Posted: Thu Oct 22, 2009 2:37 pmHello,
I've just received a Flow Quik. I'm going to be using it to do mostly some small (100-250cc) motorcycle heads so I got the 2" version. These are for my own projects, not a commercial deal, so I'm not terribly concerned about whether my numbers match those of someone else's bench. I plan on using a shop vac for the vacuum/blowing.
I've been trying to find information that addresses whether there is any advantage to a cylindrical plenum vs a rectangular one, but I haven't seen anything yet. I did search through the fora here.
A sturdy plastic pail (or the body of an old shop vac) would seem to be a good candidate for a plenum and the cylinder should be better able to resist the suction than a flat-sided box. I don't know if the cylindrical plenum would be prone to more cyclonic flow patterns inside, or if some sort of air-straightening lattice would be worth putting in.
I suspect that it probably doesn't matter much as long as I'm just doing relative tests on the same bench with the same problems (if any).
A six gallon pail would give a 48X plenum capacity on a 500 single and near 100X on the small bikes. 9-16 gallon shop vacs seem common and finding a dead one might not be too hard to do. Or I could turn my 20 year old 7 amp/12 gallon vac into the plenum and buy a new one for air supply/vac chores, and maybe add the old vac motor onto the new one for extra flow capacity if needed.
FWIW I was looking at some specs on Rigid shop vacs and something seems not quite right in vacuum advertising land:
289 cubic feet/min, 10A, 12 gal, claimed 5 hp. But 5 hp should be 3.7kW and 10A x 120v seems to me like 1.2kW
187 cu/ft , 12A, 16g, claimed 6.5hp but 1.4kw is 1.9hp
203 cu/ft, 12a, 16g, claimed 6.5hp
cheers,
Michael
I've just received a Flow Quik. I'm going to be using it to do mostly some small (100-250cc) motorcycle heads so I got the 2" version. These are for my own projects, not a commercial deal, so I'm not terribly concerned about whether my numbers match those of someone else's bench. I plan on using a shop vac for the vacuum/blowing.
I've been trying to find information that addresses whether there is any advantage to a cylindrical plenum vs a rectangular one, but I haven't seen anything yet. I did search through the fora here.
A sturdy plastic pail (or the body of an old shop vac) would seem to be a good candidate for a plenum and the cylinder should be better able to resist the suction than a flat-sided box. I don't know if the cylindrical plenum would be prone to more cyclonic flow patterns inside, or if some sort of air-straightening lattice would be worth putting in.
I suspect that it probably doesn't matter much as long as I'm just doing relative tests on the same bench with the same problems (if any).
A six gallon pail would give a 48X plenum capacity on a 500 single and near 100X on the small bikes. 9-16 gallon shop vacs seem common and finding a dead one might not be too hard to do. Or I could turn my 20 year old 7 amp/12 gallon vac into the plenum and buy a new one for air supply/vac chores, and maybe add the old vac motor onto the new one for extra flow capacity if needed.
FWIW I was looking at some specs on Rigid shop vacs and something seems not quite right in vacuum advertising land:
289 cubic feet/min, 10A, 12 gal, claimed 5 hp. But 5 hp should be 3.7kW and 10A x 120v seems to me like 1.2kW
187 cu/ft , 12A, 16g, claimed 6.5hp but 1.4kw is 1.9hp
203 cu/ft, 12a, 16g, claimed 6.5hp
cheers,
Michael