Lost Vacuum?

[StellarChip]

I seem to have lost some degree of vacuum in my spring loaded delta injector. I get a good draw of air on the first cycle but after that there is little or no movement in trapped air pockets after a prolonged vacuum cycle or repeated vacuum cycles. Has anyone experienced this? Any help will be appreciated. I think I may need to return the injector to delta for servicing. Thanks in Advance, Mark C Brown

[Kgobin]

Below you will find the proper steps on how to place the I-100 injector in the vacuum cycle. Also, I am not sure on how you clean or store your injector but here is the proper cleaning and storage techniques. The I-100 injector is guaranteed to be free from manufacturer defects forever, so please feel free to send the injector please into Delta Kits for a thorough evaluation.

Place the piston in the vacuum position by holding the cylinder firmly against the glass with one hand while pulling up on the knurled piston knob with the other hand until you can rotate the piston knob clockwise ¼ turn to the upper position. Allow 30 seconds for the air to be pulled from the break and escape through the cylinder.

Cleaning
Separate the plunger from the injector body, and with the plunger in the vacuum position, rinse both parts for 30 seconds in denatured alcohol, then set plunger in the pressure position and rinse for an additional 30 seconds, and blow off alcohol residue with compressed air.

Storing
Always store the plunger and injector separately and keep the plunger in pressure cycle.

[SGT]

StellarChip,

Some things to keep in mind...

1. As Korey mentioned cleaning is very important, Check if you are you able to get unrestricited full travel of your injector plunger? If you have a multiple bridge system does your other injector spring tension feel equivelent? If everything is normal, I doubt you need to return your injector.

2. When setting up your pressure cycles, After you place the injector plunger in the down position, are you then manually forcing the plunger into the tip seal about 1/4 to 1/2 way? The inside tip seal diameter is smaller than the outside injector plunger diameter so if they do not enguage you will not pull vacuum.

3. How often are you changing your tip seals?, as the seal wears, the tolerance between the tip seal and the injector plunger breaks down and you will loose efficiency.

Mark, if I can help, give me a call.

[StellarChip]

Great advice guys. I am a bit of a perfectionist especially in regards to cleaning so i always soak the seperated injectors in denatuerd alcohol when not using them and then blow them dry with compressed air. I think this is a good example of how proper training can truly benefit the wsr tech. If your new to wsr I can't stress how important training will be to your success down the road. Even with 16+ years of experience doing wsr I'm discovering that tips and techniques vary greatly between the various wsr systems out there. Just because I've been trained with one or two different systems doesn't mean I'll fully comprehend and be able to properly utilize every system I encounter. Thank God for this forum else I'd have no one to turn to. I wish I could make it to Florida this January but I just don't have the time or money at this time. I am fortunate to live very close to SGT though and hopefully I can make plans to visit with Brian. I'm going to pull out the training shield today and practice seating the plunger tip into the injector seal and see if this is my problem. I would imagine too much resin would inhibit the plunger from reaching the seal and I'm always a bit heavy on the resin. I'll report back later and share my findings. Thanks, Mark C Brown

[SGT]

Stellarchip,

I hope that advice clears up your problem. One thing I want to point out so there is no confussion, do not push the injector plunger all the way down in the tip seal. Just so it enguages 1/4 to 1/2 way in. To much pressure may cause damage progression from excessive pressure. Also, going a "little" heavy on the resin is okay untill you get comfortable but should not cause your situation as excess will just get displaced inside the injector barrel. I use the eye dropper with glass pipet for resin insertion and I like to get the resin just past the tip radius where it begins to flatten out. Approx. 7-8 drops off the top off my head. I think the new ones are plastic but it should be close. This should cover you for most typical damage.

Yeah, If you can not meet up with the crew at DK for factory training, I would be happy to assist you. Sometimes reading and understanding something is different than applying a technique in a process. If you need a more clarification just give me a hollar as it would probably be easier verbally to clear things up.

Good luck and I hope this helped. Let us know.

[Brent Deines]

Mark,

Too much resin will not keep the plunger from entering the seal. The vacuum cycle is not an extended process when using the Delta Kits injector. It only pulls enough vacuum to get the air flowing toward the surface, but then the vacuum is released so the air can escape. With that in mind there are several things that could be happening.

As SGT mentioned, you do not want to push the plunger too all the way into the seal on the pressure cycle. Always leave at least 1/8" between the bottom of the plunger knob and the top of the cylinder knob. On the other hand, not pushing the plunger down far enough in the pressure cycle will not allow the vacuum cycle to work properly. On a typical break you want to push the plunger about 1/2 way into the seal.

A common problem is not using enough resin, or not getting the resin all the way into the end seal before activating the plunger. SGT also addressed this issue by stating that he always uses the eye dropper to load the resin. You want to use about 7 drops of resin for most breaks, but do not count the drops as they go into the injector, but rather figure out how many drops are in your dropper prior to to loading the injector, and then inserting the dropper into the cylinder until the tip touches the end seal. Failure to completely fill the end seal with resin will cause problems in both the pressure and vacuum cycles. Not only does the end seal need to be completely full, but there also needs to be a couple of drops of resin in the cylinder above the end seal to replace the air that is evacuated from the break. Too little resin is a far bigger problem than too much resin.

When you pull up on the plunger to initiate the vacuum cycle, do so slowly so the air has more time to travel from the edges of the break to the top center of the break before locking in the up position where the air is being released into the cylinder. There is no actual vacuum being applied when the plunger is locked into the up position.

If you are still having problems give us a call when you have your practice glass in front of you. It's much easier to trouble shoot problems over the phone than it is on the forum, or in an e-mail. Even then chronic problems can be difficult to diagnose without actually watching the technician do the repair, but in most cases we can figure out what is going on over the phone.

[StellarChip]

This forum is a veritable gold mine. You guys are great, i appreciate the excellent advice. I'm so looking forward to meeting everyone in person for some hands on time as I am trying to change the focus of my company from primarily replacements to primarily repairs. Can't wait till monday when I'll have some time to practice. I am also looking into finding some spots at the four seasons ( my friends wife is the hotel manager) to try to lure you guys to Philadelphia. Talk to you soon. Mark C Brown