Hi
I thought I'd ask about this. Is it possible to use a conventional cylinder vacuum cleaner (old sausage dog type) to pump clean water? These cleaners work by passing the filterd air stream through the motor to cool it, so the water would go thru motor as well.
For any unaware person reading this, don't do it as its clearly dangerous, my question is whether its _possible_?
Regards, NT :)
yes- best to try it out in the bath first. Throw in a few handfulls of salt before you get in to improve the efficiency.
I'd have to say no. At least certainly no unaltered. The rotor spins at some tens of thousands of RPM. Even if it could keep this speed when water got to it, it'd be destroyed by cavitation and general stress, as it's so lightly built.
Run at a few percent power, I think you would get some pumping action. If pumping very clean/distilled water, the corrosion may not be that bad, and you may get a reasonable life (few days of pumping continuously) as contaminants will get washed away from the brushes rather than conducting ionically. Losses from "windage" due to the close gaps in the motor will be large.
Definite no-no ! Water and air have vastly different viscocity. Quite apart from the scary water/electricity aspects. What about a Vax type wet/dry vacuum where the water doesn't come in contact with the motor? When the water container gets full you could automatically empty it with a pressure switch/ electrical solenoid. There is also a simpler way to do auto emptying using the weight of water to trip a counterweighted flap. Regards Anthony
I don't know how effective it might be, but you might consider using the exhaust airflow to suck up the water.
------------------------------------ -->Airflow--> --> Air+Water -->
-----------------/ /---------------- / / / / Water
I'll think I'll patent that, call it a carburettor maybe.
(snip)
I have used one to pump air out of a barrel. Another pipe from the barrel can be used to suck up water. You have to make sure that water level never reaches the air pipe, and you can only run it briefly as there isn't enough air going through the motor to cool it.
Graham
If you can live with slightly lower vacuum, then you put a hole in the tube from the barrel and allow cooling air in.
How about: /\ Vacuum | | | | | | | ------------------------------------| | -->Airflow--> --> Air+Water | -----------------/ /----------------| | / / _| |_ / / | | | / / | \/ | Water / / |~~~~~| / / |_____| Water
Would that work, or would all the water still end up in the vac?
-Duncan
Older friends will remember the Flit flykiller sprays that worked just like this - far more ecological (from a material pov only) than aerosol cans. For a picture see
No, how silly of you, you can't pump water thru a motor.
But you can of course, pump gasoline. See your car's gas tank. Or Dave Barry.
Hi.
Ian Stirling:
You sure?
destroyed
Lets look at it this way. Water is more viscous, so as water flows thru it would presumably slow it down and work, at least in that respect.
Power consumption would go up from motor loading, but then water cooling would deal with that too, maybe.
Of course there might be a fair bit of power flowing thru the water, so maybe it'd be warm water coming out the back.
large.
Right. I guess losses aren't too big a concern in something as barmy as this :)
Anthony Wooldridge:
You sure? Want me to try it and see? I'll bet you're wrong ;)
actually that's not hard to deal with. earth the case and you have an earthed electrode heater.
Regards, NT
PS dont try this at home
I may be showing a great deal of ignorance here, because the last time I had anything to do with gasoline being transferred between the tank and engine must be nearly 30 years ago.....
As I recall from those halcyon days the "pump" in my old mini wasn't a rotating motor, more of an actuator which moved back and forth forcing the petrol in and out.
I wouldn't refer to that actuator assembly as a "motor", as a motor in my mind has a circulating component.
May be completely wrong though. It's happened once this year already ;)
PoP
pump-type sprays in the flesh (well, metal: you know what I mean) we did have an attachment for our old Electrolux sausage type vacuum cleaner for spraying stuff (never sure what stuff: we had the gizmo but I never saw the instructions or any description for it). It consisted of a glass jar with a screw-on lid: the lid incorporated a telescopic tube which dipped into the jar, a socket for the vac hose and a nozzle out of which should emerge what was being sprayed. The idea was to attach the hose to the blow (exhaust) end of the vac so the flow of air through the gizmo would create a suction and draw up liquid from the bottle and spray it out as an aerosol.
Never worked, mind.
-- John Stumbles
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And trip the RCD which stops the pump. OK you could use an isolating transformer to stop that, (with extreme care) but when the seal between the motor and pump vanes leak (they are not designed for water) you get water in the motor electrics, electrolysis, and corrosion will eventually stop the motor if the huge increase in power caused by the presumably low conductivity tap or worse still dirty water doesn't. It could last a few minutes if you bypass the RCD. (MTBF 0.1 hrs my estimate)
Much better to try the wet/dry Vax type with auto empty.
NT, you've given us a bit of an underspecified problem - thus the ensuing confusion.
When you say "possible," what do you mean? Do you mean "will it move any water at all," or do you mean "is this a reliable way to move water," or "is this a reliable and efficient way to move water," or ...? And, when you say "clean water," do you mean "clean and relatively ion-free water" or do you mean "water with no large suspended objects such as seaweed and/or rubber duckies"?
Of course you can pump clean water with a cylindrical vacuum cleaner, if you use it as a piston within some larger cylinder with appropriate valves. But I assume that's not what you mean.
Interestingly, a choked off vacum cleaner draws much less power than a free running one ! If you block the pipe, you will hear that the motor runs
*faster* - showing that the load is less.This is due to the characteristics of centrifugal pumps - you can look it up in an engineering encyclopedia or handbook - or I'll bet there is info on the web.
Possibly, the choked off cleaner may overheat because the motor still consumes power and has almost zero airflow.
At work we have a solder fume extractor rigged up from a barrel vac hooked up to a solder iron tip extractor. Very little air flows into the cleaner through the small diameter tip pipe, yet the cleaner runs for minutes and has never failed.
Roger
Stirling.
I remember my Dad in the 1960s spraypainting with one of those vacum cleaner attachments. It really did work for him. You put your finger over an air hole to start spraying. I wonder if its still in the garage at Mum's place ?
Roger
water?
You can pump gasoline, however make _very_ sure you don't get down to vapour! Many years ago one of our guys wanted to get the fumes out of a car gas (petrol) tank using a vaccuum cleaner before welding a leak. The brush sparking ignited the fumes, he lost most of his beard and eyebrows. Took him years to live it down.
Regards Ian
If he ever wants to do that again the method is to feed the exhaust pipe from a running engine into the petrol tank. Exhaust fumes, being already burnt, are inert. They flush out most of the petrol fumes and anything remaining can't burn anyway because there's no oxygen to sustain ignition.
Dave Baker - Puma Race Engines
It should work too, isnt that how most airbrushes still work today (although maybe the air source isnt from a vacuum cleaner any more :-)
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