Turbomolecular Pump Showcase

[@duckguide4109]

The Action Lab kinda sent me here 😂 he mentioned this type of pump and, so I had to check it out!!

[@HANzzz98]

Guilty ✋😂

[@arpitmohanty646]

Mee three

[@shahmeernasir1852]

Same

[@Giorno_Giovanna_D_Luffy]

Same here

[@lohithb7273]

Yeah same here🤣🤣

[@TheBackyardScientist]

Woah Cool! Id like to see it hooked up to one of those CRT's you made in the background. Looking forward to the fusor video :)

[@ScienceMarshall]

Yeah I plan on testing it on those ray tubes! I'm excited for the fusor, but it may be a while before it is operational.

[@joachimsingh2929]

I don't think you need to worry about the bearings exploding. It will start to make a noise before any wear happens. Ball-bearings are very tough and even worn bearings can be run for a while without any damage to the axle as there is usually a bronze bushing or harden steel as a wear surface. But personally I wouldn't run the pump at all unless I had the correct amount of oil.

[@barriebrewster7857]

My friend, I sincerely hope you will secure that pump to a strong frame using the correct strength bolts before you run that thing at full speed. There are a few kiloJoules of energy in that rotor, and an abrupt seizure will transfer much of that energy into the pump housing in a few milliseconds. You don't want it landing in your lap - it will hurt... a lot!

[@stephanlaperriere3469]

Very serious safety matters. Consult the manufacturers manuals, including cleaning tips and so on.

[@kingrs]

Nice demo, I know its always a worry starting a turbo to full speed for the first time. You might want to try a larger tube between roughing pump and turbo - stainless steel bellows. Avoid using vacuum grease on the turbo inlet as you might get this out-gassing a thin film on the rotor or accidentally get grease directly on the rotor. Check your turbo power usage, this should reduce as the outlet pressure goes down - if it stays high then you may have a leak or the backing pump is not working well. From my own tests it seems you can have a backing pump line pressure of 2 to 3 mbar and still get around 8 x 10-7 mbar. Depends on the compression ratio of your turbo. Clean everything that couples to turbo inlet to a high standard using de-ionised water, acetone, ethanol and methanol. Probably best avoid cleaning viton orings with any solvents. You should have a inlet trap near the pump to prevent backflow of oil vapor into the turbo - but this I have found, using activated alumina, outgases to a very high degree reducing the trap inlet pressure to about 1 mbar with no load - just gauge, when it normally runs at 2 x 10-2 mbar. After a couple of hours of pumping the pressure comes down to 6 x 10-1 mbar, but still over a decade away from its normal pressure. Some kind of baffle may be a better way to go or just pump away for many hours until its out-gassed the activated alumina. You could hold the it on a vacuum overnight with the pump off using a shutoff valve. Rob

[@ScienceMarshall]

Thanks for the great information! I will work on getting full metal hosing for the roughing pump connection. I also am removing the vacuum grease from the turbo inlet. I finally got it full of oil and ran it up to speed. It looks and sounds good to me. The sides of the turbo got warm. Is this to be expected?

[@kingrs]

Hi, yes, the turbo pump stator windings will heat up in accordance to the power being consumed by the motor, so if the pump is using say 20 watts of power when up to speed under high vacuum then this will heat the wall of the turbo, its not too much to worry about unless it gets too hot to touch then you will need to use active cooling like a fan or water cooling if the pump has the plumbing built in. If the turbo gets above about 80C then you might affect the magnetism of the magnets in the rotor, plus you will get higher amounts of oil vapor off the bearings and oil or grease will very slowly evaporate. Check the power consumption is within the range specified by the manual, if its a little high it could be: 1. Bearings are dry-ish or worn 2. Rotor is off balance 3. Pressure on the inlet is too high. 4. Leak in the system Turbo pump oil is very expensive - example 0.25L of Pfeiffer TL-011 is about 60 USD - ordering direct from manufacture like Pfeiffer is sometimes better than using a re-seller in terms of price. Has the pump got a magnetic upper bearing? These are very useful to have as it means you have just the lower bearing to worry about and that has much less stress on it. Sealed bearings or a capsule containing 2 bearings on the smaller turbos are a real pain as re-greasing or replacement means stripping the whole pump - plus the high cost of an original bearing. Shortly, I will be experimenting with adding oil to a bearing that normally uses grease but has dried out in the hope that the oil can mix with some of the remaining soaping agent to form grease. Its an expensive hobby playing with high vacuum equipment but good fun. Its always a challenge to see what ultimate vacuum you can get and experimenting with cleaning parts, trying different gauges, pump oils, traps, valves, connectors. I found that oil can get into the Edwards pirani gauges through the stainless baffle gauze and causes a mis-reading of the pressure. So its a good idea to have 2 or more gauges to verify the pressure. I need to look at ways to get the oil of the hair like wire in the pirani gauge. I might try some hot de-ionsed water and detergent, but because its very delicate I suspect that using an ultrasonic bath will destroy the fine filament. To measure the high vacuum side you will need to get an inverted magnetron gauge like the Edwards AIM-X or AIM-S.

[@ja01975]

Thanks for the info on the plexiglas but i did notice the vacuum grease and oring flaten out. Very good video!

[@JDeffenb]

Yo bruh, watchya like ta do in your free time, huh? Just use Turbomolecular pumps to assist myself in sustaining fusion reactions, that's all...

[@iDomoPolyForums]

It's not so much the bearings that I've seen go flying, but rather the stator and rotor blades hitting each other and making vacuum fettuccine.

[@rks6965]

Are you still working on your TMP? Can i make consultation with you on this subject?...

[@rlorion]

it's not a pretty sight when a TMP goes Boom. I work for a semiconductor tool maker and we use huge TMPs and they will make a mess if they grenade.

[@ScienceMarshall]

I'm sure it isn't... Hopefully I never have to see it!

[@harryl90]

So I just bought one of these pumps and I need any information you can provide like manuals, etc. And it looks like I'm missing the power supply too! Thanks for making this video btw!

[@ScienceMarshall]

Hello! I’d recommend contacting the company that manufactured your pump and inquire about manuals, that’s what I had to do. Also check out the channel “glasslinger”. There is a lot of great material Ron has put on there about servicing turbo pumps and even showcasing drivers he built for his.

[@harryl90]

Thanks I still need information on this because it looks like company who makes RTP 300 VRC no longer make turbo pumps... I now have a power supply though! Thanks

[@harryl90]

@@ScienceMarshall so I have the extracted same pump as you can you send me the diagrams and notes you have on this Rigaku Thanks for your help

[@huntermomberger8199]

I work on these for my job, i do physical vapor deposition. Dumped one today. scared the hell out of me.

[@tiny1342]

Hi what pump model are you using? I have a Rigaku pump (50MT-3) without a controller. I cannot find any spec sheets or diagrams about the pump or the controller online. I'm not sure if that controller will work with my pump.

[@ced3763]

I am really not sure about the oil part , it's not a oil diffusion pump , the amount of oil in a turbo pump is always really small

[@MSteamCSM]

Very cool. How much it cost?

[@xa-xii4865]

How is this pump different from a normal vacuum pump

[@verdatum]

There is no "normal" vacuum pump. If you mean the most common vacuum pump, that's a rotary vane pump, like the roughing pump shown in this video. It has a limit that is related to the vapor-pressure of the pump oil. Among high vacuum pumps there is the diffusion pump, the turbomolecular pump, and to a lesser extent, the cryopump. These pumps are responsible for taking the last remaining molecules of gas, catching them, and blasting them away from the vacuum chamber. This is something that cannot be done just by creating an area of lower pressure. You have to wait for the molecules to spontaneously stop clinging to a surface in the chamber; it is a very different set of physics compared to what you experience with Ideal Gas Law.

[@jhyland87]

1:00 What's the _OLL_ light for? (whats OLL stand for?)

[@dgalvarez]

Hello. What oil do you use?

[@xenomancer1]

Turbos are awesome! How much was it? It looks to be in good condition. I can't wait to see your fusor video.

[@ScienceMarshall]

It was around $650, a great bargain! I bought it quickly when I saw it. It is in really good condition. The bearings might need cleaned because they make a little noise. However they spin freely. Perhaps they just need more oil. I'm excited for building the fusor, but keep in mind it might be a while before it is operating!

[@operator8014]

@@ScienceMarshall Hot damn. You practically stole the thing. Nice find!

[@ErikHansenDrums]

Just used one of these at school last week, cool video!

[@ricardomolina8773]

Are you making a compressed air drone

[@windigo000]

forget the oil... how'bout gyroscopic forces 2:39 . these thing don't like to be shaken :) cool vid tho. i'm so jelly. i want one too 😭

[@allezvenga7617]

Thanks for your sharing

[@JakonHilfars]

I work in a Rx sunglasses lab where one of our machines has 3 turbo pumps each about 4 times the size of that one. I know they don't use that much oil for one, the controller is built into the software in the machine they run at 525hz or 30,000 plus RPM if your more interested in the types of pumps they are the machine is a satisloh 1200 tlf box coater you can pick one up at your local hard ware store for a mere 1.35 million dollars

[@jacksonoswalt7662]

Yo! Recently I've purchased the same exact model of pump and if you've still got the drive unit I'd being willing to buy it if the price is relatively low.

[@jacksonoswalt7662]

Just to clarify to everyone, he accidentally broke the turbo pump and he said so in a recent video.

[@ScienceMarshall]

Jackson Oswalt I don't really have any use for it since the pump is dead. I'd be glad to sell it to someone who is going to use it!

[@jacksonoswalt7662]

Great! How much would you like for it? If possible, I prefer you include the data cable that connects the drive unit to the pump and the power cable for the drive.

[@jacksonoswalt7662]

I can be reached at [e-mail].

[@jb-ik8sj]

Can u run one without a controller? Do u know how?

[@karstenschuhmann8334]

These units are driven by brushless motors. Sometimes with unconventional layouts (e.g. 5 phases). You would need an adapted servo circuit.

[@AlessioSangalli]

The audio of this video has very low volume

[@ClemoVernandez]

nice, cant wait to see the fusor :D

[@GodlikeIridium]

Yeah you never want to see a turbo pump explode... They run ridiculously fast.

[@smoothntallGWM]

I'm trying to learn what actual RPM my turbo pump runs at. Can someone help me ? It's made by Leybold, software reports run speed equals 800 Hz, has a 3 phase controller, and motor stator has 12 pole pieces (so to me that means it's a 4-pole stator). My struggle is trying to understand what Hz means in "Turbo Pump Lingo", usually it just means cycles per second of the incoming 3 phase AC motor voltage.

[@davemwangi05]

@@smoothntallGWM It looks like these are old posts. What are you doing with that math and turbo though? Just curious.

[@stephanlaperriere3469]

@@smoothntallGWM You are referring to two separate things. "Run Speed" is the blades rotation. At 800 Hz = 800 Rotations per second = 800 "RPS" * 60 seconds / minute = 48 000 RPM. So Revolutions (or rotations), Per Minute. Knowing the radius, one could also figure out the actual speed (say in meters per second) at the tip of the blade.

[@quantum-inc]

Hmm turbo pump with oil