Appion TEZ-8 Questions

I have used the search feature and looked at the existing threads on the TEZ-8. I have a couple of questions that I did not see / or I'm just old and didn't understand , lol.

1) Can you ( or do you ) fill the " cartridges " with oil of your choice or are they meant to be " disposable " ?

2) Has this tool made an exceptional difference on the evacuation process portion of your job ? To the degree that if you encounter an issue during the evacuation process you know " damn well " it's not the pump ? The full view of the oil charge nails this down I'm sure.

3) Is there anything that you don't like about it ? You could buy 2 pumps for the price of this thing ( but still may not half of what this thing appears to offer ).

It looks to be the answer to all of my problems in this area , and I would like to hear this from someone who has one.

If you just buy the pump, and not the MegaFlow speed kit you are wasting your time. You cannot get 8 CFM through a 1/4" hose. It will not evacuate anything better than a standard pump except to remove moisture a bit faster if you use Appion synthetic oil. Easier to service yes, but severly choked down with a 1/4" hose.

I have had one for about 6 months. Here are the tricks to getting the most from it.

1. Use the Mega Flow Speed Kit
The deepest vacuum we can achieve is 29.92" hg or about -14.7 psig. We are limited by the physics of pressure. No matter how big the pump or how long you let it operate is simply cannot achieve any deeper vacuum. How do we increase flow volume if we cannot increase pressure? Larger hoses. Even when restricted by 1/4" system ports, using a 3/8" or 1/2" hose greatly reduces resistance and increases potential flow. This is especially true during system evacuation. Just using one 1/2" hose with 1/4" fittings can result in one tenth the evacuation time compared to one 1/4" hose. Think of it this way: 60 minutes reduced to 6 minutes.

2. Use the vacuum rated core tools and remove the valve cores
Valve core tools have several functions. First, removing the valve cores allows for full unrestricted flow at the service valves. Second, the valve core tool allows for the isolation of the hoses from the system when testing the ultimate level of vacuum. All hoses leak. Isolating the hoses and the manifold from the system during testing minimizes the potential for chasing non-system related leaks.

3. Use Appion vacuum pump oil.
Clean oil saves time. Moisture, dirt and other system contaminates decrease pump performance. New synthetic based oils, like the Appion Micron-Dry, are designed to be hydrophobic by nature. This means that while the oil does help to draw the moisture from a system, it does not tightly bond with the moisture. Starting every job with fresh, clean synthetic vacuum pump oil can save you time on the evacuation and money on your pump maintenance. The cartridges are disposable, but they can be refilled with Appion oil which is available by the gallon. I have tried other oils, they do not work a well.

Jim

Our local distributor allowed us to use one for 60 days to try it out. I found that as Jim said, the key is the hoses and the removal of the cores. We were already using 1/2 and 3/8 inch hoses, so we didn't see a great difference in the speed of the Appion. At least not enough to justify the price to us. I did purchase several sets of the valve core removers because they are good quality for the price.

Thanks for the replies.

I am using a " home - built " speed kit made from 3/8 brass pipe and fittings with 3/8 hoses and Appion core tools. My old JB pump is begging for retirement... then I see this sexy and expensive yellow pump and I just wonder how good it really is.

I did see that they now offer the Mega Flow Kit with a " bare " manifold ( no plastic housing or gauges ).

I am going to give thier oil a try at least.

Make no bones about it, the pump is worth the money, my point is do not buy it half way and not use the correct hoses and oil for evacuation. I have talked to more than one person that did not buy it as a system and did not see the results they expected. There is a lot of innovative technology like the oil change feature and the particulate trap, large cooling fan and the soft start that will make the pump last longer and be easier to handle.

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Originally Posted by jim bergmann

Make no bones about it, the pump is worth the money, my point is do not buy it half way and not use the correct hoses and oil for evacuation. I have talked to more than one person that did not buy it as a system and did not see the results they expected. There is a lot of innovative technology like the oil change feature and the particulate trap, large cooling fan and the soft start that will make the pump last longer and be easier to handle.

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I've got to have one. And I understand that it will not overcome " physical laws " that we all are bound to , lol.

A good friend of mine had a company that serviced " industrial vacuum equipment " many years ago. Every so often I would show up at his shop , set up my pump and micron gauge , drink beer , lol. He had a testing station set up with a micron gauge like I've never seen...and I could confirm my tools were working correctly. He drilled into my head the facts about changing oil , hose " permiation " , piping ( hose ) size versus cfm. He built this " manifold " for me out of 1 inch steel pipe and like 3/4 inch od copper lines to a 1/4 reduction at the end , lol. It was as heavy as the 6 cfm pump I had at the time , lol. He would also hook me up with his pump oil which worked better than anything I was buying. His opinion of small , high speed pumps ( like the ones we use ) was negative . He would " change the oil 20 times " before he would test them and only did this for friends. He said this fixed 99 percent of the problems.

This pump ( and Mega Flow ) seems to address everything he told me and more. The fact that you can see the oil condition HAS to make all the difference ( and so much easier to change ). Side work here we come , lol.

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Originally Posted by tech45

My old JB pump is begging for retirement... then I see this sexy and expensive yellow pump and I just wonder how good it really is.

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If you like your J/B They Sexed up a 7cfm with even tighter tolerances and some stainless.

Think they are calling it the Super7

Some places I work the extra noise from the Appion would get complaints :.02:

I generally prefer for techs to hear the opinion of other techs that have used our products, because you already expect the manufacturer to claim good things about their products. But you have some questions and comments that I'd like to share our thoughts on.

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Originally Posted by tech45

I have used the search feature and looked at the existing threads on the TEZ-8. I have a couple of questions that I did not see / or I'm just old and didn't understand , lol.

1) Can you ( or do you ) fill the " cartridges " with oil of your choice or are they meant to be " disposable " ?

2) Has this tool made an exceptional difference on the evacuation process portion of your job ? To the degree that if you encounter an issue during the evacuation process you know " damn well " it's not the pump ? The full view of the oil charge nails this down I'm sure.

3) Is there anything that you don't like about it ? You could buy 2 pumps for the price of this thing ( but still may not half of what this thing appears to offer ).

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1) As Jim mentioned, the cartridges are disposable in according with local regulations, but you can also clean them out and refill for reuse. If you do this, we recommend only doing so if there is no sludge or other buildup in the cartridge, as the whole point is to remove contaminants... I'll mention more below.

(2) We have certainly heard a lot of impressive stories about the 5-to-1 speed ratio our system has shown over other vacuum pumps; some of the speed increases come from simple steps like removing the cores, and some are from the key design elements of the pump.

The visible oil supply is useful in diagnosing issues with the evacuation: white oil indicates excessive moisture, dark oil indicates acids (like on burnouts), and clear oil means the evacuation SHOULD be running smoothly, as far as the pump is concerned. We like to think this is rather significant.

3) I'll point to this recent reply:

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Originally Posted by itsiceman

Some places I work the extra noise from the Appion would get complaints :.02:

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The Tez8 is air-cooled, so instead of using the oil as a heatsink and letting the heat break down the oil viscosity, we have a large fan and aluminum heatsink. The downside is that there is no oil sump to muffle the mechanical pump noise, and the wind noise from the fan is certainly louder than no fan at oil.

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On the oil refill/reuse, there are some important things to know about the Tez8 oil system.

1- The oil system recirculates oil supplied by the TEZOM cartridge. The longer you leave contaminated oil in the cartridge, the more this oil is used by the pump. This isn't all that different from other pumps... but the Tez8 was designed to make oil changes easy, and this is a benefit we strongly recommend taking advantage of on EVERY job.

2- The recirculating oil flushes the oil through the pump. This plays a key role in the Tez8's compatibility with ammonia and lithium bromide systems. At the end of each evacuation you can use a CLEAN cartridge of oil to flush the pump, minimizing any residual ammonia or other corrosives/contaminants. We have examined Tez8 pumps from the field that are still completely clean after more than a year in the field on these systems entirely due to this feature.

I can't say that having our system will simply make everything work better, that still depends on proper evacuation procedure. But we have tried to make tools that make it significantly easier to properly evacuate.

I hope your questions are mostly answered, and if you're curious about anything else, please let us know.

Christian Pena - Appion Inc.

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Originally Posted by Appion-ChrisP

I generally prefer for techs to hear the opinion of other techs that have used our products, because you already expect the manufacturer to claim good things about their products. But you have some questions and comments that I'd like to share our thoughts on.



1) As Jim mentioned, the cartridges are disposable in according with local regulations, but you can also clean them out and refill for reuse. If you do this, we recommend only doing so if there is no sludge or other buildup in the cartridge, as the whole point is to remove contaminants... I'll mention more below.

(2) We have certainly heard a lot of impressive stories about the 5-to-1 speed ratio our system has shown over other vacuum pumps; some of the speed increases come from simple steps like removing the cores, and some are from the key design elements of the pump.

The visible oil supply is useful in diagnosing issues with the evacuation: white oil indicates excessive moisture, dark oil indicates acids (like on burnouts), and clear oil means the evacuation SHOULD be running smoothly, as far as the pump is concerned. We like to think this is rather significant.

3) I'll point to this recent reply:

The Tez8 is air-cooled, so instead of using the oil as a heatsink and letting the heat break down the oil viscosity, we have a large fan and aluminum heatsink. The downside is that there is no oil sump to muffle the mechanical pump noise, and the wind noise from the fan is certainly louder than no fan at oil.

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On the oil refill/reuse, there are some important things to know about the Tez8 oil system.

1- The oil system recirculates oil supplied by the TEZOM cartridge. The longer you leave contaminated oil in the cartridge, the more this oil is used by the pump. This isn't all that different from other pumps... but the Tez8 was designed to make oil changes easy, and this is a benefit we strongly recommend taking advantage of on EVERY job.

2- The recirculating oil flushes the oil through the pump. This plays a key role in the Tez8's compatibility with ammonia and lithium bromide systems. At the end of each evacuation you can use a CLEAN cartridge of oil to flush the pump, minimizing any residual ammonia or other corrosives/contaminants. We have examined Tez8 pumps from the field that are still completely clean after more than a year in the field on these systems entirely due to this feature.

I can't say that having our system will simply make everything work better, that still depends on proper evacuation procedure. But we have tried to make tools that make it significantly easier to properly evacuate.

I hope your questions are mostly answered, and if you're curious about anything else, please let us know.

Christian Pena - Appion Inc.

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From everything I have seen from Appion , seems to be an approach from the " ideal " ( 426 Hemi of HVACR tools ). If my personal budget were " ideal " I'd have 2 of everything you make , lol.

My old JB isn't dead yet , just slow. My TEZ-8 fund has started a week ago ( donations appreciated ).

Oh ...and a tool that is working SHOULD be LOUD , LOUD !!!!! Seriously , I have no issue with noise. If faster or better versus noise....I'd prefer noise.

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If faster or better versus noise....I'd prefer noise.

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If faster or better requires noise ...I'd prefer noise. I was just excited to get a factory response and typed nonsense.

And a great reply ( Appion - ChrisP ) , I forgot to say " thanks " as well.

This has been a very informative thread. I can only second everything said. Probably 90% of good evacuation is in technique and equipment used, not the pump itself. I too have a homemade brass manifold, 3/8", and do remove the cores. At present I am still using 1/4" hoses, although I cherry picked them by testing them for the best vacuum after 2 minutes, and this has greatly improved both the time and quality of my evacuations. Soon I will step up to 3/8" hoses and will spend a few extra bucks for the Appion hoses. I use 3' hoses as the shorter the hose the better as well as the larger the better. Do the Appion hoses come in lengths other than 6' and where can I get them? Does the Appion oil work in JB pumps and where can I get that?

A couple more points. Appion has established a reputation for cutting edge, along with heavy duty, design and high quality manufacture. Therefore their products are very rugged and durable. Also, they are designed to be rebuilt in the field and parts are readily and reasonably available.

Don't own any Appion products yet, but am shopping for some used ones due to my budget. Considering their track record used equipment should be a good investment.

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Originally Posted by BobTheBull

This has been a very informative thread. I can only second everything said. Probably 90% of good evacuation is in technique and equipment used, not the pump itself. I too have a homemade brass manifold, 3/8", and do remove the cores. At present I am still using 1/4" hoses, although I cherry picked them by testing them for the best vacuum after 2 minutes, and this has greatly improved both the time and quality of my evacuations. Soon I will step up to 3/8" hoses and will spend a few extra bucks for the Appion hoses. I use 3' hoses as the shorter the hose the better as well as the larger the better. Do the Appion hoses come in lengths other than 6' and where can I get them? Does the Appion oil work in JB pumps and where can I get that?

A couple more points. Appion has established a reputation for cutting edge, along with heavy duty, design and high quality manufacture. Therefore their products are very rugged and durable. Also, they are designed to be rebuilt in the field and parts are readily and reasonably available.

Don't own any Appion products yet, but am shopping for some used ones due to my budget. Considering their track record used equipment should be a good investment.

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The short answer is that our oil will work in any vacuum pump that can use mineral oil. However, I don't want to get too far into a "sales pitch" conversation, as you can call or email us directly at the factory for details on where and why to buy. Our website can also provide additional information.

If you'd like more information along these lines, please feel free to contact us directly.

Christian Pena - Appion Inc.

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Originally Posted by Appion-ChrisP

The short answer is that our oil will work in any vacuum pump that can use mineral oil. However, I don't want to get too far into a "sales pitch" conversation, as you can call or email us directly at the factory for details on where and why to buy. Our website can also provide additional information.

If you'd like more information along these lines, please feel free to contact us directly.

Christian Pena - Appion Inc.

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