For the Super Sucker users out there (a great design by the way)...

Let's suppose you have an 80 gallon super sucker, and pull a 30" vacuum on it before leaving home.

Is that enough vacuum to suck up 80 gallons of oil, or does the vacuum pump need to run any more time (either while sucking, or take a break from sucking to pull more vacuum).

Basically - can you suck a whole tankful after drawing a good vacuum into the tank?

Thanks,

SteveM.

I would only get around 25 inches when I was using a SS but it would not fill the tank. SS are good but make sure you can get a big unit like that near the barrels.

Assuming you have a pump capable of reaching 29 inches/hg and you're working with warm oil, you'd probably be able to fill up a bit over half of the tank. As the tank fills, the vacuum drops to a point of diminishing return.

If working with cold oil, you might not even get 1/2 a tank.

My sucker is a 120G propane tank pulled down to 27+ hg before leaving the house.
Sucked up about 90G of free flowing oil through about 7 ft of 1" abs well hose/pipe and still had 15" left on the gauge.

Have you considered a little Honda powered water pump? Very portable and do a great job.

A big part of the reason I like the Super Sucker option is that I already have a tank and a vacuum pump. For the cost of some pipe fittings, hose, and valves, I can have a completed unit for pretty low $$.

Go for it Jet! You wont regret it!
Jon

Ours is 330 gallons and we get it down around 30" according to the gauge and in the summertime we can get about 200 gallons before we run out of vacuum. If you suck any air in this will decrease. We have a generator on board and usually add more vacuum when we get about 100 gallons, it takes a lot less time to draw a vacuum with tank 1/2 full.

Hi Steve I used to get about 50L in a 60L cylinder but it would get slow towards the end. The amount you will get also depends on the lift required.
Every 2' of lift roughly equals 1psi or 2" of vacuum.

I imagine this would have a bit to do with the length and size of the hose you were using and where the valve was. If you have valve at the tank, then you will loose vac from the air in the hose straight away. Ideally you'd want to put a valve on the end of the hose and suck that down as well and make sure everything was very airtight.

I'll stick to my Pump.
I use plastic tanks and can always get MORE than their rated volume in them.

I use a fairly cheap little one-pound coffee can sized 3 cubic foot Thomas 12 volt dc diaphragm pump for the vacuum, I run it all the time, this allows me to completely fill the tank. These diaphragm pumps will only draw about 20 inches of vac but it works fine if you run it continuously while collecting oil.

I find that oil will flow by about 10 inches (5 pounds) of vac, more vac flows faster, a larger CFM pump also move air faster, once the initial vac is lost due to being replaced by oil the oil flow will basically equal the speed at which you can remove the air from the tank. Using a larger hose makes more differance than the amount of vac but the valves get expensive, I use 1 1/4 inch hose and valves, this allows using 1 inch pipe nipples for the hose connections, doubling the ID of the hose will move oil 4 times faster