Heres my pic
Your is the same as mine, but a 2l maybe? I use a welch wobl for my vac pump, maxed out at -26.5hg, bf bathbtemp set to 50c, chiller runs about -11c on the led panel.
I’ve ran open tap (runoff drains into my garden storage tanks) with great results.
This is where it started working at, is it ok to work it at this vacuum pressure ?? Is there any risk of the glass imploding ?? thats over 1 bar, unless that gauge is not giving a correct measurement
I think you’re all right with - 1bar. Just make sure you’re bf mixture doesn’t pull over to the evaporation flask and watch out for a backflow from your pump cause it’s one stage it has an off change of a back flow of oil… I think.
When I first got my re-501 I was using a bvv dry ice cold trap with my 2 stage 12 cfm and regulating the vacuum pressure with the handle on the cold trap. I also used to go all the way up in vacuum close it off and let it just do its thing under full vac until it looked like the condenser was looking like it was slowing down then I would hit the vacuum again and hold a regulated vacuum of - 0.8bar for 5 mins before going back up to - 1bar and closing it off. Idk if that was super dangerous or not but it worked really well.
I’ve been at a 2l roto all fucking day. Your pump is plenty fine (until you get a diaphragm pump) as others stated change the oil every day and let it work as long as it will.
At that vac level and 50°c on the water bath you should be moving vapor. Your pump will eat a lot of your ethanol (assumed) but try throwing some dry ice in your water bath.
It will also help to keep alcohol out of your pump if you just barely open the valve with the blue air filter it will act like a vac regulator and keep from soaking your pump and over loading your cooling set up
Toollots.com has diaphram pumps for a good price. We have one and a welch that cost twice as much and is only a single piston. Toolots is 2 for cheaper
I see the condenser in your Rotovap, which doesn’t seem to have glycol in it. I don’t see a cold trap.
Without a cold trap, you will be pulling solvent into the oil of your pump. They don’t like that. Rumor has it that they can get pretty pissed off (spit fire in your face) if you abuse them thusly for long enough.
Always wondered what would happen when that pump got hot enough with all those ethanol vapors passing through. I pull way to much solvent to not use a cold trap…
The real issue is how hot they get once most of the oil has been replaced with ethanol.
I’ve heard tell of one that apparently reached auto-ignition, just as someone was getting around to addressing it. My understanding is that they recovered from the burns, but did get a face full of flaming oil/ethanol.