Tractorsport Flowbench Forum Archive

Posted: **Sat Apr 14, 2007 11:10 pm**

First off I want to say thanks to all the people on here who have asked and answered many questions in the past, without all the info I would never be able to make my bench possible.

With that said I am going to be building a pitot style bench. I have most of the cabinet part of the bench figured out. I am going to run a seperate vacuum box that plugs into the bench. so for now I am going to build the bench part.

I started getting all the piping and couplings I needed and after talking to bruce for a while today I found where to get the gate valve I needed. (thanks bruce for all the help today I learned alot)
I picked up a couiple sheets of mdf with a nice finish so I can paint it when it's done.

I plan on running the FP-1 and as many of bruces parts possible.

Well here are some pics of my parts waiting and my little drawings of the plan for the bench.
Any comments or guidence is appreciated, if you see something that might be a problem please let me know.

Thanks for listening to me rant for a little and I will make updates on my progress.

Mark Sutcliffe
Misc.motorsports

Posted: **Sat Apr 14, 2007 11:49 pm**

Yes Mark, enjoyed our chat today in my shop!

Just don't pass along to many secrets you might have seen sitting around . . . if you could find anything in my shop that looked like a secret! I keep it a mess that way nobody knows what is secret and what is not secret

Welcome to the forum and our "sickness", hope I didn't confuse you to much with all we talked about . . .

Posted: **Sun Apr 15, 2007 8:29 am**

don't worry bruce I'm sure I was looking right at all the secrets and didn't know it anyway.haha I learned alot from our talk but I am still hazy on a bunch of stuff but that will all come with time. It was just nice to see some stuff in person and get a feel for how it all works. and you were right zimmermans had everything I needed yesterday, it saved me alot of running around.
well I plan on starting the cabinet today so hopefully I will have some more pics in the next day or two.

Thanks again bruce for all the guidence.
Mark

Posted: **Mon Apr 16, 2007 2:25 pm**

I assume you are from PA? How good are you with Wood?

Maybe we could trade some secrets?

Posted: **Mon Apr 16, 2007 5:25 pm**

Posted: **Thu Apr 19, 2007 11:10 pm**

well I got my piping mostly all done, I just have to run a piece from the gate valve up into the computer compartment.

Posted: **Thu Apr 19, 2007 11:33 pm**

Guess I need to machine some averaging tubes this weekend!

Posted: **Fri Apr 20, 2007 7:51 am**

I still have to wait for my computer to get here. he said he shipped it out on wed. so maybe it will be here by this weekend.

also bruce I was digging around at work thru some of our used parts and may have found some usefull stuff.. I have a 3ph 3hp motor and fan setup from a dryer. the specs on the dryer are that it pulls 700cfm thru a 10 or 12 inch hole. do you think this might be something I can use instead of vacuum motors?
I am bringing it home tonight and taking pics of it, if you could look at it or maybe discuss it with tony and see if it will work. I also just found some vfd's on ebay but I have a question on them to.
If I have a 3hp motor and the vfr says its for a 5hp motor will it work on a smaller motor or does the vfd have to be for a 3hp.
maybe if you are going to be around tonight I can swing by and show you the fan, I have to go up 772 to help a guy finish building his car anyway.
thanks for the help
Mark

Posted: **Fri Apr 20, 2007 12:30 pm**

Mark, have to run and pickup my daughter at College this afternoon. I'll be home after 5:00ish? I can give you a ring on your cell when I get home

Posted: **Fri Apr 20, 2007 4:04 pm**

after 5 works for me. I only have to be at my buddies house at 9:30 so I have all night free.
here are some pics of the fan setup. I also called the dealer today and got the true specs on the fan. it is a 16" fan and the dryers are rated at 1700 cfm (wow) I thought it was alot less. so now my question is if it flows 1700 cfm @ 60hz how would I figure out how low of a hz rating I can go and still have the motor operate normally. and also how do I figure out what the flow would be at lower hz? I am going to find tony and see if he has any ideas about this setup. hopefully this fan will work so I can get the blower box all fabbed up and get this puppy going.

Posted: **Sat Apr 21, 2007 1:40 am**

At diameter of a wheel 16 " it is required to you rather 5000 RPM to reach depression 30 ". Specify once again data of the fan - probably at it greater CFM at small pressure.
Anatoly

Posted: **Sat Apr 21, 2007 9:13 am**

the rpm of the fan motor is 1725rpm I could use the variable frequency drive to spin it up faster to try and hit 3000rpm or maybe put a bigger motor on it.
My biggest thing is I want to be able to get my 28for depresion, I don't want to have to convert it to the right flow numbers.

Posted: **Sat Apr 21, 2007 10:28 am**

Before you get too deep into constructing your bench, it might not be a bad idea to build a test box to mount your blower in to see what kind of depression it's capable of generating.

Posted: **Sat Apr 21, 2007 1:21 pm**

A friend of mine tried a Squirrel Cage blower some years ago for a flow bench. It moved air volume but unfortunately at a very low test pressure (like 3" of water). Agree with Ed (86rocco) that you might want to test the blower to be assured that it will do the job for you.

Tom V.

Posted: **Sat Apr 21, 2007 2:23 pm**

I am going to build a stand alone vacuum box for the bench so all I will need is a 3in. hose to connect the vacuum source to the bench. I think I will try and build a cheap box for the blower and see how much water column I can get out of it, that sounds like a good idea. Thanks for the help guys.
Mark

Tractorsport Flowbench Forum Archive

new member - My first flow bench