OP may not even need to buy a rebuild kit at first, my alcatel 2021i I scored for $399 pulled below 10 micron when I bough it. I just did a kerosene flush followed by an oil change that @Soxhlet recommended.
It sounds like hes on a tight budget and if he does end up lucky enough to get an alcatel that wasnt too badly abused like mine then his money would probably serve him better if he got a vacuum guage before a rebuild kit for his pump.
Edit: I got my pump from that same ebay listing @blackie shared.
Just bought one. Even with $70 shipping it is still 1/4 the cost of a new one.
What a terrific upgrade from my blue & white R2-D2 pumps.
I couldn’t not buy one. Great find, bro!
Need to hear more about flushes please.
Oh, and just when that couldn’t get any better, blackie is local to me.
Starting to figure out he is a good resource.
All the info I have came from this website. Lots of people here recommended a used Alcatel as a budget pump. The one I bought shipped from Massachusetts. I was almost going to ask if I could pick it up to save on shipping, but didn’t. It was one of the best packing jobs I’ve seen in a while. Expanding foam inside of plastic grocery bags, so it would have been almost impossible to damage during shipping.
Also lots of user info posted. This thread has flushing info
So most people don’t know but several chemicals and reactionary processes are used to refine oil. Most of the time it’s handled like radioactive refinement. Where each process sends to another and it’s not about being continuous but rather stepped temperature and process. In the end i19 vacuum oil ends up being stable at or below 1 micron at 350-370c. What this means is it has been through various forms and stages.
Flushing fluid is just a cheap oil about 20-50x less in value and from what I’ve heard is about ten or more steps away from being i19. In fact ff is a biproduct of that 10th prior step(I believe) where the last stage in fracking the oil leaves two products. A slightly residual and less stable but lower purity discharge of the opposing wanted collection side where that oil is then further refined to the other forms of vacuum oil.
The contents of ff is leas effective in the following steps of refinement to useable vacuum oil. Basically people are just buying trash.
There is a method to clean pumps and this should be done with regular oil and is alot better than using ff. I’m happy to share the process but I hate doing it becusee alot of peering eyes are watching. Here I’ll ruin some people’s day.
Problematic pumps only to avoid a rebuild when contaminated.
Fill with fresh oil.
Turn on under vac for 30 min.
Open drain and flush oil.
Leave pump tilted with rag on drain when it’s all empty and hold in place rag to prevent shooting oil across room.
Tilt pump into trash can.
Turn on pump and free ballast the hardware spinning for about five seconds - durring that time slowly pour oil down the throat and allow the violent effect to shoot the vanes clear and rocket oil out the drain port unit trash.
Repeat about two or three times max.
If done wrong this can cause damage.
If done right this avoids rebuilds.
Make sure pump is hot when doing this.
It works better than ff, and to be honest i19 is marginally more expensive but whatever I don’t like putting garbage in my tools.
I also bought my 2021i from this same posting. After 3 hot oil changes I got down to 1-2 micron. Best money I’ve ever spent. If you want I have a welch 1400b that’s almost new I’ll sell for 1600.
Yes and used pumps have toxic chemicals in them from process stations usually. Sellers lie everytime to make a sale and you’ll never know. Maybe they don’t even know what was in it.
@spdking will multiple flushes clean contaminates from pump (Alcatel 2021i) or is the pump no longer good for our use.just to clarify contaminates in the pump will go into the oil and exhaust into the atmosphere.will this also contaminate distillate? I understand that both are bad and don’t want to do either.
The main issue with getting contaminated used pumps is the oil can actually migrate back towards your process with oil back streaming. Back streaming happens at low pressures and small amounts of oil migrate back towards your process and have been contaminating peoples product. This is why a lot of people are switching to dry pumps. We work with a company that has tested these used pumps and they have found mercury, cyanide, pesticides and other nasty chemicals.
Oil cannot back feed into the system. This is from the moisture, water, solvents and volatiles present in the pump that coat the tube or hose or Bellow and actually this is from pulp misuse. Dry vacuum pumps back feed molecules in reverse, that’s why scroll pumps back feed PTFE dust backwards from the scroll plates over time.
vacuum pump oil is manufactured so far away in vacuum and temp that it’s impossible to vaporize it. I’m not sure what Yahoo told you this but I suggest you stop listening to him.
You work for a company called xtractor depot, they don’t have any of this hardware to make these claims.
I19 is manufactured at 350-370c below 1 micron with plasma vacuum pumps along with roughing systems.
How the hell is a Edwards pump going to volatalize i19 oil at temperatures that won’t burn your hand when you touch the pump and with the oil side being open to atmosphere on the back of the second rotor stage in the pump. Please. I want to hear this.