Rebuilding Appion G5

[Chonkski]

I'll try to post some pictures and info regarding the shims over the next few days.

If your unit is still holding 100psi after that amount of time it's perfectly kewl.

I don't like using the over pressure trip as a test since it stresses the seals more than you need to.

Suggestions:

First, carefully remove the original pressure gauges.

Place these on a large concrete surface. Take a large, (at least 5 pound) hammer and beat the gauges into a fine powder.
Scream a lot. Throw powder away.
Replace gauges with decent units.

A simpler test as follows:

Connect an air compressor to the inlet port, open inlet valve, close the outlet valve and pressurize the unit to 100 psi.

I prefer to use a separate valve on the line from the compressor to the Appion and leave the Appion inlet valve open.

Close the air comp-Appion valve and wait.

If the Appion inlet and outlet gauge drop quickly (a few minutes) you have either a piston seal leak or a leak downstream of the cylinder exhaust valves. (rare, but the condenser could have a leak)
If the exhaust pressure holds and the inlet gauge drops, you have a leak somewhere before the inlet valve, either a loose fitting or the inlet valve on the front panel is leaking.

Windex makes a great leak detection fluid in a pinch.

If the pressure drops quickly, leave the valve from the air compressor to the appion open and listen. (make sure the room is quiet)

Wiggle the valve knobs on the front. Sometimes these fuckers leak.

If you hear a muted hiss from inside the appion, open it up and re-connect the air compressor. Spray some windex on the fittings and watch carefully. You'll usually find the leak.
These things were not designed to be leak proof, a small amount of leakage past the piston seals will happen.

RB

I have been testing my promax this way since I have read this. And brand new out of the box it never held pressure on the inlet side but it would hold(slowly go down) on the outlet side.

If I close the inlet side, the outlet side will hold for hours. It has been like this from the start. Is the promax different in some way?

 

[flatslabs]

Read the manual for the promax, but I think they specify so many hours of run-in use before the seals are "broken in" and meant to hold but this is the same question I had originally and I cannot find anywhere that these pumps are meant to be able to do a standing pressure test.

I certainly cant get the inlet side on my appion to hold pressure doing the air compressor test, so its back to the work bench I guess. I have used liters of star san and windex trying to find bubbles on the inlet side piston seal or condenser with no luck.

 

[Chonkski]

Read the manual for the promax, but I think they specify so many hours of run-in use before the seals are "broken in" and meant to hold but this is the same question I had originally and I cannot find anywhere that these pumps are meant to be able to do a standing pressure test.

I certainly cant get the inlet side on my appion to hold pressure doing the air compressor test, so its back to the work bench I guess. I have used liters of star san and windex trying to find bubbles on the inlet side piston seal or condenser with no luck.

Hrmmm should I be worried of leaks?
I planned on doing a run today, but I have been nervous that this brand new pump may not even be air tight.

Where is RB or GW when you need em

 

[flatslabs]

The thing is since these pumps are oil-less, theres nothing except the lubrication which has been baked into the piston seals. So my understanding (could be wrong) is unless you run some gas through the pump its probably going to leak if its brand new, and of course we all know its not good for the seals to run them dry, so its kind of a catch-22

 

[Chonkski]

The thing is since these pumps are oil-less, theres nothing except the lubrication which has been baked into the piston seals. So my understanding (could be wrong) is unless you run some gas through the pump its probably going to leak if its brand new, and of course we all know its not good for the seals to run them dry, so its kind of a catch-22

What do you suggest? Break her in with gas in vapor form? Don't pull past -10"HG for long?

 

[A6 Grower]

maybe breaking in the pumps with just dumping straight butane into the collection pot and recovering it for a few hours making sure it never drops into the negative would be a good break in? My pumps tend to hold up well by not ever goin into the negative hg and leaving an inch of tane to pour out(im lazy and hate scraping) So far im on 6 months with a new rebuilt ptfe sealed g5 and it has zero leaks and runs like new with about 30+ hours a week running. I also have a heated expansion tube on my recovery to keep positive pressure on the g5. My collection pots sit in a water bath of 75f, perfect temp for low temp but keeps from freezing up. recovery tank is in dry ice also, probably helps with more even pressure on the out and in sides.

 

[icdog]

A6 how do you have only an inch left of solvent and still be at 0? I find the solvent doesn't get that low until the pressure gets negative

 

[A6 Grower]

Maybe because i have a consistent 75f water bath? water circulation helps keep everything even also. My 12" bhogart bottom at 0psi has an inch or less or tane which is perfect for two trays in the oven(covered in ptfe) with the 6"x12" terp i have to stop around 3psi as if i go to 0 there's almost no liquid and mainly a oil soup which is messy to pour and requires scrapping some out which i try to avoid at all costs. Ive heard from several people that my method doesn't work for them lol. I think its my water bath that helps, the temp of the surface and bottom of my water tank are almost exactly the same.

 

[A6 Grower]

i go through quite a bit of butane with this method but it works and saves me tons of time

 

[Rickys bong]

The thing is since these pumps are oil-less, theres nothing except the lubrication which has been baked into the piston seals. So my understanding (could be wrong) is unless you run some gas through the pump its probably going to leak if its brand new, and of course we all know its not good for the seals to run them dry, so its kind of a catch-22

No need to worry about "break in" with these pumps.

The piston seal is a teflon composite and the piston guide ring is also a teflon/acetal composite which don't need lubrication from an outside source (oil). I'm not positive, but it looks like the cylinders have been impregnated with teflon after anodizing as well.
They are perfectly happy running without any lube whatsoever.
What kills the seals is heat...

The only thing you should do after a rebuild and certainly with new pumps is to flush them with a bit of butane to remove any trace of manufacturing lube or lube from the rebuild process. Connect the pump to the vapor port of your storage tank and turn the pump on with the outlet valve open.

Obviously do this outside... I run the pump for a few seconds and then close the outlet valve for a few to allow some gas to condense in the condenser. Open the outlet valve and turn the pump off.

They are fine running dry, but the flow of gas through them carries heat which is why extended running pulling a vacuum can be hard on them. This is true for any recovery pump...

RB

 

[Gray Wolf]

What do you suggest? Break her in with gas in vapor form? Don't pull past -10"HG for long?

I created the -10" Hg number and where it came from, was that was the pressure where the Mk I no longer had standing butane.

You can use heat, or shut off at zero and wait a bit for the pressure to rise again, and repeat until it is gone, or as noted, dump at that point and lose the butane.

A 12" tank holds about 2.4lbs of butane per inch.

The longest part of the recovery, is not to -10", but to -22" Hg, where we are boiling the butane soaked into the plant material and it is so cold from evaporation that it drops below its boiling point and simply sublimates away.

I created the -22 Hg number as well, which is about where the Appion I developed the process with, crapped out without heat or extensive pumping. It isn't magic and stopping at -10" would probably save 80% of the pump wear, because of the heat created from running essentially dry.

As a tongue in cheek thought looking at the future of hydrocarbon extraction, that it isn't likely that a fire marshal will embrace open pots of butane, so we do need a way to recover the bulk of the butane, and evacuate the pot so that when it is opened, it isn't a fire hazard. On our commercial machines, we inject nitrogen at -22" Hg, and pump the non flammable balance off to atmosphere using a high vacuum pump.

 

[Gray Wolf]

What do you suggest? Break her in with gas in vapor form? Don't pull past -10"HG for long?

What RB said.

 

[Chonkski]

Thanks guys, I feel a bit better about it now.

The only part that leaks is the inlet side. If I was to turn the promax off under any vacuum, say -5 to -10"HG, I fear it will pull atmosphere through the leak.

As dangerous as it sounds. I'm not very worried about a pinhole leak when it comes to positive pressure, because I am in a ventilated enough area to be confident of the situation. But I am scared of pulling atmosphere in.

Which brings me to my next question. If there is much atmosphere in the tank, can it be very hazardous? I know the tank would replicate a small explosive. But I'm talking about atmosphere moving through the system.. Is this plausible or will it just say in the tank?

I assume only if the dip tube were to be in contact with the trapped air would it then be an 'oh uh' moment

 

[Rickys bong]

Which brings me to my next question. If there is much atmosphere in the tank, can it be very hazardous? I know the tank would replicate a small explosive. But I'm talking about atmosphere moving through the system.. Is this plausible or will it just say in the tank?

I assume only if the dip tube were to be in contact with the trapped air would it then be an 'oh uh' moment

Unless you actually made a port to thread a spark plug into your tank, AND the amount of air in the tank was huge you have nothing to worry about.

The upper stoichiometric combustion level for butane in air is 8.41%. Which means that above 9% butane/91% air the mixture won't combust.

source: http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/explosive-concentration-limits-d_423.html

The people spreading the "storage tanks full of butane can explode if they get any air in them" bullshit are woefully uninformed.

RB

 

[Rickys bong]

I have been testing my promax this way since I have read this. And brand new out of the box it never held pressure on the inlet side but it would hold(slowly go down) on the outlet side.

If I close the inlet side, the outlet side will hold for hours. It has been like this from the start. Is the promax different in some way?

Chonski: The Promax RG5400 I tried is designed very different from the Appion in that the crankcase is sealed and pressurized from the outlet side of the compressor. The Bottom side of the piston is at the same pressure (roughly) as the gas being compressed. This puts a lot less stress on the piston seals but the design has a drawback I don't like.

If the crankshaft seal fails, the grease will end up in your butane stream.

The bottom of the Appion piston is vented to atmosphere. If you shut the valves on a promax it should hold pressure a long time as you would have a fully sealed system, so to speak.

Pic attached of a failed Promax bearing. My theory is that when it's running the butane will dissolve into the bearing grease. When the pump isn't being used the butane will boil out of the grease and push a bit out of the bearing. After a while there's no grease left...

RB

 

[Lizard Fish]

I have been testing my promax this way since I have read this. And brand new out of the box it never held pressure on the inlet side but it would hold(slowly go down) on the outlet side.

If I close the inlet side, the outlet side will hold for hours. It has been like this from the start. Is the promax different in some way?

Any updates on this situation. I have the exact same issue with my rg6000. I am too paranoid to extract till I can confirm if safe to do so. It would be awesome if some other promax users could chime in.

 

[djelliott916]

I have been testing my promax this way since I have read this. And brand new out of the box it never held pressure on the inlet side but it would hold(slowly go down) on the outlet side.

The outlet side of my brand new TR21 is doing the same thing. You build pressure and it slowly leaks down. I'm starting to get the idea this is normal and nothing to worry about?? I have not checked the inlet side yet as I don't have an air compressor and used the output of the TR21 to pressurize the system. It will hold vacuum for days though. I think it dropped like 2" maybe 3" over around 36 hours. Any input?

 

[jpdnkstr]

Appion G5 is not looking so bad after all?.... any thoughts on the yellow jacket oil-less. I'm contemplating a recovery pump purchase for light duty use.

 

[flatslabs]

The yellowjacket XLT is a nice pump, but you can almost buy 2 Promax 6000s for what they retail for

 

[jpdnkstr]

Anything wrong with running a 1/2 inch PTFE stainless braided hose with 3/8 fitting on one side and 1/4 on the other , just like the appion recovery hose? I am assuming the appion G5 has 1/4 inch male SAE or JIC fittings, as I am not a proud owner yet.