Moving PEA size coal by Vacuum

 
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McGiever
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Post by McGiever » Wed. Feb. 28, 2018 9:41 am

I have taken on the task of finding a way to vacuum pea coal.
I can now report that I have successfully vacuumed pea coal up to a height of 9 feet. I am still experimenting and seeing if any improvements can be had...but 9 feet will do many applications just fine, I would think. :D

BTW: Did this w/ a 1/2 horse-power motor. :yes:


 
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Post by lsayre » Wed. Feb. 28, 2018 9:43 am

McGiever wrote:
Wed. Feb. 28, 2018 9:41 am
I have taken on the task of finding a way to vacuum pea coal.
I can now report that I have successfully vacuumed pea coal up to a height of 9 feet. I am still experimenting and seeing if any improvements can be had...but 9 feet will do many applications just fine, I would think. :D

BTW: Did this w/ a 1/2 horse-power motor. :yes:
Nice! Would that be a 1/2 HP shop vac?

 
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Post by McGiever » Wed. Feb. 28, 2018 9:47 am

No,* hotblast1357* tried with a total of 11 HP worth of shop vacs and gave up to pursue a auger solution, but I do not know any other particulars.

It took a few tries but I did get it.

I modified a dust collector and use 2" pick-up pipe for this one.

It will lift to 10.5 feet but not satisfactorily...slow and can get blockage.

Doing 9 feet gets acceptable results.

Working towards more refinement still.
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Post by Qtown1835 » Wed. Feb. 28, 2018 11:47 am

After messing with my shop vac this year i will be moving in a similar direction as you have setup there. Im going to install my blower "vacuum" outside so all exhaust and associated dust will be outside as well.

You know its a real project once the duct tape is out. :)

 
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Post by hotblast1357 » Wed. Feb. 28, 2018 2:07 pm

It works, but my 5 gallon pail implodes sometimes, and I can only get about 20 pounds into the 5 gallon pail at each fill, so filling the big hopper can take a while.

What do u have their? A big turbine type blower?

If I can get the vac system to work I will use it, the auger system is looking to be about 600 dollars minimum, which is making me hold off.

 
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Post by McGiever » Wed. Feb. 28, 2018 11:30 pm

10-5/8" cast aluminum impeller spinning at 3575rpm off a 1/2hp 120 volt motor.
6" inlet on blower reduced down to 3" and has a 4" factory sized discharge from the blower.
2" hose to the coal pick-up. In picture there is a HF dust separator lid on top of 5 gallon bucket.

Tried one other vac and like yours it had power to implode both bucket and barrel but it lacked enough volume of air flow to transport the pea coal effectively. This with a 2" hose is not a fast mover but does get the job done.

Will be adding a "knock off" of the dust deputy (3" size), hope it doesn't degrade my CFM's much.
I wasn't able to witness what, if any, dust was passing through the blower outlet since I was position 9' below working 2" hose end all alone.
Also like *Qtown* am considering discharging to the outdoors so maybe dust deputy can be left out. :annoyed:

Best of all this setup runs smooth and much quieter than the high rpm screaming shop vac did. :clap:

 
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Post by hotblast1357 » Thu. Mar. 01, 2018 5:09 am

So your suction tube isn’t buried at the bottom of the bin? Your moving it along the top of the coal?


 
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Post by Qtown1835 » Thu. Mar. 01, 2018 6:49 am

As far as the imploding is concerned from my experimenting it could be a weak vacuum vessel or too much suction. Someone on here pointed out about a "snorkel" that allows bypass air in near the pickup. I tried without it and it sucked coal like crazy, so much so, that it would be come bound in the pipe creating a coal slug. It's a bit of a balance between volume of coal lifted and enough air to cavitate the coal so if moves freely through the pipe.
In not so many words, try adding a snorkel and see what happens

 
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Post by CoalJockey » Thu. Mar. 01, 2018 7:07 am

That looks really nice there Mcgiever. That looks really similar to a dust collector fan, that should certainly move enough air. I often thought about an industrial car wash vac with the triple vac head too. You beat me to it by using the 2 inch rubber pump hose, I feel it will last as long as pvc and eliminate the joints and elbows.

The setup I previously used at the other house would move rice about 20 feet, and 5 of that was straight up in the air. I had a 2 inch pipe that dropped straight down into the bottom of the bin. At the bottom was a Y coupling with a short beveled stub sticking out one side to grab the coal. The other side of the Y was the air gate, or snorkel as Q called it. It came back up out of the bin to a hand valve. With the valve open it would not pull any coal and as I would pinch it shut it would begin to let coal flow. The whole key is getting the air mixture just right, as the coal is actually "riding" the air through the pipe. No air = giant pipe plug.

I wish I had taken photos as it is no longer used. Now that I am digging out the porch to make a coal bin it may get put back in service. I tried vacuuming coal in from the outside back in the fall but it was an experiment for another story... it was rather disappointing due to the type of container I used.

 
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Post by McGiever » Thu. Mar. 01, 2018 9:37 am

This is a work in progress and refinement is ongoing. Baby steps here,

Yes, the pick-up end is not buried, but now that I have proven the ability of equipment to work it is now in refinement phase..

 
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Post by McGiever » Tue. Mar. 20, 2018 5:19 pm

Been a while since reporting an update to further testing.

Ended up moving beyond using the "dust collector". It worked somewhat but it wouldn't respond well to attempts to refine the results.
I went in another direction and must say I am very pleased with the much better potential I discovered and now hope to to refine that.
Success was had by using my 6 HP shop vac (11.4amps) through a 2" pipe.

Might of actually been a more obvious first choice attempt, but I was thinking 2" might of been a tad too small of a diameter pipe for moving pea size coal. I found out 2" can work just fins at this stage of testing/refinement.

Stay tuned, as for this next phase I will be attempting to move pea coal from a bin with the "pick up pipe end" buried in the coal.
I have a design in mind and have gather the pieces needed to try out.

And hopefully this works out to be hands free...just a flip of the switch. :annoyed:

 
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Post by hotblast1357 » Tue. Mar. 20, 2018 5:39 pm

So you are now simply vacuuming up the coal from the top of the pile like you would suck dirt up? And now are going to try the actual buried pipe into the bin?

I found I could pick up coal all day long, but then when I installed the pipe into the bin, 4” pvc, and filled the bin, it won’t actually pull the coal up into the hopper.. it worked at first rather intermittently with 11 HP, but I’ve found as the coal has chinked together in the bin it won’t pull it anymore. Will be interesting to see how you get yours to work.

 
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Post by McGiever » Tue. Mar. 20, 2018 7:06 pm

hotblast1357 wrote:
Tue. Mar. 20, 2018 5:39 pm
So you are now simply vacuuming up the coal from the top of the pile like you would suck dirt up? And now are going to try the actual buried pipe into the bin?

I found I could pick up coal all day long, but then when I installed the pipe into the bin, 4” pvc, and filled the bin, it won’t actually pull the coal up into the hopper.. it worked at first rather intermittently with 11 HP, but I’ve found as the coal has chinked together in the bin it won’t pull it anymore. Will be interesting to see how you get yours to work.
Yes, I anticipate this known issue and as mentioned above I have an approach to make this work at the flip of a switch.

 
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Post by hotblast1357 » Tue. Mar. 20, 2018 8:48 pm

Can’t wait!

 
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Post by Qtown1835 » Wed. Mar. 21, 2018 7:08 am

If you bury a pipe into the pile without some sort of bypass air to cavitate the aggregate, it will not suspend and will bind inside the pipe. The bypass air makes a huge difference in function. I run a 3/4" bypass on a 2" suction pipe


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