what vacuum to use?

[opcode66]

AMETEK 116311-01
Also listed as 2M192

120 Volts 50/60 HZ

2-stage, thr ball bearing

http://www.grainger.com/Grainger/AMETEK-LAMB-Standard-Thru-Flow-Vacuum-MotorBlower-2M192

The wodden box it is in looks original to me. I didn't make it. I think they came with the VMS.

I use the original chip jar for the VMS system. Though all the tubing is new.

[piaptk]

AMETEK 116311-01
Also listed as 2M192

120 Volts 50/60 HZ

2-stage, thr ball bearing

http://www.grainger.com/Grainger/AMETEK-LAMB-Standard-Thru-Flow-Vacuum-MotorBlower-2M192

The wodden box it is in looks original to me. I didn't make it. I think they came with the VMS.

I use the original chip jar for the VMS system. Though all the tubing is new.

I bought one of these on ebay a while back.. a vacuum in a particle board case. It finally gave up the ghost on me though... probably thanks to me running it for hours on end (it did get hot!). Now I'm using the smallest shopvac I could find on a variac and it works well. For lacquer I start it out at full throttle and then once the chip has gotten pulled into the tube, I throttle it back to half power. The variac saves your ears a little.

A while back I tried putting a vaccuum inside a foot locker with padding to kill the noise, but it would overheat every 10 minutes...

[Dub Studio]

Its important to consider how much air you want to pump and how strongly you want to pump it. I find vacuum cleaners suck loads of air, but strain a lot with such a small aperture. Plus they are incredibly noisy, and waste loads of energy for such a small operation.

I use an Airtec aquarium pump like this one:

http://www.coastal-koi.com/shopping.php?class_id=63

I unscrewed the hood, drilled a hole in it and inserted a threaded hoselock adaptor into it. Put the hood back on, and sealed the air inlet with insulation tape. The hoselock adaptor also needed a little tape to keep it airtight. Then I attached a nice length of hose, plonked the pump in the next room and posted the hose through a hole. The pump is really quiet anyway, but its practically silent when its in the next room. All I can hear is a faint hum, and the sound of air rushing into the chip suction tube. Been using it for years now without a problem.

It seems to have the right balance of airflow and pull for my uses (I guess its a bit like current and voltage?) but it might not suit all lathes. Its designed to work under pressure (pumping air into water at depth) unlike a vacuum cleaner, so it doesn't seem to strain much even when you block the aperture completely. This is great because if there is a build up of chip, it just increases the pressure until the chip gives way.

The only problem is that because the flow is not massive, the chip sometimes strays a bit and escapes the air flow, but its never been a major issue.

[Jccc]

I just added a vacuum to my presto 6n. I am using a small eureka! Rally2 vacuum hooked up to a light dimmer switch. The switch controls the vacuum suction and lowers the vacuums loudness.

I used some copper tubing and some metal laying around the house to attach it to the lathe.




It took some time to get it set up in the right area to suck up the swarf. But i almost got it dialed in.

[Jccc]

Heres my presto finally dialed with the vacuum

[Serif]

[Jccc]

http://youtu.be/rUKoQ6mQKvg heres the vacuum in action with the presto 6n.

[Cubed]

Nice work on the chip vacuum Jccc!

Have any one thought about using an air mattress pump kind of like one of these two?

http://www.amazon.com/Kwik-Tek-Airhead-Canister-120-Volt/dp/B000FE7J0A/ref=sr_1_10?ie=UTF8&qid=1362674517&sr=8-10&keywords=air+mattress+pump

http://www.amazon.com/Intex-110-Volt-Quick-fill-Electric/dp/B000XQK2MW/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1362675011&sr=8-2&keywords=air+mattress+pump

I'm planning to use one of these with a chip jar as you can muffle the exhast and it will lower the noise a bit.
Also it's super cheap.