New Thumper On Top of Boiler

Simple pot still distillation and construction with or without a thumper.

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ER70S-2
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New Thumper On Top of Boiler

Post by ER70S-2 »

I had half a sheet of 16 gauge SS in the shop so I made up a thumper, I decided to mount my thumper on top of my boiler rather then beside it. I thought about this after reading one of Goose Eye’s posts about how they used to light a fire underneath the doubler to help get things going, I thought the heat radiating up would help to heat the thumper.
The nice thing about this set up is that it will not overflow, once the liquid in the thumper reaches the top of the internal tube it siphons back down into the boiler. I’ve done 4 water runs to test this out and it all works well. I also attached a pressure gauge to ensure that there is no pressure building up in the boiler even when the 30L thumper is full, the gauge never went over 1psi so I was happy to see that. Here are a few build pictures to see the internal tube. I haven't seen one like this so thought you guys might like to see a few pics.
Regards
ER70S-2
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Internal Tube2.jpg
Internal Tube2.jpg (13.36 KiB) Viewed 2805 times
Bottom tacke to shell2.jpg
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Last edited by ER70S-2 on Fri Mar 13, 2009 3:57 am, edited 1 time in total.
myles
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Re: New Thumper On Top of Boiler

Post by myles »

That's quite nice workmanship. Hell of a lot better than I could do. I have considered this stacked design in the past, but was concerned with stability in case it tips over. Particuly towards the end of the run when it could get top heavy. Is it permanently fixed and how do you fill the boiler?

Not sure I understood the siphon bit - did you mean that it empties the thumper back into the pot when it gets full? When it is running that inner tube will be full of vapour so how is it going to siphon? Or have I completely miss-understood?
ER70S-2
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Re: New Thumper On Top of Boiler

Post by ER70S-2 »

I was concerned about stability as well, I made it smaller in diameter and even with the thumper full and the boiler empty it's quite stable.
These pics were taken of the first run, I filled the boiler through the same fitting that the thumper attaches to (2" pipe thread), since then I have added a 1" filler port that comes out from the top on an angle.
I'm not an engineer so I figure most things by experience. I wasn't sure if the liquid in the thumper would drain back down due to the vapours / pressure coming up either, although I don't think I will ever overflow the thumper since it's half the size of the boiler. After running it 4 times everytime the water in the thumper goes above the highest point of the internal tube it then siphons the entire contents of the thumper back down into the boiler. So from experience I can say that it does work.
Once I run it with some mash I'll let you know.
Regards
Er70s-2
myles
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Re: New Thumper On Top of Boiler

Post by myles »

Well I am impressed. I have tried to do this a few times and never thought of that safety feature. I have tried to figure out a way to get the thumper to automatically empty back into the boiler but this is so simple its ingenious.

In reality it should never be needed, but just in case there was ever a blockage in the thumper outlet or condenser this will compensate and dump back into the boiler. The only other time it might happen is if you are running when it is so cold the thumper can't reach equilibrium and over fills. Nice one. :D
rad14701
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Re: New Thumper On Top of Boiler

Post by rad14701 »

Looking good, ER70S-2... You stole my idea... I was just think the exact same thing the other night while reading here in the forums... I had decided that if I were to ever try a thumper that this would be the way to do it... It'll be interesting to hear performance results... Keep us posted...
evilpsych
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Re: New Thumper On Top of Boiler

Post by evilpsych »

man. you really know how to one-up me dont ya! dangit I really like that design - very compact which i like.
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blanikdog
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Re: New Thumper On Top of Boiler

Post by blanikdog »

What a clever bugger. :) Well done ER.

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rad14701
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Re: New Thumper On Top of Boiler

Post by rad14701 »

Hey, ER70S-2, any chance you could reduce the size of those two larger images so this thread loads faster...???
HookLine
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Re: New Thumper On Top of Boiler

Post by HookLine »

rad14701 wrote:Hey, ER70S-2, any chance you could reduce the size of those two larger images so this thread loads faster...???
+1 They don't need to be any bigger than about 70-80 kB.

Also less bandwidth cost for Uncle Jesse.
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ER70S-2
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Re: New Thumper On Top of Boiler

Post by ER70S-2 »

I'll try to reduce the pics or at the very least I'll remove them until I can put something smaller in, not so good with computers.
Evil, yours is much more practical, I have a welding shop so I can make things like this with left overs from previous jobs, the cost would be too high for most to have one built like this.
I'll keep everyone posted when I do a run with it, probably over the weekend or early next week depending on my work load. I still need to do a clean out run with alcohol and then i have a rum wash waiting to run.
Regards
Er70S-2
ER70S-2
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Re: New Thumper On Top of Boiler

Post by ER70S-2 »

I think that should do it for pic size, I'll keep that in mind for the future.
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ER70S-2
Hawke
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Re: New Thumper On Top of Boiler

Post by Hawke »

Yeppers, that did it. Nice work, keep us posted.
It is the very things that we think we know, that keep us from learning what we should know.
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myles
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Re: New Thumper On Top of Boiler

Post by myles »

I tested this principle with a plastic bottle of water and some 1/2" plastic syphon tube. When the water got an inch above the highest point in the tube it started to flow out of the bottle. At this point the syphon effect kicked in and emptied the bottle.

I suspect what must be hapening during a run is that the thumper level must get to a point where the pressure from the fluid depth overpowers the vapour pressure in the still. Vapour will stop flowing and the liquid will flow back into the pot triggering the syphon effect. I don't think it is going to make much difference with respect to vapour flow rate, as run the still fast or slow, the pressure is fairly consistent.

Its worth a bit of experimentation as this could be of use in all sorts of applications.
HookLine
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Re: New Thumper On Top of Boiler

Post by HookLine »

ER70S-2 wrote:I think that should do it for pic size, I'll keep that in mind for the future.
Regards
ER70S-2
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ER70S-2
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Re: New Thumper On Top of Boiler

Post by ER70S-2 »

Tuesday April 7 2009

I had a chance to really try out the thumper last night. I have run a couple small cleaning runs through it but this was the first big wash, here are the results.

43L of rum wash into boiler "Gingerbreadman's Fancy Molasses Recipe"
1stripping run from a 20L wash of "Gingerbreadman's Fancy Molasses Recipe" approximately 4L of the stripping run and 3L of water into the Thumper.
7:00pm turn on burner
8:00pm turn on condenser
8:30pm couple drops, very watery and will not burn, thumper really starting to go now.
8:35pm Big watery drips continue sporadically
8:40pm Drip per second, burns blue
8:43pm small stream coming in now,turn down heat on propane burner

Collecting approximately 250mls at each interval and goes into it's own jar

8:45 Jar 1 =74% 9:42 Jar 19 = 56%
8:48 Jar 2 = 72% 9:45 Jar 20 = 55%
8:51 Jar 3 = 72% 9:48 Jar 21 = 55%
8:53 Jar 4 = 72% 9:52 Jar 22 = 52%
8:56 Jar 5= 70% 9:56 Jar 23 = 51%
8:59 Jar 6 = 70% 10:00 Jar 24 = 50%
9:03 Jar 7 = 69% 10:04 Jar 25 = 48%
9:05 Jar 8 = 68% 10:08 Jar 26 = 45%
9:08 Jar 9 = 68% 10:12 Jar 27 = 45%
9:11 Jar 10 = 68% 10:16 Jar 28 = 44%
9:15 Jar 11 = 65% 10:20 Jar 29 = 40%
9:18 Jar 12 = 65% 10:25 Jar 30 = 40%
9:21 Jar 13 = 64% 10:29 Jar 31 = 35%
9:24 Jar 14 = 63% 10:33 Jar 32 = 34%
9:28 Jar 15 = 62% 10:38 Jar 33 = 31%
9:31 Jar 16 = 60% 10:43 Jar 34 = 30%
9:34 Jar 17 = 60% 10:48 Jar 35 = 29%
9:38 Jar 18 = 59% 10:53 Jar 36 = 28%

9000ml collected, all of these are currently airing out.
I'll post more once I have had a chance to mix them.
Regards
ER 70S-2
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Rum Run Thumper.JPG
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