RotaVac - A Rotary Vacuum Pump
by cathalgarvey, published
Description
RotaVac is designed to fit a standard 608 bearing like the sort used in Makerbots, so that a small nozzle (printed separately?) can be fitted through the bearing interior.
This is a pure experiment, and I'll post more when I have a chance to test it!
Recent Comments
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How about spinning it in the opposite direction. That should force air out the nozzle creating a vacuum around the device. Put it all in a large tube with a narrow opening at the top and see how that works.
Wow, cool! I never imagined someone would get it working, I was pretty disappointed when I could never get it going myself. I don't know why it didn't work for me exactly, perhaps less is more when it comes to impeller ribs.
You guys rock! If ye know any way to improve it, please do. I'd love to see a working air pump/vacuum pump that can be printed and embedded, there's so much potential if we can get something like that working. :)
We built this part at hacklab.to, hoping to be able to achieve a little vacuum power. It printed great, looks super cool. We tried rotating it at low speed using a drill, but didn't feel anything. We then removed the gear box from a standard DC motor, to get a 9000 RPM motor. Hooked up to this device, the device spins awesome, vibrating a lot if things are not perfectly centered. We used some bamboo fitted inside a bearing, inserted in the center hole. Holding the bamboo provides stability during operation (that's why bamboo is superior to plastic tubing!) But no pressure/suction is obvious. We did a smoke test using solder, and showed that there is a tiny amount of suction into the bamboo - the smoke is sucked in from up to about an inch away. My estimate of the suction power is about 0.1 PSI.
We considered printing multiple devices and stacking them up for more performance, but with performance levels this low we're too far from our desired application for even that to be practical :(
Anyway, thanks for the design, we had fun prototyping this idea tonight.
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Instructions
2.) Poke Bearing in the bottom
3.) Poke some kind of nozzle through the bearing
4.) Spin it counterclockwise (D'oh!) on a drill and use the negative pressure to create a negative-pressure container.
5.) Aspirate stuff into the container.
Aspirating stuff directly into RotaVac (assuming it works at all) is not recommended, as it'll just fling it everywhere and make a big mess.
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We built this part at hacklab.to, hoping to be able to achieve a little vacuum power. It printed great, looks super cool. We tried rotating it at low speed using a drill, but didn't feel anything. We then removed the gear box from a standard DC motor, to get a 9000 RPM motor. Hooked up to this device, the device spins awesome, vibrating a lot if things are not perfectly centered. We used some bamboo fitted inside a bearing, inserted in the center hole. Holding the bamboo provides stability during operation (that's why bamboo is superior to plastic tubing!) But no pressure/suction is obvious. We did a smoke test using solder, and showed that there is a tiny amount of suction into the bamboo - the smoke is sucked in from up to about an inch away. My estimate of the suction power is about 0.1 PSI.
We considered printing multiple devices and stacking them up for more performance, but with performance levels this low we're too far from our desired application for even that to be practical :(
Anyway, thanks for the design, we had fun prototyping this idea tonight.
Wow, cool! I never imagined someone would get it working, I was pretty disappointed when I could never get it going myself. I don't know why it didn't work for me exactly, perhaps less is more when it comes to impeller ribs.
You guys rock! If ye know any way to improve it, please do. I'd love to see a working air pump/vacuum pump that can be printed and embedded, there's so much potential if we can get something like that working. :)
You just can't stop spinning stuff!
Give me RPMs or Give me Death!
Seriously though, rotary designs are probably the lowest-hanging-fruit in the functional Makerbot arsenal; if you want something to do work, and you want it to be tough and easy to print, it's best to have a single-piece design. The only practical way to make that do work is to spin it!
So V
ÃÂve le spun designs for now, I can make them more complicated later when I have proof of concept! For now, I demand more stuff-that-does-stuff! :)
How about spinning it in the opposite direction. That should force air out the nozzle creating a vacuum around the device. Put it all in a large tube with a narrow opening at the top and see how that works.