Steam Action

[Louis]

So I see they have some new vacuum booster that was at the big show. Anyone see it or know what it is?

He has some huge machines. I have never seen a water cooled blower. Do they really work better or is this another hype thing?
The machines look well built but I wonder if they hold heat or is it another 230 at 4 flow.

I like my propane heat, so far the ss570 &870 is the only HE machine that I seen that holds heat at high flow except for the big trucks.

 

[Captain America]

Propane or kero heat will always get better heat than heat exchangers no mater how big the engine.
If you use a zipper orrx20 and do continual cleaning wo triggering u will see the difference
However these steamaction machines are made well.

 

[clean image]

other consideration is pressure limitations of copper coil burners.

 

[Mikey P]

 

[Mikey P]

notice the crappy fit on the Dang Glide at 2:13

 

[Captain America]

I believe copper is on propane
Stainless steal is in kero heaters as they are made for pressure washers to handle 4000 psi

 

[GeneMiller]

Johns welding isn't the greatest. My friends machine ,which he traded for the 454ss, heat exchanger kept breaking. John would ship out a new one and he would ship back the broken one. They look very garage built I expect better quality for the price.

Gene

 

[Ralph Pastorelli]

There was a 1/4 in of play on both sides of the glide.

 

[Louis]

I guess that explains why he's not big time after all these years. I was looking at that vac booster or filter thing in clean fax. Can't figure out what it is or how it works.
Maybe he should build the machine and contract with johns HE. Then we know it would it would last. That cat motor will last longer than most cleaners careers. Good idea but with some more dependable HE design I think it would be a beast. That diesel has lots of heat to offer from the oil, antifreeze & exhaust.

 

[dealtimeman]

You can call a product whatever you want, it doesn't mean that it will do what you name it.

All that thing is, is a very good filter that has as little flow restriction as possible for a prochem style filter basket.

A good design with what I belive to be the best filter/strainer basket on the market to date, but still just a filter strainer, nothing accelerating about it.

 

[Louis]

So what about the water cooled blower? I thought you wanted to keep the water out of the blower and silencers. Would this speed up the process of needing a new silencers and blower?

 

[dealtimeman]

Water injection on blowers are used in many other industry.

 

[dgardner]

So what about the water cooled blower? I thought you wanted to keep the water out of the blower and silencers. Would this speed up the process of needing a new silencers and blower?

You definitely want to keep waste tank water (full of chems, dirt, and who knows what else) from overflowing the tank and being sucked through the blower. The typical water-cooled blower injects a very fine mist of clean water that pretty much instantly vaporizes. The heat of vaporization cools the blower. If done right, there really isn't much (if any) liquid water present in the blower discharge.

Most blowers (at the cfm we would run) won't operate past about 16"hg without some form of cooling, as that much pressure differential produces discharge temperatures beyond the manufacturer's limit.

 

[dgardner]

Water injection on blowers are used in many other industry.

Yup - in fact water-injection was used on early radial-engined aircraft superchargers to obtain maximum boost during takeoff - before I was born!

 

[dealtimeman]

Correct sir!

 

[Desk Jockey]

Didn't White Magic have a Pro-1200 that was water cooled?

 

[Mike Draper]

Yup - in fact water-injection was used on early radial-engined aircraft superchargers to obtain maximum boost during takeoff - before I was born!

Thast was during bobs era. He should know all about that. Or maybe his time was the wright brothers?

 

[Louis]

So if your trying to get heat from the blower and then cooling it. With that big blower you would think there is no need to run it at that high of HG.

 

[Cleantechsk]

I think the rare watercooled version was the pro1800?
or I could be completely crazy. At least im in the right place for that.

 

[Desk Jockey]

You are probably right. I don't know White Magic machines, I didn't know they had more than one cds/pto.
Yes you are probably crazy. It rubs off from being here! ; )

 

[dgardner]

So if your trying to get heat from the blower and then cooling it. With that big blower you would think there is no need to run it at that high of HG.

Louis, all other things being equal, the higher the vacuum at the machine (Hg) the more flow you can achieve at the wand.

And - it might seem counter-intuitive to cool the blower if you're trying to use the discharge heat, but every blower has a temperature limit. Above that you start to cook the oil, and the clearances get out of whack due to expansion. You want enough heat to be useful to the HX, but not so much you severely shorten the life of the blower.

Take a 68 blower turning at 1600 rpm for instance. At 14" Hg there will be about 175 degrees rise, so if the incoming air is 60 deg the blower discharge will be 235. At 16" Hg the temperature rise goes from 175 to 240, so our discharge is approaching 300 degrees! At 18" Hg the temp would be so high it would start to really cause problems.

This is why TM's that use HX's tell you to cover the inlet (producing maximum Hg) to warm up the HX for cleaning.

 

[Louis]

Makes sense. Do they use a small portable pump to inject the water?

 

[JS41035]

The WM Pro1200hv had a water cooled blower. I'd love to have the PDF file for that unit to see how it worked

 

[dgardner]

Makes sense. Do they use a small portable pump to inject the water?

I don't know, really. The exact method isn't mentioned in the video. If it were me, I would certainly take advantage of the solution pump that's already there - the volume of water needed is small and wouldn't impact the huge pump the unit comes with.

 

[knoxclean]

I checked out the steam action web site. Looks like they have a few machines under$10,000. The specs appear to have what it takes to be a good machine. No flash or extras just a straight forward machine. I have never heard of anyone talk about those machines. Just curious if anyone has and history with those machines

 

[GeneMiller]

the gauge reads 17hg on my current blower. Hasn't hurt it yet. Sucks like crazy

Gene

 

[Cleantechsk]

What are you using Gene ?

 

[tmdry]

I remember seeing one on Ebay I think last year that you needed a very large box truck to put it into, i think it had the monster 90 blower in it.

 

[Ralph Pastorelli]

A carpet cleaner in my city has a older Steam Action Nike that is about 10 to 12 years old and still running every day and yes his business is called STEAM ACTION

 

[GeneMiller]

What are you using Gene ?

Sutorbilt 5m blower DSL. 2nd blower. The original ones bearing seal came off and the grease would no longer go into the bearing so I just replaced it. I hated the greasy mess anyway. Ran it the same. I believe that happened around 6k.

Gene