I had almost ordered a vacuum pump for infusion until someone asked me about the neighbours. Fair point, they certainly won't enjoy one running all night.
A collegue has good experience with lab pumps which apparantly are ultra-quiet. These ones:
ME 2 NT Diaphragm pump - VACUUBRAND (EN)
I'm specifically doubting between the ME1, ME2 and ME4, due to the CFM performance (0.6-2.4 CFM)
Most of my experience is with pumps doing on the order of 15 to 40 cubic meters/hour, or 10-24 CFM. With a vacuum switch, they're running on the order of 2-5% of the time, so logically one would expect to get away with up to 20 times less displacement.
Typical parts would be a bit of vacuum bagging of small parts here and there and infusion up till areas of about 50 sqft with fairly thin (airplanes...) lamina, say no more than 4-5 layers. That's fairly tiny volumes of resin (even with cores, that's way under a gallon at worst). Big volume catch pot will be always be in as a buffer. I've always used an old vacuum cleaner for mold evacuation, so no need for more displacement there.
Additionally degassing of resin, both mixed and unmixed.
Fram's experience:
Understanding Vacuum
Gives me confidence that as little as 0.6 CFM would easily be enough.
Further, infusions with as little (or as much) as 150mBar ABS did go just fine. For degassing higher vacuum is nice or you simply heat it a bit as you do to the mold and fibers, but is there really any big advantage going for considerably under 100 mBar?
Thoughts, ideas?
A collegue has good experience with lab pumps which apparantly are ultra-quiet. These ones:
ME 2 NT Diaphragm pump - VACUUBRAND (EN)
I'm specifically doubting between the ME1, ME2 and ME4, due to the CFM performance (0.6-2.4 CFM)
Most of my experience is with pumps doing on the order of 15 to 40 cubic meters/hour, or 10-24 CFM. With a vacuum switch, they're running on the order of 2-5% of the time, so logically one would expect to get away with up to 20 times less displacement.
Typical parts would be a bit of vacuum bagging of small parts here and there and infusion up till areas of about 50 sqft with fairly thin (airplanes...) lamina, say no more than 4-5 layers. That's fairly tiny volumes of resin (even with cores, that's way under a gallon at worst). Big volume catch pot will be always be in as a buffer. I've always used an old vacuum cleaner for mold evacuation, so no need for more displacement there.
Additionally degassing of resin, both mixed and unmixed.
Fram's experience:
Understanding Vacuum
Gives me confidence that as little as 0.6 CFM would easily be enough.
Further, infusions with as little (or as much) as 150mBar ABS did go just fine. For degassing higher vacuum is nice or you simply heat it a bit as you do to the mold and fibers, but is there really any big advantage going for considerably under 100 mBar?
Thoughts, ideas?
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