I'm sure many of you are getting tired of reading about the 1:1 hydraulics I'm trying to use in this build, but now that I started down this road it needs to continue until I can get it to work properly or this whole idea will be a complete waste of time and money. So if this ideas tanks, at least the rest of you will know to avoid making the same mistake and just go buy the proper system for this type of application. (That would just be to easy....lol)
Did one last test to see what might be happening to the "mysterious vanishing flow".....turns out Ken and Mario called it !!! (Ken mention this right from the start) The full scale PRV on this valve body does not like to work very well at low pressure, and I know why it appeared to be working at the beginning.....the original small return line was restricting the flow which created the illusion of proper function....lol....long story.
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This time I blocked off one port on one spool valve, connected both feed lines from the other port to the ball valve and directed all the flow into the second clear container, ran the pump....and all the flow was going through the return line back to the main black container, which is normal. Next opened the control valve attached to the ball valve, when fully open all the flow was going to the second clear container and there was no flow in the return line going to the main tank (black container), which is good, no problem with the spools. While doing this I slowly closed the ball valve....and finally got the answer to the problem...there was flow in the main return line at about 200-220 psi, should not have seen any flow until the PRV setting of 275 psi was reached. In the tests before this one the only time I would see the pressure hit the 275 psi was when the cylinders would reach the end of their travel, only then would pressure spike to 275 and then drop to about 200-220...lol...the problem was right in front of me all the time, but dumb dumb just didn't catch on...yikes..
