This afternoon, for something different from rafters, the Vacuum System was taken apart, well half of it was at least. The broken first stage filtration unit. The box was reinforced with edge strips and cross bracing supports. The power of the vacuum is such that when the system is going and someone causes a blockage, then the force pressing on the sides of the boxes is about 4lb per square inch and when the area of the side of the box is 24 inches one way and 24 inches high, a total of 576 square inches and so when you multiply the force (that 4 inches per square inch) together, you get as much as 2300 lbs of force squeezing into the sides! That is nearly a ton of weight! Eek! Plywood is strong but after repeated pulses of being hammered with that kind of force now and again when the nozzle gets blocks, it is not surprising that the wood suddenly snapped!
The other aspect of this repair work is that the vortex separator is just not working and we suspect that our power of our vacuum motor unit is way over the top for that particular size and shape! We have been researching on the web and surprisingly, there are many designs out there and we are going to try making our own homemade centrifugal spinning chamber to separate the “dirt” from the air. Very Fascinating stuff, this whole field of Rubbish separation and filtration, without the need of paper or cloth filters and hence maintaining full power at all times!
