Here is a link to pics and details on our gas powered super sucker built in 08. It consists of a home built trailer, 500 gallon modified propane tank, 11hp Honda gas engine, and a 2 inch Roots Dresser blower assembly.

Total cost was about $1700 to build and besides the tank volume limits, it will hang with any high $$$ vac tanker out there. 0 to 25 inches of vacuum in under a minute, and with the 2 inch hoses and ball valves it can move 500 gallons in or out under 3 minutes. Tested it last winter down to 24 deg F, way beyond what we expected to use it at. All parts were purchase used besides the hoses and ball valves, the trailer we built from scratch and included in the cost above.

This is a work in progress, but has successfully moved over 10,000 gallons of WVO in the past year with no problems.

Specs:

Tank Capacity: 500 Gallon
Blower Capacity: 175 cfm
Working Vacuum: 25 inches
Working Pressure: 14 PSI
Weight Empty: 2500lbs
Weight Full: 6300lbs +



-Ken

Wow!!
I want one

Just a note...Those Dresser blowers are only rated for 16 inches of vacuum. Exceeding 16" will cause the oil seals to fail.

quote:

Originally posted by The Shootist:
Just a note...Those Dresser blowers are only rated for 16 inches of vacuum. Exceeding 16" will cause the oil seals to fail.

Nice catch :-) Yeah I pulled all the specs before we started converting so I would know the correct working RPM's. I'm pushing it way over vac specs for sure, factory was set at about 5 inches. But then all the data I saw was rated for 24x7 run times, we operate it for no more than 30 minute cycles. I've been checking the oil level often.

We also had to swap the pulleys around to get the correct engine torque curve and speed on the blower shaft since it's now using gas power. About half throttle keeps it under 3500 RPM on the blower with plenty of power. But the best part is, I purchased 2 of those Novetec units at the same time for under $ 250 each, so I have a good spare if I smoke one. Can't buy a decent electric vac pump for that price.

What you think about the oil used in them? $$$

Roots site says NOT to use Mobile One due to seal issues...

-Ken

Cool setup Ken. Good to see pictures. I'm using a 3" trash pump right now, but have been looking around for something like this. Where'd you find?

After looking into the trash pumps myself, I decided to look at how the large vac trucks work. Just so happened my partner in FL had recently purchased a very nice one for our start up operations there. That's when I noticed they use a shaft driven blower motor to create the vacuum.

Any "positive displacement" blower should work fine. That could be a roots style supercharger off a car, or as I stumbled onto these 2" Roots Dresser blower units that are common in plants to move plastics. I see them listed on eBay every so often, but I found these units at another site. DoveBid.com has big plant stuff from all over the world up for auction, these were just a couple hundred miles away and a good deal.

All the rest, like the tank I purchase off a neighbor for $75, the axles came off an old stock trailer, and everything else we built from scratch.

-Ken

I spent a few minutes looking over a 500 gallon sucker truck used to empty porta-potties, they used a small roots blower for the suction but had added a remote external 2 gallon oil tank that was positioned a few inches above the pump and plumbed into the pump,s oil sump access port, seemed to work. I picked up a similar small roots blower unit, it is belt powered by a 10 HP Briggs and Stratton engine, the blower is the main part of a pickup truck bed mounted mosquito sprayer, It will eventually see use on a sucker tank, lucked out and got the complete sprayer setup for $50.00 and already had the 500 gallon propane tank and the axles, now if I only had a oil supplier big enough to justify building the setup, the one I had that was big enough to use barrels recently went out of business, the several small sources I pick up now use cubies.

You reference a "working pressure" of 14 pounds, are you using the roots blower to create this pressure?

2 inch ball valves -- How large is the opening through the ball, in looking at ball valves it seems I need to use valves much larger than 2 inch to get a true 2 inch opening through the ball, these get expensive unless you use plastic but plastic has a tendency to snap off easily in really cold weather like I have here, don't want to chance snapping off the valve and having no way to stop from draining the tank while going down the road. May go with one brass valve at the tank then use plastic elsewhere, still thinking this over. How do you have your setup configured, is there a valve on the end of the hose to keep it from dripping and allow you to control suction while at the end of the hose? I use a short section of PVC water pipe on the end of my 40 gallon sucker collection hose, much easier to insert into barrels and allows a valve to be placed between the pickup wand and the hose.

Looking at your picture I can't tell for sure if your collection hose is fitted to the top or the bottom of the tank (looks like probably the top), if it is on the top I guess there is not much possibility of accidentally draining the tank but you would need a standpipe inside the tank to be able to drain it using the same hose.

OOPPS -- Just realized you had a link to more pics and info - these answered most of my questions.

quote:

Originally posted by Tim c cook:

You reference a "working pressure" of 14 pounds, are you using the roots blower to create this pressure?

Yeah on the exhaust side, I just placed a quick coupler fitting on the muffler and T'ed in another release valve to regulate the pressure. The pop off or regulator valve was added after I stalled out the engine when it hit about 20 PSI. This caused the engine to spin backwards at about 6000 rpm before I could shut off the tank valve. Now it's regulated on both side and we just swap the hose from Vac to Pressure side of the blower depending on the need.

On a side note, the big pumps use a gear box with a reverse gear to change direction on the pump. If I could find one, I would love to add a gear box in the mix to save swapping the hose from pressure to vac sides of the blower..

quote:

How large is the opening through the ball

You want a True Port ball valve, they maintain full 2" flow. It's not hard to tell when you look at one open, should be true 2" hole in the ball, not 1&1/2". I paid like $50 each for them in bronze. On the valve connecting tank to the blower, I used plastic there to save money. Plastics are ok if not contacting oil, if so they will gum up over time and not open easy.

On the fill point of the tank, I usually just leave the hose on the bottom valve for filling and empty duty. The top one does suck the oil in faster, but I don't use it that often. It was a safety thing in case vac was lost while sucking out a tank, it can't back flow out again.

Another other thing you need to consider is a check ball in the tank to stop from sucking oil into the blower when the tank reaches full. I have done this once, very messy. Now I check the level and shut off the tank from the blower once I get to like 80%. Check ball assembly is on my list of additions, along with a site glass near the top of the tank. We had left the propane gauge in there, but it stopped working after couple months uses.

I don't have a shut off on the hose end "YET". Also being added for no more reason than making this a cleaner rig. Currently we just pull the hose outa the drum or tank and let it suck all the WVO into the tank and clear the hose. So far this works pretty good, if you have someone to shut the tank valve for ya, or use the top port for filling.

Let me know when you get yours done.

-Ken

Hi Ken,

Nice job. But I am a little confused.
The super sucker should has two function, one is vacuum pumping, so we can suck oil from outside into the tank. Another is pressure blowing, so the oil in the tank can be pressed out.

So the system should have two parts, one is vacuum pump, which use to suck the oil from outside into the tank; another is a pressure blower, which use to press the oil out of the tank.

But seems you only use a Dresser blower. I can not understand how you can produce both vacuum and high pressure. Would you please give some expaination?

Also, the cost you spend is also impressive. Where you find the cheap Dresser blower?

Thanks a lot!

The Roots Dresser blowers are a "Positive Displacement" air pump. In other words every time it spins one turn, it moves X amount of air through the pump. Unlike a fan type setup where air can bleed past the blades, these use tight tolerances. So on the intake side you have vacuum, on the exit side you have pressure.

By swapping the hose connected to the storage tank from intake to exit on the blower, you change from pulling air out to pushing air into the tank. The big vac tankers do this by using gearing to reverse the direction of the blower shafts. Advantage to that is no swapping the hoses around, just flip a lever.

For the costs, buy used and fab it together with a friend who welds..

There is one of these exact same 33 U-RAI blowers up on eBay for $199 right now.
Blower Link

I purchased the complete "Novatec" units including the air filter and muffler unit off an industrial auction site for just under $250 each. I've seen the setup's on ebay also, but typically asking closer to a grand. Since the main part is the blower unit, start there add the muffler yourself to save $$$.

For the tank, go hit up your local propane supplier, steel prices are down and you can probably get a 500 gallon tank for $50 to $100. Once the certification expires they are useless to them and sell for scrap.


-Ken

I dought I will be building mine any time soon, none of my oil sources are big enough to warrent it now.

Interesting to hear that the pump was able to turn the engine backwards, I have been considering using one of these type pumps as a sort of steam engine to generate electricity, it has been done, (that discussion is here).

Tim

Since I haven't added a battery to take advantage of the electric start, I sometimes use the vacuum or pressure in the tank to start the engine.

Example: If I am switching from vac to pressure to pump out the tank, I will switch the hose to the exhaust side of the pump and then open the top tank valve when there is vacuum left in the system. Soon as I open the valve if I give the engine a small tug on the starter cord to get it spinning, it will continue to crank and fire up using the vacuum in the system.

The down side here is a couple of times the engine ran out of fuel and stalled, this spun it backwards before I could shut the main valve. Not so good on the engine I'm sure. A couple check valves in the system would solve the problem..

So in theory the blower would work for what your attempting.

-Ken

Kenr34
Do not purchase a battery, instead invest in running cables from the battery of your vehicle to the bumper and enough extra to reach the trailer. I did this years ago. No extra batterys to replace.

Thank you very much Ken!

quote:

Originally posted by Kenr34:
The Roots Dresser blowers are a "Positive Displacement" air pump. In other words every time it spins one turn, it moves X amount of air through the pump. Unlike a fan type setup where air can bleed past the blades, these use tight tolerances. So on the intake side you have vacuum, on the exit side you have pressure.

By swapping the hose connected to the storage tank from intake to exit on the blower, you change from pulling air out to pushing air into the tank. The big vac tankers do this by using gearing to reverse the direction of the blower shafts. Advantage to that is no swapping the hoses around, just flip a lever.

For the costs, buy used and fab it together with a friend who welds..

There is one of these exact same 33 U-RAI blowers up on eBay for $199 right now.
Blower Link

I purchased the complete "Novatec" units including the air filter and muffler unit off an industrial auction site for just under $250 each. I've seen the setup's on ebay also, but typically asking closer to a grand. Since the main part is the blower unit, start there add the muffler yourself to save $$$.

For the tank, go hit up your local propane supplier, steel prices are down and you can probably get a 500 gallon tank for $50 to $100. Once the certification expires they are useless to them and sell for scrap.


-Ken

Your welcome..

Like most I started out using a hand crank pump years ago. I've experimented with many different ways of moving WVO, this is by far the cleanest and fastest. I'm just adding some speed to the designs previously posted on here.

David, thanks for that piece of information. I've been considering using the built in trailer plug hot lead to charge a battery. Glad to hear other options. Since we are adding some work lights to the trailer, will probably still go with a deep cycle bat to better handle the load. Sometimes we move it around with a tractor on the farm.

-Ken

quote:

Originally posted by Kenr34:
Here is a link to pics and details on our gas powered super sucker built in 08. It consists of a home built trailer, 500 gallon modified propane tank, 11hp Honda gas engine, and a 2 inch Roots Dresser blower assembly.

<snip>


-Ken

I looked at your pictures seeing the 1200 storage tank reading that you use the lower of the two valves at the bottom of the tank to remove water and crud. How do you dispose of the crud?

Could you post an up-close picture of you blower, engine and piping? I'd like to learn how to
build one. It looks like a great system. Thanks Carl

quote:

How do you dispose of the crud?

We suck it back out into the trailer and mix it 50/50 with water, then it is used as dust control on a couple township roads.


Carl, I'll see if I can grab some pix of the motor and pump for ya. It pretty simple setup so far, but we still have to manually move the hose connecting the pump to the tank from vac to pressure side of the pump.

-Ken