COAL VAC... Prototype

 
buzzber67
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Post by buzzber67 » Mon. Feb. 23, 2015 11:09 pm

My thanks to all the people here who posted their info about building coal vacs to move coal from the bins to the hoppers.

I put together a working prototype which works, and saves me a lot of drudgery, not having to fill my hopper by shovel and elbow grease. I did it the hard way for 25-30 years. I have not shoveled any coal (rice) in over a week now.

I used a simplified design using a minimum of parts. Just my old (20+ years) Sears 3.5HP 16 gallon shop vac, mounted on a simple frame sitting on top of my hopper. The total weight on the hopper top is about 50+ pounds, including the coal left in the tank that does not empty by gravity. I now do not fill the hopper to the max, heaped in the middle, as I did when I shoveled. So the top weight should not matter. I have a Keystoker KA-6, with a 275 pound hopper.

A 3"/4" toilet flange is installed in a cutout in the bottom center of the vac tank, well-caulked. I turn on the power, place a large coffe-can lid over the flange, and begin moving the hose/wands into the coal in the bins. The hose needs to be empty to start, and not too fast and furious digging the end into the coal pile, but once it gets started, it moves the coal just fine. It takes a little trial and error, but I am learning as I go.

Just the shop vac, no rigid smooth plastic pipe, snorkel, steel tank, nothing elaborate. All it takes is just moving the wand by hand for a few minutes. So far I am using the standard filter in the vac, and I have no dust collector other than that. The old vac I used does not have an inlet that protrudes into the tank, so I cannot use a dust bag. It is set up so that I can easily remove the top, and clean or change the filter. I may add an external dust collection system later, along with other tweaks.

So far so good.

Credit to the people here.


 
titleist1
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Post by titleist1 » Tue. Feb. 24, 2015 7:01 am

Good going Buzz!! :clap: What...no pics of the set up?!?!?! :D

Good idea using the vac itself as the collection barrel. That would be a good item to watch for in garage or yard sales to pick up cheap. Sounds like you approach your projects like I do with the 'how can I do this with what I have on hand so I don't spend any $$ on it!' design.

Glad its working out for you!

 
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davidmcbeth3
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Post by davidmcbeth3 » Tue. Feb. 24, 2015 12:21 pm

Pic pics pics ! Love pics.

 
Dirty Steve
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Post by Dirty Steve » Tue. Feb. 24, 2015 1:45 pm

Sounds good. I went the dual vac with dual dust chambers to the metal barrel with a vacuum hose route. But there is still dust. I have to achieve dust containment. That is my goal. Sometimes I wish it was in an outbuilding but my basement is 74 degree from radiation. You can't beat that.

 
buzzber67
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Post by buzzber67 » Thu. Mar. 26, 2015 5:47 pm

I have been using my shop vac creation for a few months now. So far so good. A few observations...

I have much less dust now than when I hand shoveled. Whatever the micron count, most of it (and all the visible stuff) is now on the filter. Standard filters. I change the filter about every week-to- ten-days. I remove, wash, dry, and reuse the same filters indefinitely. (I have a spare in the rotation.)

In operation, I turn on the vac, then block the bottom with a large coffee-can lid. I use the hose/wand to fill the vac, then shut off the vac.The coal falls into the hopper. After a few minutes, I turn the vac back on, and any dust at the hopper is sucked back up into the filter. There is pretty good suction up through the open toilet flange, and very little at the end of the hose . So there is no need to block the end of the hose for this.

This has reduced my stoker labor by 99%. It is so simple and effective that I wonder why I didn't make something like this way back in the 1980's when I put the stoker in. Usually something this good is immoral, illegal, or bad for your health !!!

Here are a few pics.

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davidmcbeth3
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Post by davidmcbeth3 » Thu. Mar. 26, 2015 10:09 pm

I'm working on one too ...

 
titleist1
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Post by titleist1 » Fri. Mar. 27, 2015 7:12 am

Hey Buzz....thanks for the update and glad to see its working out for you!

Nice to see the pics of it!


 
buzzber67
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Post by buzzber67 » Wed. Nov. 11, 2015 2:05 am

As we approach the cold weather, I am thinking about working a Dust Deputy-type system into my home-made coal vac, which I put together last February. It works very well to move coal, and is very simple, but the shop vac filter plugs up with fine coal dust over a period of time. I wash and reuse the filters over and over, but the suction drops off as the filter plugs, and slows down the whole process.

I also want to rig up a separate shop vac/ Dust Deputy system as a stand alone system for vacuuming the ash in/around the ash bucket. That is not too hard to visualize.

Removing the fine coal dust from my over-the-hopper coal vac is not so straight forward. I am open to suggestions.

 
Lu47Dan
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Post by Lu47Dan » Wed. Nov. 11, 2015 10:19 am

buzzber67 wrote:As we approach the cold weather, I am thinking about working a Dust Deputy-type system into my home-made coal vac, which I put together last February. It works very well to move coal, and is very simple, but the shop vac filter plugs up with fine coal dust over a period of time. I wash and reuse the filters over and over, but the suction drops off as the filter plugs, and slows down the whole process.

I also want to rig up a separate shop vac/ Dust Deputy system as a stand alone system for vacuuming the ash in/around the ash bucket. That is not too hard to visualize.

Removing the fine coal dust from my over-the-hopper coal vac is not so straight forward. I am open to suggestions.
Build a new hopper to replace the vacuum, patch the hole in the bottom or add a cap to seal the WC flange. Than move the vacuum down to floor level and add a dust deputy to it to remove some of the dust before it gets to the vacuums filter. If you are loading the coal directly into the vacuum than you can not separate the dust from the coal. Plus the vacuum being on the floor makes changing the filter a lot less work.

Glad to see it works well for you.
Dan.

 
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Wiz
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Post by Wiz » Wed. Nov. 11, 2015 12:34 pm

Glad to see others doing coal vac system. :D

 
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Lightning
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Post by Lightning » Wed. Nov. 11, 2015 2:10 pm

I wanna make an ash vac too. Lugging a 100 pounds of ash up the basement stairs kinda sucks lol. My thoughts are to mount a shop vac to a 55 gallon barrel outside. It would be pulling ash out of my ash can in the basement that had an opportunity to completely extinguish and cool. Would a 55 gallon steel barrel be able to support atmospheric pressure pushing against it? Or would it collapse? Anyone done anything like that?

 
titleist1
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Post by titleist1 » Wed. Nov. 11, 2015 8:40 pm

Lightning wrote:I wanna make an ash vac too. Lugging a 100 pounds of ash up the basement stairs kinda sucks
Duuuude.....take it up 20lbs at a time, it's lighter that way!! :poke: :rimshot: :D

 
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Lightning
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Post by Lightning » Wed. Nov. 11, 2015 10:13 pm

I know right! Typical procrastinator I am... Let's wait till the ash can weighs a hundred pounds lol. :x :lol:

 
buzzber67
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Post by buzzber67 » Mon. Dec. 21, 2015 11:26 pm

Update.....
I tried something that did not work very well. I put a home-rigged cloth bag over the (cleaned) shop vac filter. My reasoning was to let the cloth filter catch the larger dust/particles, before they got to the paper-pleated main filter. It would have made a quick clean easier, and maybe not have to change the whole filter as often.
No success here. From the beginning, the suction was reduced way too much to pick up the coal easily. I am resigned to the fact that I need to just change out the filter as necessary, if I want to keep it simple, with just one vac tank used.
buzzber67 wrote:As we approach the cold weather, I am thinking about working a Dust Deputy-type system into my home-made coal vac, which I put together last February. It works very well to move coal, and is very simple, but the shop vac filter plugs up with fine coal dust over a period of time. I wash and reuse the filters over and over, but the suction drops off as the filter plugs, and slows down the whole process.

I also want to rig up a separate shop vac/ Dust Deputy system as a stand alone system for vacuuming the ash in/around the ash bucket. That is not too hard to visualize.

Removing the fine coal dust from my over-the-hopper coal vac is not so straight forward. I am open to suggestions.

 
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Post by McGiever » Thu. Dec. 24, 2015 4:46 pm

Lu47Dan wrote: Build a new hopper to replace the vacuum, patch the hole in the bottom or add a cap to seal the WC flange. Than move the vacuum down to floor level and add a dust deputy to it to remove some of the dust before it gets to the vacuums filter. If you are loading the coal directly into the vacuum than you can not separate the dust from the coal. Plus the vacuum being on the floor makes changing the filter a lot less work.

Glad to see it works well for you.
Dan.
buzzber67,
Just like *lu47Dan* was saying earlier, put the whole vac on the floor. :idea: Add a length of hose and Use a simple $23.68 18 in. x 22 in. Sump Pump Basin for the drop container into the hopper. :idea:
There is a bigger one for mo money.
When vac is on the floor you can add the dust deputy in-line before the vac and your filter stays clean as all the dust gets dropped out in the dust deputy.

http://www.homedepot.com/p/Everbilt-18-in-x-22-in ... /204733081

Image

http://www.oneida-air.com/static.asp?htmltemplate ... works.html

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