AC Vacuum Pumps - Three Characteristics Of a Quality Air Conditioning Vacuum Pump

Modern AC vacuum pumps have come a long way in performance, and they have become less expensive to purchase as well. Still, for your work in air conditioner service and repair, you will want to know the top characteristics of the air conditioning vacuum pumps or AC vacuum pumps that you will use in your daily jobs. The three main characteristics of a quality air vacuum pump, are speed of vacuum production, ultimate vacuum achieved, and the noise generated. Let's look at all three in more detail.

Air conditioning vacuum pump speed

The air conditioning vacuum pump speed will determine how large an air conditioner job you can take on. The speed in attaining the ultimate vacuum pressure depends mainly on one characteristic that should be clearly stated on each AC pump, which is CFM, or Cubic Feet per Minute. This measure gives the amount of volume of the gas removed in cubic feet per minute of operation. The higher the CFM measure, the faster the pump will achieve the highest vacuum possible. The CFM in standard rotary vane electric pumps mainly depends on the geometry and the size of the pump, but it also depends on the power, in horse power units, of the AC pump. The typical values of CFM range between 1 CFM to 10 CFM.

Some AC pumps will deploy twin chambers to speed up the vacuum generation. Other air vacuum pumps will generate vacuum in two stages, the initial and the final stage, whereby the final stage will use a completely different physical principle than the initial stage in order to achieve even deeper vacuum, faster.

Ultimate vacuum achieved

This, of course, is an important characteristics of any vacuum pump. The ultimate vacuum level achieved is typically measured in microns, which mean microns of liquid mercury column equivalent. Just for comparison, a standard air pressure at Earth's see level is 735 mm or 735000 microns of mercury. Good pumps usable in air conditioning applications will achieve highest vacuums of 100 microns to 75 microns.

Noise

With the improvements in design and lubrication of the modern air conditioning pumps, the noise generated by them is not as much of an issue as it used to be. However, if for larger jobs, the pump will stay on for an extended period of time, the level of noise can become an important parameter by which you will determine the quality of the AC pump. Typical noise levels can depend on the type of the pump, the power and CFM value of the pump. In Venturi type pumps, the combined noise of the air flow with the outside compressor noise can be substantial. The electric, rotary vane pumps are much quieter. Typical noise values for electric pumps should be below 60 dB.