Vacuum pump cleaning and POE!

[The MG Pony]

We often joke at how much more like a detergent POE is than an oil, well the thought just occurred to me, if the stuff is so good at removing grime from a working system then why not use some to give the vac pump the occasional cleaning?

It seems to make sense and I can not for the life of me see why not? Any one ells see any reasons why some POE wouldn't be good for cleaning the vac pump? Mines a cute little 1.2cfm unit so not much would be even needed

[NoNickName]

What do you mean? The pump oil is already POE.

[chillin out]

I think he means putting some POE oil in his vacuum pump for cleaning purposes only and then putting the correct oil back in again.

Chillin

[NoNickName]

I think that the oil pump is already POE. At least this is what Edwards and Galileo told us. In fact, we use 22Cst ICI Emkarate POE for oil replacements.

[The MG Pony]

Here they use Hydroshocked MO. But cool, I think I'll use some POE to help give the thing s a good cleaning!

Thanks.

[monkey spanners]

I think ITE do ester vac pump oil for working on HFC systems.

Cheers Jon

[Electrocoolman]

A vacuum pump will surely work with any of the 3 types of oil (Min,AB,POE), provided the viscosity is correct.
The advantage of using oil compatable with the refrigeration system oil, is if there is a loss of power to the pump whilst vacuuming out the system, and oil is inadvertently sucked back into the system.
The disadvantage is that POE is highly hygroscopic, so will require changing very frequently.
As for the cleaning action of POE, I have no experience of this.

[monkey spanners]

I think vac pump oil is formulated with a low vapour pressure, it shouldnt give any vapours off at the level of vacuum its working at. most vac pumps will pull a vacuum low enough to cause standard compressor grade oils to give off vapours. when we did a lot of cfc conversions we used to run the vac pump on iso32 ester oil (through ignorance) this soon wore out the pump, looked ok on manifold gauge but would not pull on a electronic gauge.

Cheers Jon

[The MG Pony]

Ok so perhaps I'll mix the POE in with the standerd Hydroshocked MO. The ester will help clean the crud off and suspend it in the MO sump, after an houre long or so vac swap out the oil and power flush with a bit of MO and then put in the normale stuff.