Updated pics of my flowbench

[bruce]

I spent the weekend upgrading my flowbench. I had planned on building a new cabinet but that is on hold for right now so I just upgraded what I already have. My next step is to make a cabinet for my blower motors in the next week or so here are some new pics:






I added a steel plate to the top drilled to 5" hold down bolt holes. I added a new down tube which is 6" in dia and makes a good settling chamber.

[Peter]

bruce, what are the dimensions of the PVC tubing and gate valve. Also how well does it work. We need details, details my man !

[bruce]

The settling chamber area right under the test peice is 6" this is reduced down to a 4" to 3" 90* reducer. Right after the reducer is a peice of pipe holding flow straighteners (nothing more than soda straws hot glued together, working on a honeycomb setup right now) After the flow straightener peice is the flow element tube (using my annubars) which can be a 1.5" 2" or 3" pipe depending on what I am testing. I'm trying to come up with a nice flange setup so the elements can be installed without having to move the other pipes in the system. Most of time I use the 1.5" setup. The gate valve is 3". Not sure if this will stay in on any future designs? I might add it to the vacuum box as an air bleed instead of a restriction in flow.

This bench has been a testbed of ideas over the years and will continue to be in the future as we all refine our designs. I have tested many ideas on my bench that others from this forum have comeup with, some worked some didn't, but we are all learning from each other.

This bench is VERY repeatable both with water manometers and the Casio flow setup I have installed. Hope this helps a little on the description . . .

[Peter]

What is your CFM ranges for each pipe size (1.5,2,3) ?

They make four bolt Sch 80 flanges for just about any pipe size, is that what you had in mind ? ???

I forgot to ask, are you using the FlowPerformance unit with your Casio display ?

[bruce]

I have not taken the time to actually test each flow element to see what ranges they flow. They have been made more for R&D than actually testing with each size. I have used the 1.5" one that is installed to do the testing I have to do in my shop right now. Basically up to 2" dia valves is the max I have been testing. Most of what I test is in the smaller ranges though less than 1.5" dia.

The Casio setup I am using is manufacturer by one of the forum members. I'm "field testing" it. After using it now for a few months it would be hard to go back to the manometers. I keep the manometers on my bench for reference and I use some of them for testing different signals on carbs I test.

[2seater]

The flow capability for different size pipes is yet to be tested, but while I am waiting for parts and constructing the bench, I did fool around with the Excel spreadsheet and the formulas that were kindly given in this forum. It really depends on how hard you can "suck" on the pipe, but I used the assumed maximum capabilty of my six vacuum motors of about 750 cfm to obtain a flow velocity of almost 14,000 fpm through a 3" pvc pipe, which "should" show as a reading of 12" h2o on the sensing annubar. That's about the velocity of an average leaf blower through a somewhat smaller tube, so air can certainly flow at least that fast (and probably much more). Assuming the same velocity through smaller tubes, 2" will do 319 cfm and 1.5", 182 cfm. The 12" required reading seems awfully high for the pressure velocity, but the formula says this is what is required. Does this sound correct?