still design using a ac compressor????

[gvillelube]

here is a design i came up with. anybody know anything about refrigerant and know if it would work???

[bentstick]

?

[astronomical]

lmfao... this has gotta be a joke.. anyone that "smart" woulda misspelled some words.. No offense to you alphabetically challenged folks reading this.. i particularly like the wort chiller you've installed in the boiler and labeled as a condenser.

[Coaster]

@ gvillelube,

Looks like you need to have a funnel dunnell before your unabhangig or your zigzaggy won’t fiddleflop.

Regards,
Coaster

[Washashore]

OMG!! I need a parts list!! How many feet of tubing do I need for that condenser in the boiler?

[Sungy]

I love the 30 Gallon plastic barrel for ethanol collection

[King Of Hearts]

Look at the time it was posted, he was three sheets to the wind. LMAO

[Richard7]

Gvillelube, I got to give you credit for trying. It is a neat concept...but the condenser will never give enough heat to the boiler.
And really? Plastic drum? LMAO. Start by reading the rules we live by! By the way how much did you have to drink? Read up and stay safe! I really do like the concept, just don't think it would get hot enough.

[MuleKicker]

I'm not laughing. It's actually a neat idea if you guys know something about a/c. I don't think it will work using the condenser as a heat source. But if you have a stainless / copper evaporator, you could use it as a PRODUCT condenser. R134a is cheap refrigerant, cheap to come by. There are a few hvac guys here that could offer better advice on refrigerant, as they all run most efficiently at different temp/ pressure. I do know, an automotive condenser does get damn hot if not cooled properly, but that sends high side pressure through the roof, and low side cannot then cool properly.
Controling heat is a big part of distillation, not easy with a condenser heat source. The ac system is removing heat through evaporator and dispersing it via condenser. Not to mention, the parts list really needs work, as some have pointed out.

[gvillelube]

A condenser would run at about 200 degrees f. The evaporator would be really cold so that should work well for condensing the ethanol the boiler drum would be metal. The drum used for collecting the ethanol im guessing could be steel or plastic?

[MuleKicker]

Ok dude. Get off the plastic thing. I like the idea of incorporating an ax system into still. Saves on water. But using the condenser as wa heat source will not work. For multiple reasons.

[acfixer69]

OK it could be made to work with some changes and lots of money. Materiel upgrades and size design would test engineering skills beyond mine. Also it would be very inefficient electric bill would outrageous.

AC

[rad14701]

I honestly don't think you'll be able to match both the evaporator and condenser to work efficiently in the same system, nor with the efficiency required for our purposes... A novel concept, but if it was feasible it would be in use today...

[Prairiepiss]

I'm with MK on the not heating the boiler correctly. And in turn the heat from the boiler would hamper the cooling ability. But a system using refrigerant could very easily adapted to replace water coolant in a still. Biggest problem I would see would be the fact it would have to stay in place. Not easy to take apart and put away. So it would become a fixture and not mobile. I've actually thought about it quite a few times. Not that I would ever build it. If I had a way to charge a system. I mite.

[midcarolina]

First........ a little a/c 101.........a btu is the amount of energy it takes to raise one pound of water one degree, so lets say you used a 30k btu a/c system the condenser would raise the temp in the boiler until the water was so hot the condenser could not reject any more heat.......refrigerant pressures would go out of spec, sub cooling superheat would crash.........system failure would result. plus on the other end ( evaporator ) would sweat like crazy...... so you would end up with a dilluted mess of water/likker..........

[ozone39]

I see what he is trying to do. We have these systems in heating and cooling systems. They are a heat pump system. Problem is they are limited to around 205 F (depending on your elevation). Basically a heat pump system transfers heat from one media to another by the use of refrigerant. You would need two water tanks, one for cooling which would be for the condenser, and one for the heating side which would be for the boiler side (these would be a simple heat exchanger). From there a set of pumps would be needed to transfer the water to the coils. But again the heat pumps i have seen do not run above 190F.....I have been pondering the thought of using an old chilled water fountain unit for cooling a tank of water that would then be pumped through my condenser.....Thus no need to waste tap water for cooling...

here is a wiki link on heat pumps and how they are used in radiant floor heat....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_pump" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

[Coaster]

In a home hobby Still we control the “Coolness” temperature of the cooling condenser coil by adjusting the water flow to the cooling condenser coil. How do you control the “Coolness” temperature of the cooling condenser coil in a refrigerant system? In a home air-conditioning system the compressor circulating the cooling refrigerant cycles either fully on or fully off. How would you keep a constant cooling condenser coil temperature?

Regards,
Coaster

[midcarolina]

In a home hobby Still we control the “Coolness” temperature of the cooling condenser coil by adjusting the water flow to the cooling condenser coil. How do you control the “Coolness” temperature of the cooling condenser coil in a refrigerant system? In a home air-conditioning system the compressor circulating the cooling refrigerant cycles either fully on or fully off. How would you keep a constant cooling condenser coil temperature?

Regards,
Coaster

Modern compressors are variable speed...... scroll compressors.. that ramp up /down depending on calculated load on system.

Just to clarify from a earlier post........ main job of the condenser on a a/c system rejects the heat caused by the compressor compressing the gases( causes heat) there is some parasitic heat from the returning vapor but it is a small part of the heat rejected.............

[ozone39]

put a three way valve on the pumped cooling line and only peel the the necessary amount of chilled water out of the chiller tank (the ac unit only cools water in a reservoir tank) needed to keep the condenser the temperature you want to maintain. They do this in heat and chilled systems with modulating three valves with temperature sensors, the same can be done manually with a three way valve as long as you are there to throttle the valve as needed...

[Sungy]

Ok guys....Well I have some experience here.I took a heat pump and heated a hot tub. A friend had a problem where he had to remove large amounts of heat from his business. Turns out he scored big.
He runs the heat pump to cool the space. The heat is them transferred to the condenser co-axial coil. His hot tub was piped to the water connections of the heatpump. The hot tub would maintain 102"f which is just under the saturated condensing temperature of 110'f ( MAXIMUM temp that manufacturers design condensers to work at before there efficiency drops off). Now he runs a 9 amp heatpump instead of 23 amp hot tub heater.
I have worked on eco. breweries (green technology ) where they do a similar thing with hot water tanks to preheat the water. Maximum temperature for these is 140"f.
I also Frankensteined my home a/c to split the condenser in to two parallel condensers one co-axial and one finned tube(typical a/c condenser). I heat my pool with it in the summer. works great and save me money as the small circ pump I use is 0.5 amps the condenser fan runs at 2.9 amps. Also the a/c uses 3 amps less hydro running this way as the compessor runs cooler.

So in conclusion I have tried it all. The outcome is the same as was mentioned above. Large pile of scrap metal and a lot of wasted time and money. You are asking the equipment to work massively outside its design specification.

hope this gives a little more clarity

[MuleKicker]

The priciple is right. But you cant get something from nothing. If you split the system so you could vary the load to the condenser heating the mash, it may be possible. But you need to boil the mash to get vapor to condense, and you need to get vapor to condense to boil the mash. kinda a catch22. In a normal cooling operation, I think you could boil a mash with the condenser heat. But the evaporator (product condenser) needs to remove heat from something first.

And say your wash is boiling like hell. You dont want to cut down on evaporator efficiency to slow the boil.

Sungy, I like those heatpump ideas you are using. Great.

[Tater]

Some super markets use condensers heat in whats called heat reclaimer. Heat store in winter. preheat hot water and the like. Country ham factory's that Ive worked on use reclaimed heat to create the summer heat for curing the hams.

[zouthernborne]

What if we took a boiler and placed it over a heat source, then let the vapor travel down a condenser into glass jars?

[Prairiepiss]

What if we took a boiler and placed it over a heat source, then let the vapor travel down a condenser into glass jars?

What's the fun it that?

Sungy I love the hot tub mod.
But I got to ask you. Why are you heating your pool in the summer?

[boingk]

Get hotplate, sit boiler on it.

Run condenser through water barrel, not mash.

Fire her up, collect liquor.

- boingk

[Prairiepiss]

Get hotplate, sit boiler on it.

Run condenser through water barrel, not mash.

Fire her up, collect liquor.

- boingk

That sounds about as fun as the last one. Well even less fun with a hotplate.

[Sungy]

Sungy I love the hot tub mod.
But I got to ask you. Why are you heating your pool in the summer?

The water arrives in a truck at 50'f. Would take a week to heat up before I modded the ac. Up here in Canada I can get an extra month out of the pool usage ( open it two weeks early. Close 2-3 weeks later). Nights can get cold. I monitor pool temp and maintain 83'f. Any excess heat after the pool is heated goes back to the standard outdoor coil.

Bonus for me this year as "Pennie Lane" will be out in the shed needing a source of cooling for her condensers.......Yup gonna be a great summer.

[ThomasBrewer]

I see that gvillelube's original post was generally poo-poo'd, but I thought I'd bump it back for a little more discussion.

Sungy explained that the condensing circuit has to be lower than ~43C (110F) for this to work with modern refrigerants, ideally lower still. So, how do you get a boiler charge of 8% ethanol to boil sub 110F?

The only way I'm aware of is to reduce the the pressure and run a closed-system. The rotavap manufacturer Buchi recommends a ∆ 20 °C(36F) rule-of-thumb between the boiling solution and the condenser temperature. If you can run a modest vacuum of 100mbar, you can achieve that 40-43C (105-110F). I think that's a pretty common temperature range for modern HVAC systems in hot environments.

[LWTCS]

Heat Exchanger.
Can we agree that a condenser is also a heat exchanger.

Beyond that I am ambivalent.

[cob]

I had to check if the OP is from a green state. Nope still not green now.