First time posting. Hoping someone can help. I bought a used Swest Vac Casting machine from a retiring jeweler last year. Until now, I’ve found this to be a great little machine. I’ve primarily used a spin caster so vacuum casting is a somewhat unfamiliar area. According to the manual it is supposed to have its oil changed every 12 hours of use. I’m just hitting that now and am finding that the instruction manual is close to no help. I drained the oil and filled per the instructions, only to find that the oil went through the filter and drained out of the surgical tubing on the other side of the filter that appears to have detached from somewhere. I don’t see any obvious place where the tubing would fit to cycle the filtered oil back into the motor? Stuller acquired Swest somewhat recently but they only sell the oil-less variety and don’t even sell vacuum pump oil. I am reasonably handy and this seems like something that should be manageable but I’m stumped. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Tina
Realized that I probably added too much oil and the overflow valve is what caused the leak. Looking for additional instructions for the Swest Vac 160-001 (120 volt, 1/3hp 1725 rpm motor). Need to know what kind of oil to use and where to find it, too, if anyone has that information. Thanks!
Your assessment of the problem—adding too much oil—sounds right. I believe there should be arrows on each side of the circular sight glass indicating the correct fill level. At least that’s what I’ve always seen on vacuum pumps, and I looked at a lot of used ones before I bought the one I have. The arrows are usually right in the middle of the sight glass. As far as the correct oil to use, it is “vacuum pump compressor oil” or “vacuum compressor oil.” If you google that, you should be able to find it either on line or locally. I find it advertised at my local Advance Auto Parts for about $11/qt. So the other auto parts stores probably have it and it was listed at Walmart’s site, altho’ they might have to order it. Twelve hours is a lot of pumping if it takes three minutes to pull vacuum…did you really cast 120 times last year? -royjohn
I wish! I acquired the caster used with 10 hours of casting time already logged.
Problems with the machine have been solved. I did add too much oil and it drained out the overflow tube which created a giant mess when I fired it up. Drained it fully and tried again. Lessons learned: add oil slowly, be patient and give it time to fill which takes a bit to register in the sight glass. All is good now. Thanks for the oil insight. Will have to follow up on that.