PTS Flowbench Forum

Instead of making a box for the motors and bleed valves etc...

Is it possible to connect the final pipe straight into a vacuum cleaner machine for 'sucking'.

And for 'blowing' make a adapter on the back end of the hoover and reverse the process.

And just use the variable speed control on the vacuum cleaning machine.

Is this workable providing the vacuum/hoover cleaner has a powerful motor?

Hello Damunk, welcome to the Forum.

Yes you can do it that way as some people here have done originally when first starting out.
The Audie flow Quick is designed to do exactly that.
http://www.audietech.com/flow-quik/what-it-is.html

Its a very simple way to get started.
But after a short while you will wish you had put your money into building a proper flow bench......

And you have come to the right place to find out how you can build a proper flow bench yourself at home, at relatively low cost as good, or better than a commercial high dollar flow bench.

Thanks Tony for the warm welcome.

Have many users used leaf blowers?



3000W can blow and suck

Is this equivalent of three vacuum motors? 3000 w equating to approx 4hp

My very first airflow experiment (a very long time ago) was with a leaf blower.
The motor very quickly burned out....

The problem with leaf blowers is they move a lot of air, but can develop very little pressure.
If you block one off with an intake port, there is almost no airflow, and the cooling air to the motor disappears too.

Vacuum cleaner motors are much better, they can very easily generate much higher air pressures, and if you use several, they can also shift a lot of air.

Many of us here have been messing about with flow benches for years, and gradually we have all learned from our mistakes and experiments, and shared our knowledge, discussed ideas, and very slowly the Forum design of flow bench developed and improved.

Everyone here was once at the exact stage you are at right now.
We have all been there, and we can remember thinking up the exact same ideas ourselves that you are now thinking.
We can guide you in the right direction and save you from repeating our own many failed experiments.

This picture shows the inside of my original pitot style flowbench when I was helping to prototype the FP1 box
On the left end outside the cabinet I had used originally a dust collector, then a leaf blower, and lastly I used two 7.5" vacuum motors in a box. Even tried a regenerative blower along the way (Tony remember that testing lol)
This picture shows you how I was attaching the blowers.

Thanks guys. I will go for the vacuum motors and save my money being wasted in the process.
That's one of the advantages of doing a project a good few years after it was in date. Unfortunate learning from others mistakes.




I like the way the above guy has used a anemometer from ebay and getting what he says close to 1.1.5 cfm results.



This seems to be a a much easier way than settings up manual manometers and all the tubes and messing that goes with it.

I think Many people use leaf blowers for this purpose.

A leaf blower is a good option only if it is powerful enough to handle the work. I think 3000 W blower will be enough to get this done.

Try these two:
Toro 51621 Ultraplus
Greenworks 24012

You can also find more options here:

http://zorbacult.com/best-leaf-blowers/

Many people have TRIED to use leaf blowers, but the problem is that a leaf blower will shift a lot of air, but it will not develop enough pressure to be useful for flowing cylinder heads.

There could be some useful applications for a leaf blower, such as back to back comparison of mufflers or air cleaners, where very very high airflow and low pressure drops are involved.