Water Injected Blowers

[Farenheit251]

What problems do you have? Is it true that black water comes out the blower exhaust staining driveways?

 

[R W]

Brian...I would think that black water from a blower exhaust indicates a waste tank overflow. I don't see why the blower would eject any water, unless that's where the water is injected. I thought those blowers were water-cooled, not water injected.

Can you TM builders explain??

 

[bob vawter]

You guys ARE running a garden hose THROUGH yor blowers at least ever OTHER day ...ain't ya's?

 

[Matt King]

Water 'injected'. Water cooled in my mind implies that there is some sort or water/liquid circulatory system cast into the blower casing and has an external cooling device to accompany it. Although I suppose, injected water would somewhat cool the internal temperature possibly reducing bearing/oil/grease temperatures as a result. I've never actually tested it with a heat gun although I'd assume someone in the industry has?.. On my Steam Action, water was sucked through a flow meter into the blower inlet. You had to meter it pretty low or the water wouldn't burn off and you'd end up with a mess coming out of your silencer. I'm told the new units are different as is WM's. I think there's a little injector on there that's more accurate in metering water into the blower inlet. My one experience was bad so I just disconnected the whole set up. It did make messes in peoples driveways and one guy was furious I spewed black droplets on his freshly poured concrete. I had to go back and power wash the driveway later that night. As for Bob running water through your blower every day, don't your silencers rust out pretty fast or is everything stainless steel? I use carbon steel combination silencers and flooding those things with water every day would ruin them pretty quick. What if you have a not so tight bearing seal?

 

[steve g]

kelly who used to work for john O experimented with water injection, he had an adjustable flow meter like the one we use for solution output that measured cc's instead, it was actually a very small amount of water that would do the job, I would say it ended up as a fine mist entering the blower, if you wanna overdrive or run excessive HG water injection would definatly be the way to go, I do know some of the huge blowers like on sewer trucks come with water injection on them, if there is enough water that black stuff is coming out of the blower, there is way too much water being put in

 

[Farenheit251]

I've had no experiece with water cooling. But from what I understand the blowers we use can be run as high as 22-24" of hg. The reason we are limited to 15 or 16 is they get too hot. They can be cooled with freshwater injected into the airstream. I've heard are vacuum blowers are used in other industries to move pure liquid not air so it is not as crazy as it sounds. Steam Action uses this technology in their Tm. Tuthill actually makes a kit for their blowers.
Last year I accidently set my vac to 19". I liked it so much I ran that way a few months. It was incredible. Unfortunately my coupling system wasn't designed for that kind of load. I've been disappointed ever since.
I'm hoping the 6008 blower on my new tm will give similar results but not sure if there is any substiute for lift. It would certainly be easier to add the tuthill water injection before it is installed. Black drips out the exhaust would be a deal killer.

 

[bob vawter]

Matt.....SS 3" Flowmasters....blows any soap residue right out then run for i min dry then W-D.....Works for me!

 

[Larry Cobb]

Brian;

According to the blower engineers i have talked to, the limiting factors for high lift are:

1. Heat Generated measured @ the blower exhaust (also silencer related).

2. Shaft Seal pressure differential.

Water-mist cooling would have no effect on the second factor.

Everybody should be running Stainless silencers.

We see lots of rust and corrosion in the silencers that are steel. Backpressure increases dramatically.

Larry Cobb

 

[KBRENNY]

I believe there is someone on here from Florida "The Cleaning Artist" who has been running a water injection system and has his set up to deliver a small mist at a set temperature until it drops to a set temp. I am sure he will post on this one, he is running something like 20" HG.

 

[Matt King]

Stainless silencers/Magnaflow Stainless round body mufflers and Flowmasters are all piled up in my garage. None of them gave me the proper sound characteristics I desire... I don't have room for 2 mufflers in conjunction nor does every unit have the blower exhaust running through a large heat exchanger first. The Stoddard and Universal units had the best sound characteristics and out of the 5 I tried only 2 were acceptable for night work IMO. Each machine requires different set ups I guess... Harley runs his Steam Action around 20hg as mentioned above. He has John Sales new injection set up I believe. I think he's out hunting this weekend or I'd call and ask him. We talked about it awhile back and the guy knows his stuff. That's one thing about a Steam Action or even a machine like Waldo's. If the proper coupler is used and everything is in perfect alignment, you can run high blower speeds @ high lift settings all day long with no problems.

 

[Guest]

bob vawter told me that he plugged his vacuum relief valve and that it does no damage.

 

[bob vawter]

That is true...all but one hole on my spring relief been doin' it for a zillion years now......

Matt...a sine wave requires TWO expansion chambers to silence the sound...i put one muffler right at the blower and the one more under the truck....whispery quiet!

I've been running roots now for close to forty years witout ever ONE ever going bad on me!

 

[KBRENNY]

I have got a sutorbilt 4mp at full speed with only one 3" stainless auto style turbo muffler and you can stand in front of the machine at full rpm and have a conversation.

 

[Matt King]

But how fast are you spinning your blower Bob? I'm guessing in the 1800-2000 rpm range. Looking at the pictures I have of your machine the driveshaft and blower pulley look to be about the same size diameter, around 5 inches. If the van motor is in the 1300-1600rpm range you couldn't be much over 2000rpm on the blower. Blocking off your vacuum relief and running a couple of mufflers I'm sure works fine at that speed. Kick it up to 3000rpm and things change. Loud blower noise, smoking belts, grinding clutches and broken driveshaft welds were all part of my experience.

 

[adamh]

The White Magic PTO 1200 has a Roots 56 blower run at 21 inches max. They do that by spritzing the blower lobes with a little water. Enough water to cool the blower but the water gets burnt up so nothing hit the driveway.

I don't know much about it but I did a show next to the White Magic truck and I watched the thing the whole time. Nothing hit the driveway. Neat PTO unit.

 

[The Cleaning Artist]

Water injection set up properly will not emit any water out of the exhaust. When it activates, a cloud of steam is all you will see from the exhaust. This happens about every 3 to 5 minutes and last for about 5 to 10 seconds. I have never had any water discharge other than when the tank fills and the float doesn't cut the machine or a foamy situation in the carpets causes the foam to be exhausted.

You would need to make sure the waste tank and coupler can handle the extra load from high HG. 2500+ hours on a 47 @ 20hg.

 

[bob vawter]

Yes Matt, you are correct...1600 RPM's at a 1 to 1, with a locked down spring relief works for me!

 

[FastEddie]

I got alot of info on water injection from John at HHx's. He can get the injection kits. I have a roots 45 screaming at 3900 rpm's. Running 19-20hg would be awesome, but I don't think my belts could handle the high lift though.

 

[bob vawter]

I got alot of info on water injection from John at HHx's. He can get the injection kits. I have a roots 45 screaming at 3900 rpm's. Running 19-20hg would be awesome, but I don't think my belts could handle the high lift though.

Run the Gates "B" belts then....