This is possibly the most incredible thing I’ve ever seen. I know y’all have seen these people jumping out of airplanes in these wingsuits and the camera shows them flying around with no close background to use to really judge what they are doing or how fast they are traveling. The guys are base jumping off some mountain in Norway with these suits and you do have very close background to judge how fast they are going and what stunts they are actually performing.

<sigh> I was born about thirty years too late.

Okay, I just told you about the problems I’m having with a job in NYC. This problem is kicking my tail something awful and it shouldn’t be that hard. Of course you can always make it hard on yourself when you assume things and then don’t revise your assumptions as new facts come in.

This application uses a 15kw regenerative vacuum pump to create the motive force to move a lightweight granular solid about thirty yards. A 15kw motor equates to about 20hp. My first impression was the the company we used to build this system for us had skimped on materials and sized the overload and starter as small as they thought they could get by with. Maybe that assumption was wrong.

In the US we use horsepower (hp) to measure power. In Europe, where this pump was made, they use kilowatts (kw) to measure power. The overload and starter are perfectly sized for a 15hp motor. In this brand of regenerative vacuum pump a 15hp (11kw) pump is a stock, off the shelf item. Their 20hp (15kw) pump is a long lead time item. Are things starting to add up?

I’m thinking that the original designer of my system called up the distributor for this pump to order the pump. The distributor asked what size and my designer said “15″ meaning 15hp. The distributor then sold him a a 15kw pump thinking that was what he was talking about. Everything got put together and it ran…. for a time. I believe that a month ago this time ran out.

I’m ordering a positive displacement pump to replace this regen pump first thing Monday morning. It will be the proper horsepower.