Home Distiller

Finally got a piece of pipe soldered up. The adapter is a 2" bushing, which has the same OD as a piece of 2" pipe. This fits right into the connector I have at the top of the column. http://i.imgur.com/UkO0VvK.jpg I used some acrylic sheet that I had to build the frame. I screwed two lengt...

shadylane wrote:"Speaking of simple... The easiest thing to do with the fans would be to glue them directly on the fins"
Zip ties would work also

I didn't want to say it, but...duct tape

I thought they were 12 vdc fans like most computer fans. no problems If you wanted temp control those pc fan controllers are great and the 12vdc fans are in everything. I pulled a few out of old PC power supplies that I use to cool my element controller ( that I never use anymore) Light dimmers are...

Go with pwm for your fan controller. I messed around a lot with pwm for my stir plate build. EBay has descent controllers quite cheap. Around $10 I can get you a link if you want. Look at the 5 1/4 bay computer fan controllers. Everything you could ever want including temp control and rpm readout. ...

This is one of those do-it-yourself radiant heater fins. It's 12" long, 4" wide and fits around a 1-1/4" pipe. It is claimed to radiate 1500 + watts of heat per foot (without forced air). That looks nice but the specs I found say 1527 BTU which a BTU to Watt converter turned into 447...

Look what I found on the doorstep last night. :shock: http://i.imgur.com/PaMuYcg.jpg This is one of those do-it-yourself radiant heater fins. It's 12" long, 4" wide and fits around a 1-1/4" pipe. It is claimed to radiate 1500 + watts of heat per foot (without forced air). I was going ...

I don't think you have grasped how the peltier works. When you plug it in it acts like a heat pump, one side gets hot and the other side gets cold. The way I have drawn it out it is the heating source for the boiler and cooling source for the condensor. There are no other heaters or fans although, ...

Ha, it looks doable! Check this video outhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XupSQyOT6xE .

http://homedistiller.org/forum/download/file.php?id=37428&t=1 Interesting idea. I guess that the hot side of the peltier would have to be considerably hotter that the boiler temp in order for efficient heat extraction. If you can put one on an exhaust pipe, a boiler should be no problem. A good...

If you drilled a long pilot hole then drilled it from either end you could drill the 9 inches easily I really like the design If I was only running a pot still I would build one of these. I purposely left a gap between the spacers to act as a drill guide, then I gradually increased the hole size to...

I understand. I think peltiers have a lot of potential but the price was way high. I'm gald that my info was outdated and they seem to have come down a lot. Just spotted a 62mm 545w peltier on ebay for $41. One thing that I can't get out of my mind is that one side gets hot and the other cold. You ...

I just threw those out to stimulate thinking. Peltier cooling is probably not practical, but it would be fun to mess with. I think there's a number of guys here that use radiators to cool their water as they recycle it with a pump. Lots of ways to skin this cat. I keep going back to Mason Jar's clam...

Here are some interesting links to cooling devices. The peltier in particular opens a wide range of new options: http://www.customthermoelectric.com/Water_blocks.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow http://www.peltier-info.com/photos.html" oncli...

Thanks for the enthusiastic responses, I appreciate it. The variations on this theme are endless. I have all kinds of designs running through my head. I would encourage anyone with an idea to build it. Don't worry if it doesn't come out perfect because that's part of the process. I'm certainly no ma...

The test run went well. The exit temp of the water was 116 F, 46C, a drop of about 14 degrees over the last test. Air temp was at 70 F, which was 10 degrees higher than the last test. http://i.imgur.com/lZcZPFM.jpg There was a lot of crap in the pipes, as you can see by the murky water. Nice little ...

Swag, You are the MAN! You are single handedly pushing ahead the boundaries of hobby distilling. Pint-o-Shine did air cooled distilling years ago with a 50 or 60 foot coil of 1/2 or 5/8" copper tubing and a beefy box fan, but you are building an apartment/stovetop scale rig that anyone can use...

I didn't think aluminum and alcohol got along well. Am I wrong there? The other issue would be sealing the whole thing up. One of the reasons I built it this way was to have a sealed system without having to build a box, because they're a pain. Anyone with a drill press and a hack saw could build th...

Again you did a perfect job, Swag.. :thumbup: I can understand why you had second thoughts about drilling them lenght wise. If you whish to do so, milling would give a much better result. Should be easy enough to mill in aluminium, it might even be done in a drillpress if you don't have a millingma...

I'm glad you guys like it, it's been fun to build. I was originally planning on orienting the pipes lengthwise down the sink, but I couldn't figure out a way to drill a 9" long hole without cutting the sink in half again. I suppose I could have bought a longer bit, but I'm too cheap. It will be...

Version 2 has been started. As before, I cut a 4" X 18" heat sink in half. Then I attached some 1/4" X 1" strips of aluminum to the flat part of one half to act as spacers and drill guides. http://i.imgur.com/aIBJccf.jpg My plan was to bore 7 holes for 1/2" copper pipe throu...

I love your creativity.. I am following this... I am curious how much noise the fans make.. Would I hear my dog barking outside the wellhouse if someone pulled up in the drive??? These fans aren't that loud. You could have a normal conversation right next to them, and certainly hear the dogs barkin...

Hey thanks, I was happy with the results. Water is tougher than alcohol to knock down, so I feel confident that I can use this condenser in any application. The exit water temperature was also lower than I expected, which was a pleasant surprise. It's nice to have some buffer in case the ambient air...

I tested the new and improved version today. I added two more fans and some heat sinks to the frame. The white crap around the sink is heat sink compound. http://i.imgur.com/iFY5vtH.jpg The added fans provided plenty of air across the sinks. Here are the results from a run with only water: Run time:...

Thanks for the formula MJ, that will be helpful. I got 4 new fans with higher airflow, plus I have added cooling fins along the perimeter of the frame. I'll do a test this weekend and keep track of the time and quantity of condensate so we can have some numbers. Cheers, power in kW = (evaporation he...

......I also have a scrubbie in the column.....which would act as a filter to large particles. Now, you know from your extensive reading that scrubbies are not needed or effective in a pot still (column), right Swag? You should know this already. Nag, nag, nag :wink: I mostly use my pot still for s...

Thanks for your concern SS. I do have a temp port on the column, and do not plan on using a trap configuration during a normal run. I just wanted to make sure no vapor was passing through for testing purposes. Cheers P.s. I also have a scrubbie in the column which would act as a filter to large part...

For ethanol it is 846 KJ/Kg, water is 2257 KJ/Kg. Good to know anyway. I suppose I could do some highly complex calculations to determine the actual heat dissipation potential of my rig, but it's much easier to just see if we have liquid coming out of the business end, and how hot it is. The ambien...

Thanks all, I appreciate your support and excellent suggestions. I don't think it would have worked without the baffles, the water was definitely hot coming out. I've already stripped the unit down, and I'm re configuring a few things to add more sinks on to the frame. I cut up a larger sink to make...

OK, got it all together and tested it out today. I ran the pot still at full tilt for an hour (after boiling was achieved), and the condenser knocked it all down. The water was hot coming out of the thing, but liquid nonetheless. I fashioned a "trap" in the output tube to make sure no vapo...

Hah, I did my homework after I opened my mouth, as usual. I read a similar paper from Cisco all about heat sink design and application. Anyway, I still have to build the copper parts, which means a less than ideal configuration. This would be so much simpler if alcohol and aluminum were better frien...