :biggrin: So have an idea of what things cost new!

If you want an idea on any style of the vacuum pumps HF and other importers sell go to their site and download their instruction manuals they are PDF files, and as the announcer says "no purchase is required" It is a great source of how things work if you don't know.
:clown:
 
Thinking about getting a vacuum pump and was looking for opinions on the Robinair 15300, 3 CFM pump. Spec sheet says it will pull a vacuum down to 35 microns.

I'm looking to occasionally stabilize or dye some blanks and maybe cast a few here and there.

Amazon has it for $154 and free shipping.

Does this look like a good pump or should I wait and try to find something better?
 
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Thats a good one. I have the same thing. But it is an older one. I done refrigeration work for 10 years and now I use it for stabilizing blanks. Actually I just came in from stabilizing some blanks with Cactus Juice There in the oven now.
But anyways it will do what you are buying it for.
 
Robinair is a US company that has 2 versions of vacuum pumps. The blue handle Mastercool pumps are made in the US and the red handled VacuMaster pumps are made in China and are quite similar to the HF pumps for less money. The Mastercool pumps are re-buildable while the VacuMasters are considered disposables and can not be re-built.

That said, for personal use such as stabilizing, the VacuMaster pumps should last as long as you need them to as long as you take care of them and change the oil regularly.

The rated vacuum of 35 microns equals 29.9186 InHg at sea level or 99.995% vacuum. This is a really good vacuum and will do the job well.
 
Oh why do the decisions have to be so difficult?

I can get the red one now and have money left over to build the vac chamber or I can buy the blue one and have to wait a few weeks to buy the other parts.

Why can't I just win the lottery and not have to worry about funding this hobby
 
I would not hesitate to buy that pump. It will do what you want and will most likely last as long as you need it. Another option is to look around at your local pawn shops. I found a US made JB Eliminator at a local pawn shop for $120 that was like new. It is a $350-400 pump new.
 
MesquiteMan said:
For a vacuum pump, buy American if you can. JB Industries makes a great one with parts available if you should need them. Robinaire also makes a good one and a not so good one. The cheaper Robinaire is considered disposable and parts are not available. If you want to go budget, the HF has 2 models. Both Chinese and disposable when they go bad. Take a look in your local pawn shops. Most HVAC technicians are required to buy their own vac pumps and with construction in the tank, many of them have lost their jobs and pawned their pumps. I found my JB Eliminator 6VE at a local pawn shop for $120. It is around $400 retail I believe. E-bay also has good deals on good pumps sometimes. I have a customer who bought a JB Eliminator on E-bay for $100.

Here is an article I wrote on vacuum and stabilizing with a discussion on pumps.**Link has been removed due to a member complaint that it was advertising) http://www.turntex.com/vacuum
Click to expand...
Just as I get ready to study this topic and start stabilizing, this happens. :mad:
 
John, that is what we end up with when one or a few abuse an open attitude about information. All info then becomes advertising and we are all the less informed and worse off for it. No, I am not flaming Jeff and/or the mods who are doing one great job giving us this forum for information and learning, and I also do not have the correct answer, wish I did. But we are all poorer by not having access to needed info such as this. OK, my $0.02 today
Charles
 
It is a great article for those that don't have an understanding of what and how a vacuum operates. I don't understand what the problem is and how can it be advertising since if you have been on this forum more than 20 seconds you know who and what Curtis is.

For those that would like to read it I suggest that you go and look up the link in the web site.
It is called
Explanation of vacuum and How it relates to stabilizing
Click to expand...
I have no connection to Curtis or his products and haven't even bought any yet. I am just a very satisfied reader of his Tutorials etc. And my knowledge of pen turning that they have increased!
:clown:
 
Yeah everyone knows the real advertising is in the signatures. ;)

I would probably own a vacuum chamber and some cactus juice if someone actually read their private messages...hint...hint...

Gil
 
Sorry, Gilrock, I missed the PM. That is primarily why I don't run ads on IAP. I get so darn many pms and also e-mails that I just can not be everywhere, thus I prefer all of my TurnTex stuff to be through my website e-mail.
 
Ok no problem Curtis...it wasn't till after I sent the questions that I noticed you were a moderator and involved with running the contests so I figured you were busy.

Anyways I dug through a lot of forum posts and I decided for clear casting PR I wasn't going to try to use vacuum or pressure. I bought a jewelry cleaner from HF yesterday so I'll use it to thin the resin before pouring.

And regarding advertising I'm in favor of it...I've discovered so many places to get things on this forum I would have never known about. I've spread the wealth to several IAP members. And I really like supporting the ones that participate on the forums alot helping everyone out. So I like seeing links in everyone's signatures but I did have to laugh when i saw one guys sig. read something like "Nothing to sell here...just like making pens." :rotfl:

Thanks,
Gil
 
Check out jt turning tools. Do an online search. They have an oil less vacuum pump for $199.00. No oil to mess with & that means no mist in the air. I use one for vacuum chucking & it does a fantastic job. It is well made granted it is not made in US, although they make most of what sell.
 
Your link was intended to educate and it linked to your tips page........some IAP members need to think of other members or go pound sand!!!!!
 
You got to be pretty specific when looking up vacuum pumps on Ebay. Just searching Vacuum Pump gets you some items that are not hvac appropriate and might be painful.

By the way Curtis's link in the quoted section is still active and very helpful.
 
I got lucky on ebay and was able to find this model, used, for $137.50 It works great! What made it an even better deal for me was it happened to be a local seller so I didn't have to pay shipping. Ebay and Craig's list would both be worth checking for a good quality pump.
 
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