Top portable vacuum configurations:

[Donald]

Top portable vacuum configurations:
Definitions:
1. Inches of water lift is how high can you suck a one inch diameter solid column of water at sea level straight up in the air. The reading is taken at zero cfm (when it stops sucking the water up the tube)

2. CFM: Cubic feet per minute of air flow through the vacuum motors and the reading is taken at zero inches of lift (un-restricted).

3. Series mounted vacuum motors: Means the exhaust of the first vacuum motor blows straight into the intake of the second vacuum motor. The inches of lift will be improved by 70% of the second motor rating. A third motor in series will experience another 70% improvement of the motor in front of it. The cfm will improve 25% of the average of the two motors balanced by amp draw of the motor in front of it. Example a pair of vacuum motors each capable of 100 inches can now product 170 inch lift in series. If a vacuum motor normally moves 100 cfm and now you place two in series, it can move up to 125 cfm unrestricted. The improvement of a third vacuum motor standard is set by the motor in front of it. If this motor in front is 70 inches of improvement, then now the third motor will only be 49 inches of improvement and 25% of 25 cfm or 5 cfm more.

4. Parallel mounted vacuum motors: means the each of the two or more vacuum motors draw air equally out of the vacuum tank, side by side. The inches of water lift is not increased but the cfm will double out of the carpet cleaning machine. When you increase the cfm rating of the machine you do increase the 'use' inches of lift once you place the wand on the floor because you are making the carpet cleaning machine look for cfm through the hose, wand, and carpet.

5. Peripheral Discharge: Means the air that leaves the centrifugal vacuum motor is exhausted all the way around the top perimeter. An example of such a vacuum motor is found on the Ninja Warrior machines

http://www.steam-brite.com/century-stage-vacuum-motor-ninja-warrior-windsor-dominator-86318770-p-11345.html

6. Tangental discharge vacuum motors: is when the exhausted air that leaves the centrifugal vacuum motor leaves out an upper horn. An example is found

http://www.steam-brite.com/windsor-86258420-three-stage-vacuum-motor-tangental-discharge-used-ninja-prochem-others-p-10768.html

7. Vacuum units: The number to help compare vacuum systems take by multiplying max cfm at zero inches of lift X (Times) max inches of lift at zero cfm. Please note a carpet cleaning machine uses both and neither at the same time. Say what? In other words when I am cleaning a carpet, the carpet cleaning wand is on the carpet and the cfm is half restricted and the inches of lift is half restricted. The wand the the carpet is not a perfect seal. My "use" cfm and "use" inches of lift can easily be half of what the machine is rated for.

8. Centrifugal vacuum motors: Electric vacuum motors used in most electric carpet cleaning machines. Most vacuum motors turn at 20,000 plus rpm (revolutions per minute) The air is slung from the bottom out and out the top.

9. Stages of vacuum: On centrifugal motors the air is sucked in the middle of the fan blades and slung back out to the sides. A second stage grabs that same air and slings it in and back out. If it has a third or fourth stage it is slung in and out again. This will make the vacuum motor a little taller as you stack the stages. The more stages usually the better job the vacuum motor will grab the air and perform and fight back better but not always. A two stage 12 amp at 120 volt motor will always perform better than a 3 stage 10 amp motor. Amp draw is king when it comes to vacuum performance.

10. Amp draw. Wattage divided by volts equal amps. Amps X volts = Watts. As the air is passing through centrifugal vacuum motors it offer resistance. I place my hand over the vacuum hose or place my wand on the carpet the vacuum motors speed up. Why less air resistance means the vacuum motor is working easier and the amp draw falls while the blades speed up. Amp draw is highest at my cfm rating and lowest at my inches of water lift rating. All vacuum centrifugal motors amp draw falls as you work them harder. The vacuum motors are made in 12 volts, 36 volts, 120 volts, and 240 volts. Example of a centrifugal vacuum motor is located at

http://www.steam-brite.com/electro-vacuum-motor-q6600004tmp26-stage-high-performance-12amp-draw-flat-bottom-mytee-c310-p-9842.html

11. Positive displacement vacuum motor: Means with each revolution it will gulp and grab the air. As you restrict the inbound air flow the pump/ blower has to work harder and it will require more horse power and more amp draw. This is the opposite side effect as compared to centrifugal vacuum motors. An example of a positive vacuum motors is located at

http://www.steam-brite.com/gardner-denver-triflow-86175370-sutorbilt-truck-mount-vacuum-blower-791249-pump-p-5900.html

All the positive displacement vacuum motors have the same inches of lift or 204 inches. The only variable is their cfm rating.

12. Diameter of housing: On centrifugal vacuum motors why the vacuum motor is sitting with the bottom suction blades down and the electrical winding on top what is the diameter of the bottom of the vacuum motor housing. You will find vacuum motors in 4.2" diameter, 5.7" diameter, 6.6" diameter, 7.2" diameter, and 8.4" diameter. Example of 8.4" diameter vacuum motors

http://www.steam-brite.com/ametek-12217618-vacuum-motor-blower-inches-volts-tangential-stage-speed-p-15394.html

13. Inches of HG or inches of Mercury. Same rule as inches of lift but now we are using Mercury instead of water. 204 inches of water lift is the same as 15 inches of Mercury. See other conversion at http://www.steam-bright.net/showthre...nversion-table

14. Twin series pair vacuum: This is when you take two vacuum motors and place then in air series (as mentioned in line 3 above) and then take another pair of vacuum motors and place them in air series. Then take these two pairs (4 vacuum motors total) and parallel mount them (like mention in line 4). This gives you the best of both worlds of both series vacuum and parallel vacuum. The pair of series pick up the cfm by 25% + 70% improvement of inches of lift, then mate with another series to double the cfm rating again.
Example 4 vacuum motors rated for 100 cfm and 100 inches of lift in series makes 170" of lift and 125 cfm. X 2 sets = 170" lift X 250 cfm or 42,500 vacuum units.
Example of same vacuum motors in all series: 100" + 70" + 49" + 34.3" = 253.30" @ zero cfm. Same configuration is 100 cfm + 25 cfm + 6.25 cfm + 1.56 cfm = 132.81 cfm X 253.3" of lift = 33,641 vacuum units
Example of same motors in all parallel 100" of lift at 400 cfm or 40,000 vacuum units. You can see the twin series pair performs the best. An example of such design is located at

http://www.steam-brite.com/clean-storm-goliath-15gal-500psi-heated-four-stage-vacs-14000-heater-muffler-auto-fill-pumper-hose-wand-carpet-cleaning-machine-p-10273.html

14. Conical bottom: Cone shaped bottom vacuum motors that are not flat on the bottom so they have a larger fatter fan blade to gulp and grab the inbound air and squeeze it into the stage system. An example is found at

http://www.steam-brite.com/electro-vacuum-motor-q6600084amp26-stage-120v-conical-bottom-fanvacuum-mytee-c302a-high-performance-p-9841.html

Summary: Amp draw is king: This means that a for the most part a 20 amp vacuum configuration (Dual 3 stage 10 amp motors - Clean Storm 12-3500-H or Powrflite Black Max) will out perform a 15 amp vacuum configuration (Dual 2 stage 7.5 amp motors - Clean Storm 6-2300-H),
25.5 amp vacuum system (dual 5.7" high performance conical bottom vacuum motors - Mytee RL105, Mytee LTD5, Mytee M5) will out perform a 20 amp vacuum system (dual 5.7" vacuum flat bottom @ 10 amps each) set up the same way (parallel or series). 25.5 amp system (dual Ametek 6.6 vacs- Cross American Jaguar 6.6 and Clean Storm 12-6500-H) will perform the same as 25.5 amp dual conical bottom vacuum system (Mytee RL105). A 30 amp dual series pair vacuum system (Goliath) will outperform a 26 amp (dual 8.4" - Cross American Jaguar 8.4 OR Nautilus Extreme Portables ) vacuum system. A 40 amp vacuum system (Mytee Escape) will out perform a 30 amp vacuum system (Goliath).
A Goliath with a 12 amp booster (Mytee 7303) will outperform the Mytee Escape. Where does it end? It does not, but pretty easy to see the winners because all you have to do is add up the amps. Sometimes you need small or lesser vacuum amps in order to run other appliances including electric heater, pressure pump, auto dump pump.

[Donald]

More about vacuum

All vacuum motors styles can be used to push or suck air. Examples: Centrifugal motors blow air when used in bathroom hand dryers and boat dock lifters. Positive vacuum blowers are used to blow insulation and to push water for oil fracking. We use the suction side in carpet cleaning equipment and shop vacs. Positive vacuum pumps are more commonly used for long hose runs while centrifugal are used for shorter runs. The maximum cfm you can suck through 2" ID hose is about 450 cfm. The maximum amount of cfm you can suck through a 1-1/2" ID vacuum hose is about 225 cfm.

Positive displacement vacuum pump/ blowers fall in three different blade types: Dual lobe, tri-lobe, helical lobe. The dual lobe is the industry staple vacuum pump. An example is found at

http://www.steam-brite.com/gardner-denver-sutorbilt-legend-3mrrhc-truckmount-vacuum-blower-formally-86190690-pump-p-12463.html

You will that it has two blades that spin around the push the air through it. For each revolution it gulps a certain amount of air. These pumps are equally called blowers as they push and suck air at the same time. The dual lobe blowers can be spun in either direction. A tri-lobe blower is much quieter and is usually engineered to be able to be spun faster. An example of a tri-lobe is the Ti406

http://www.steam-brite.com/gardner-denver-triflow-ti406-sutorbilt-truck-mount-vacuum-blower-pump-86175400-prochem-peak-sapphire-scientific-p-12462.html

The price jumps up a bit to use the tri-lobe blowers. The next evolution of vacuum pumps is the helical lobe. Helical lobe blowers are tri-lobed blowers with twisted blades. The noise reduction can half as much as the standard tri-lobed and the tri-lobed are twice as quiet as dual lobed. The helical lobe bowers also cost quite a bit more than the standard tri-lobed and are only found in machine that price is not an issue.

Inches of water lift and cfm are equally important. The increase of cfm by the vacuum causes an increase of 'use inches of lift' once I place my cleaning tool on the surface I am cleaning. Take for example a cleaning system that uses a 12" wide wand with a 1/4" wide lip. The vacuum starts out in a 12 gallon tank, passes through a 2" inside diameter (I.D.) opening, through 2" ID hose, is reduced through a leader 1.5" ID vacuum hose for 15 ft, then through a wand lip opening. The wand lip opening is 12" wide X .25 or 3 square inches with a 75% seal on the floor would work like .75 square inch opening. The area of the leader vacuum hose (radius squared X pie) 1.5 divided by 2 = .75 X .75 X 3.14 or 1.77 square inches. Area of 2" ID is 3.14 square inches. As the air is squeezed through each area the volume also changes. The tank might start at 12 gallon (12 X 1 gallon [US, liquid] = 231 cubic inches X 12 gallons = 2772 cubic inches), but the 2" hose X 100 ft long = volume of 3769.91 cubic inches. The volume of 15 ft of 1.5" hose is 318.09 cubic inches and becomes like the first point of restriction. This is like moving the vacuum tank closer to the project. As a side note I have seen some video on youtube where carpet cleaners show how fast they can empty a 5 gallon bucket to prove how strong their vacuum is. This means nothing as any portable or truckmount can suck 5 gallons of water (1155 cubic inches) into a hose that holds 3769.91 cubic inches of water. The 5 gallons water never even makes it to the machine. The true test is to see what machine can suck up 55 gallons of water, filter, and pump all 55 gallons back out the fastest.