New Take on a Great Design... ODs Magic Flute - Mark 2...

Vapor, Liquid or Cooling Management. Flutes, plates, etc.

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Re: New Take on a Great Design... ODs Magic Flute - Mark 2.

Post by aqua vitae »

Thank you :)
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Re: New Take on a Great Design... ODs Magic Flute - Mark 2.

Post by Barney Fife »

Ah, and the picture gets clearer all the time! I can clearly see how the returned reflux will cling to the downcomer plate and flow down like a smooth waterfall before being distributed evenly across the tray(IE: the bubble plate, but I like the term tray for what we've been calling the plates, now that we have downcomer plates, which makes one too many plates to remember which plate is which, and since we already have too much on our plates to remember which plate is which, well... <lol>). See, we're not happy simply being shown how to make it, but rather, we wish to understand the why of it, also. Well done, and kudos, again, for the research you've put into our hobby!

Now, a question... On your design for the downcomer plates, they are curved at the bottom, leaving a larger "gap" in the center, which will allow more flow to the center of the tray(plate) and less flow toward the column's sides, yet in the video, they seek to divert -more- flow towards the column sides and less in the center of the tray in order to have a balanced flow across the tray. Basically, it appears that in the drawings the curve of the downcomer plate's bottom is backward(IE: it should be a smile, not a frown).

Design oversight, or a simple mistake in the drawings?
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Re: New Take on a Great Design... ODs Magic Flute - Mark 2.

Post by kerinin »

I was just about to ask that same question...
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Re: New Take on a Great Design... ODs Magic Flute - Mark 2.

Post by apollopimp »

if you see in the video there tray/plate is open with nothing in the middle blocking flow .. in this design has the bubble in the center so flow is different than in the video.. flow will naturally want to go outwards away from the bubble so i assume flow is directed towards the center more to counteract that.. so the video is just for reference
Last edited by apollopimp on Sat Apr 02, 2011 5:37 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: New Take on a Great Design... ODs Magic Flute - Mark 2.

Post by kerinin »

This is pretty minor, but I was thinking it might be cool to have a spirit level built into the design somewhere. Just one of those globe ones they put on tripods and transits and such.
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Re: New Take on a Great Design... ODs Magic Flute - Mark 2.

Post by Prairiepiss »

The flow across this plate being presented to us (single large bubble cap) will flow quite a bit different than the trays talked about in the video. The single bubble cap will be directing flow around it. So your stagnant points would be in the middle of the newcomers. The flow around the sides should be fine directed by the bubble cap. With out testing I can't say for sure. So its just my theory.

You beat me to it apolopimp.
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Re: New Take on a Great Design... ODs Magic Flute - Mark 2.

Post by Barney Fife »

I just realized that the video shows a plate that won't be flooded, as ours' will be, since we're using the bubbler, and will be maintaining a relatively high level of liquid on the plate. This might make the whole point of achieving an even flow across the tray a good bit less critical. We also have a much lower flow rate than the big commercial columns. Also, unless the top of the weir is absolutely dead-level and the column is very steady(mine rocks gently back and forth with the boiler ;), the overflow won't follow the downcomer plate evenly. We may be chasing an ideal here that is unnecessary and can never be truly achieved.

I'm sure time will tell, as we refine and pick this apart further :) Definitely has us all thinking again, and that's great!

Oh, and the last weir and J-trap is unnecessary, as here a simple tube and cap or bend will do just fine, since all this one does is return the final bit of liquid back to the boiler. There's no longer any advantage to the flat downcomer here.
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Re: New Take on a Great Design... ODs Magic Flute - Mark 2.

Post by kerinin »

Barney Fife wrote:We also have a much lower flow rate than the big commercial columns.
I had that same thought. Do we have any idea what the flow rate of condensate across a plate is? It seems like at some point the turbulence created by the bubbling would create enough mixing that the directional flow across the plate doesn't make much difference. That video showed surprisingly fast flow across the plate...
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Re: New Take on a Great Design... ODs Magic Flute - Mark 2.

Post by Mr.Spooky »

seems like guittarmaster did a pretty cool experement with a 2" perf plate. http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopi ... =1&t=19553 .... the way his experement was set up, im sure that you could ad some food couloring to see just how fluid is dispersed. i recon you could do it with a wier too,,, but i dont know.
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Re: New Take on a Great Design... ODs Magic Flute - Mark 2.

Post by Samohon »

Titus-a-fishus wrote:Hey Gents
Just wondering if when all of the build design has been discussed and worked out
Is there any chance there could be a seperate thread for the build details.

This design is being catalogued as we post, every aspect of these sessions, including a detailed drawing and FAQ, will be refined down and taken into a master document that will be available to the membership via the D&D thread in the Research and Theory Forum...

This thread will no doubt get pretty big as well considering the amount of interest in the flute designs.

I agree. Any theory and design concepts OD has on this topic are well worth investigating at great length...

Also any chance of a diagram of the vapour path?

I have one I'm working on, I'll get it up soon.
Right now I'm off to a malt whisky tasting evening at Braemar Castle on Royal Speyside with some master blenders/distillers...
Dont worry, I'll ask lots of questions, discreetly ofcoarse...
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I'll get the vapour path diagram up asap TAF.... :D
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Re: New Take on a Great Design... ODs Magic Flute - Mark 2.

Post by Samohon »

*** Bump ***

Managed to upload the last PDF to HD for those having problems downloading it...
Bubble Cap Plates.pdf
(820.49 KiB) Downloaded 1118 times
The Mediafire Link...
Last edited by Samohon on Sat Apr 02, 2011 10:54 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: New Take on a Great Design... ODs Magic Flute - Mark 2.

Post by condensificator »

You are not authorised to download this attachment.
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Re: New Take on a Great Design... ODs Magic Flute - Mark 2.

Post by wildrover »

Can someone explain what it is when a plate gets flooded? And it's a bad thing right? I understand how a flute works but I'm not understanding what happens when it's flooded.
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Re: New Take on a Great Design... ODs Magic Flute - Mark 2.

Post by apollopimp »

im sure everything will be detailed soon

you should post links to all the .PDFs in the first post of this topic for quick access
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Re: New Take on a Great Design... ODs Magic Flute - Mark 2.

Post by loneswinger »

It is good that you guys are really trying to get detailed design plans out there. Designing in a method to disable plates is also good.

However, I too doubt the use of the weir as opposed to a pipe style downcomer. Unless it is perfectly level, the reflux is just going to more or less spill down in one spot anyway. I think the main disadvantage (from a technical perspective) was pointed out by prairiepiss earlier in this thread: when a plate is disabled, the liquid trap with the weir design is emptied and you just disabled the plate above it too. With other downcomer/trap designs, the trap stays full even when the plate is emptied of reflux.

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Re: New Take on a Great Design... ODs Magic Flute - Mark 2.

Post by ginjo »

You sure we are getting less flow? Seems you would want to base your flow on the total area of the slits in the caps.... I think that for 4'' column, compared to the 12'' or whatever the big ones are, we'd have to drive pretty hard to get a decent collection rate. Also, in a 4'', there's going to be soo much violent bubbling that I'm not sure flow across the plate matters. Never run one so don't really know of course..... just some thoughts....
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Re: New Take on a Great Design... ODs Magic Flute - Mark 2.

Post by LWTCS »

ginjo wrote:there's going to be soo much violent bubbling that I'm not sure flow across the plate matters.
Was wondering also about that too. Especially with the single larger bubble cap landed in the center of the plate...

Kuddos to OD for putting it out there to be hammer'd by the forum...

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Re: New Take on a Great Design... ODs Magic Flute - Mark 2.

Post by Prairiepiss »

loneswinger wrote: I think the main disadvantage (from a technical perspective) was pointed out by prairiepiss earlier in this thread: when a plate is disabled, the liquid trap with the weir design is emptied and you just disabled the plate above it too. With other downcomer/trap designs, the trap stays full even when the plate is emptied of reflux.

Cheers,

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Re: New Take on a Great Design... ODs Magic Flute - Mark 2.

Post by olddog »

kerinin wrote:Do we have any idea what the flow rate of condensate across a plate is?
The flow rate across the plate is proportionate to the size of the column, to give you an idea haw much we are talking about, have a look through the top sight glass and see how much liquid is being refluxed when the still is in reflux mode, it is more than you would think.
kerinin wrote:This is pretty minor, but I was thinking it might be cool to have a spirit level built into the design somewhere.
I use a yard long builders spirit level to make sure that the still is 100% vertical before lighting my boiler.
Barney Fife wrote:We also have a much lower flow rate than the big commercial columns.
The flow is proportionate to the diameter of the column.
One observation I made is that when running the Magic Flute with perforated plates and a 1/2"tubular downcomer, is that when the still was in full reflux the bubbles would rise to up to halfway across the sight glass, which looks cool, but you then realise that this height exceeds the height of the downcomer. With the prototype you could see the bubbles around the 2"cap yet the height of the liquid remained the same. The weir down comers were working correctly, yet the tubular downcomers in the Magic Flute were actually in a state of flooding.



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Re: New Take on a Great Design... ODs Magic Flute - Mark 2.

Post by olddog »

rockchucker22 wrote:Did you find you can control the rate of flooding or lack of with the dephlegmator?
Yes you can, but I think we all try to stack the still initially, the bubbles will subside when the flow to the dephlegmater is reduced, but are still vigorously present on the top plate, the weir plate prototype did not have this, you could see pooling up to the top of the weir and the cap bubbling in a more controlled way.


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Re: New Take on a Great Design... ODs Magic Flute - Mark 2.

Post by Chiller »

OD - forgive me if it's a stupid question, but could the flooding of the perf plates not be fixed by making more perforations/making the existing ones bigger? I think someone was saying that 30% of the plate should be perforations. I like the weir idea but it just seems like it would be difficult to construct and the benefits would be minor compared to a modified perf plate tree.
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Re: New Take on a Great Design... ODs Magic Flute - Mark 2.

Post by olddog »

Quote Barney Fife
Now, a question... On your design for the downcomer plates, they are curved at the bottom, leaving a larger "gap" in the center, which will allow more flow to the center of the tray(plate) and less flow toward the column's sides, yet in the video, they seek to divert -more- flow towards the column sides and less in the center of the tray in order to have a balanced flow across the tray. Basically, it appears that in the drawings the curve of the downcomer plate's bottom is backward(IE: it should be a smile, not a frown).

You are absolutely correct Barney, it was my fault not communicating the error with Sam before release
.
Chiller wrote:
OD - forgive me if it's a stupid question, but could the flooding of the perf plates not be fixed by making more perforations/making the existing ones bigger
Bigger holes will not help unless you can provide massive vapor speed, otherwise it will cause plate collapse, you would be better to increase the downcomer size to prevent flooding.


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Re: New Take on a Great Design... ODs Magic Flute - Mark 2.

Post by Prairiepiss »

olddog wrote:Quote Barney Fife
Now, a question... On your design for the downcomer plates, they are curved at the bottom, leaving a larger "gap" in the center, which will allow more flow to the center of the tray(plate) and less flow toward the column's sides, yet in the video, they seek to divert -more- flow towards the column sides and less in the center of the tray in order to have a balanced flow across the tray. Basically, it appears that in the drawings the curve of the downcomer plate's bottom is backward(IE: it should be a smile, not a frown).

You are absolutely correct Barney, it was my fault not communicating the error with Sam before release

OD
I think your mistake is for the better OD. Like I pointed out before. The video shows flow across a pretty much unobstructed tray. Your design has a rather large obstruction in the center of the tray. That obstruction will direct the flow around the outside anyway as it has nowhere else to go. But I do believe it will also create a stagnant point at the center of the downcomer plates on both sides of the bubble cap. So I would think you would want more flow directed at the center of the downcomer plate and dam plate to compensate for these stagnant ares.

But then again what do I know. It's obvious that everything I've pointed out is being dismissed.

Just my 2 cents take it or leave it.
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Re: New Take on a Great Design... ODs Magic Flute - Mark 2.

Post by aqua vitae »

Your points make very much sense to me Prairiepiss. Have not experience running anything like this and the video was interesting but it seems to me that the big bubble cap in the middle will change the flow quite much compared to a flat plate with no obstructions.

This one big bubble cap is a good idea and seems to me to be the best way to downscale bubble caps to a hobby level anyway, kudos to you OD. It makes this kind of still much easier to build and still have the advantage over a perforated still that you can run it at any power and at any reflux rate without draining the trays.
Maybe you could try inviting Joe to the discussion again too as he is the most experienced bubble cap stiller at these forums and he would probably have some nice ideas for improvements etc.
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Re: New Take on a Great Design... ODs Magic Flute - Mark 2.

Post by W.S.C.beachman »

In the PDF it states that just 2 caps(sections in the tree) created 92% at a pot still speed. HMMM I would like to be able to adjust this so I can get 60% for my UJSSM or rums, brandies and so on. 92% that would be Vodkas only, cause sooo much flavor would be taken out at that high of alch. level...right???? I know it says flavor is still their, but seems to me that if you wanted to do some whiskeys or what ever you would not want to run at 90% plus then cut back to age..Would slightly disabling a section lower the % out put. I don't mean open the valve all the way up just a little bit.
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Re: New Take on a Great Design... ODs Magic Flute - Mark 2.

Post by exon »

Tnx for the great presentation.
That plate video was also good.
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Re: New Take on a Great Design... ODs Magic Flute - Mark 2.

Post by apollopimp »

single bubble cap rectification column with 12 plates thought i would share

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxJtAgF3iKQ" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow
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Re: New Take on a Great Design... ODs Magic Flute - Mark 2.

Post by olddog »

Great video of a Holstein in action, my current design is based on a scaled down version with single bubble plates.
This illustration is from Holsteins brochure
Holstein.png
What suprises me is the diameter of the takeoff tube leading to the condenser.



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Re: New Take on a Great Design... ODs Magic Flute - Mark 2.

Post by ginjo »

apollopimp wrote:single bubble cap rectification column with 12 plates thought i would share

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxJtAgF3iKQ" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

The speaker in that video is saying evaporation when they mean boiling. Are they trying to make neutral with that thing? 12 plates seems like a lot for flavor....
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Re: New Take on a Great Design... ODs Magic Flute - Mark 2.

Post by Prairiepiss »

ginjo wrote:The speaker in that video is saying evaporation when they mean boiling.
What's the difference? You are evaporating it by boiling it. Are you not?

Let me correct myself. Evaporation is a type of vaporization that occurs only on the surface of a fluid. Boiling is a type of vaporization that occurs on the entire mass of the liquid. So he should of used vaporization instead of evaporation.
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