Some additional specs on the VMF-10 (I agree, a nice pump):
With DC-704 its speed is flat at just a tad over 10 l/s from 10-3 to 10-4 Torr. Speed declines to 5 l/s at 10-5 Torr and pretty much has given up at 2x10-6 Torr. (Remember it's a booster pump but nice for fusor-type stuff - you don't need or want a lot of speed and low base pressure is unimportant.) Required forepressure is 0.1 Torr or less.
Never heard of the other pump but you should be able to swap the heater. Vacuum Barrier makes the vacuum jacketed lines that are used for liquified gases (basically long thermos bottles). I'll bet they don't make the pump, it's probably private labelled. A likely manufacturer would be Varian Vacuum Products.
If you don't want to worry about running water with the VMF-10, you could set up a small pump and heat exchanger and run the cooling closed loop. Required water flow at 20 deg. C is 0.04 gal/min.
I posted an article elsewhere a few days ago on booster pumps.
Steve
Created on Friday, April 13, 2001 9:27 PM EDT by Steve Hansen