here are some pics of my air cooled still..
holds the water at 28deg continuasly.
I used an old refrigeration radiator with fan built into box.
cost me $5 at scrap yard.
and a 1500 lt hour pond pump to circulate the water, i purchased the high capacity for the head hight, the hight it has to pupmp the water up.
i did some tests and as im in a hot area were avarage temp is 25-30c + air cooling alcohol would requier a large air surface condensor, air/water cooling is more compact and efficant.
I built the still but i am still making changes to it not happy with it yet.. next month i should have it finnished.
altho this setup works nicely, i found the coild copper tube radiator like the one im useing there restricts waterflow to much also the reservoir needs to be integrated, i am in the process of geting a car type radiator with 1 or 2 thermo fans on it that run of 12V so i can power the whole lot of a car battery and 80W solar panel if needed.
so many projects and im finding very little time to squeeze them in between drinking.
That still looks so nice that I thought that you bought it. Fooled me.
"If you can't dazzle them with brilliance... baffle them with bullshit."
"Don't steal. The government hates competition."
"Believe none of what you hear, and only half of what you see"
thanx on the compliments on the looks of the still but its not finnished yet..
couple of out of place bends in it at the moment due to intoxication while working and rushing things but ill fix the next time.
im trying to pool the best of others stills into mine as well as a couple of improovments of my own, but i will mention were i took the ideas from when i get the final project finnished..
="decoy"
altho this setup works nicely, i found the coild copper tube radiator like the one im useing there restricts waterflow to much also the reservoir needs to be integrated, i am in the process of geting a car type radiator with 1 or 2 thermo fans on it that run of 12V so i can power the whole lot of a car battery and 80W solar panel if needed.
so many projects and im finding very little time to squeeze them in between drinking.
Is your water pump 12V or mains?
I'm in the process or setting up a cooling water system so I can avoid the huge water wastage when using tap water.
I 'm planning on using a 12V bilge pump to pump water to a header tank controlled by a float operated switch. The water from the header tank will flow (under gravity) through the condenser to the water jacket (boiler) header tank and overflow to an evaporative air cooler before trickling back into an old plastic caravan water tank containg the pump.
If the cooling is insufficient I'll add a car radiator between the pump and header tank and fans on the evaporative cooler and radiator.
I need to do this as my tap water is solar heated in mid summer because of the unburied polytpipe between me and the tank.
the pump im useing is 240 but voltage is not an issue if you get a pupm with correct head hight and rating it will do the job..
the problem i found was all the bends in that radiator were causing to much resistance so a car radiator would be better and combinig an evaporative cooler will increase performance again.
mind you the head hight is the difrance between the input and the return output so if you pumpd water out of a bucket up 2 storys and had the hose coming back down just above the bucket the head hight will be the distance between the surface of your tank and were the return is.
For a good pump, I recommend a deck wash pump from a boating store. I paid $120 for mine and it flows plenty of water and it comes with a 5 year warranty
Here froggy froggy..
Shane
Our reading material:
The Compleat Distiller
Making Pure Corn Whiskey
="Froggy"
For a good pump, I recommend a deck wash pump from a boating store. I paid $120 for mine and it flows plenty of water and it comes with a 5 year warranty
I bought a $40 12V pump (500 GPH) because it could deliver about 50 GPH @ 4m head.
mind you the head height is the difference between the input and the return output so if you pumped water out of a bucket up 2 stories and had the hose coming back down just above the bucket the head height will be the distance between the surface of your tank and were the return is.
That is not entirely true
If you have the same pipe system going up 2 stories then falling down (straight up, straight down) it will be true. Except that the system must be completely full up two stories and back down to the exit. The falling water will create a vacuum and help pull the water 2 stories up.
The problem is – how do you get the system full in the first place? Pump the water up 2 stories right? You can prime it, but you have to fill both sides and if you ever turn it off – you must prime again.
If you have a different pipe configuration on the up side then the down side – it throws it out the window. Say you have an extra 30 ft of pipe length and 60 bends on the up side (coil). The water falling down doesn’t have the energy to pull the water through that much resistance. Therefore a pump with more head is needed.
mech eng you are right it has to be primed first and it will operate minus a small amount for the hose resistance i guess my statment was more so to highlite the fact that if you had a large loop of hose eaven a small pump will do the job.
the head hight of the pump i used is 2.5m the still is only approx 1.8m so the pump was capable of priming the hose at the lower 200 lph, once the hose filled up it then opperated at a headhight that is the difrance between the water surface and the hose return output which is about 20cm and i pumped approx 1400 lph.
the airconditioner radiator is made out of continuos tube with about 35 U joiners these are creating a large amount of resistance, were a car radiator has hundreds of smaller cores yoining a upper and lower resivor so the water only drains down with minimal resistance, the test will be wether it will be as affective to cool the water as the refrigiration radiator.
A couple of the designs being proposed here strike me as a little over-elaborate.
First, if either an aircon or car radiator is being employed, then maximum use ought to be made of gravity. In other words, don't have the heat exchanger on the ground; have the outflow of the condenser (or the double boiler) dropping through the heat exchanger and thence into the base tank. Pumping from there up through yet another heat exchanger strikes me as asking for trouble.
A header tank should only be required if the resistance of the heat exchanger is so high that it chokes the pump. In that case, I would be inclined to replace the heat exchanger with some copper pipe. Super exchange efficiency with fins and other trappings is hardly required.
If a mains supply is available, then why make a rod for your own back by using a 12 V pump?
To get back to the post which kicked this thread off, there is a lesson buried there. In general, air-cooled condensers only work when fan-forced. There is an interesting issue here of whether a fan consumes more or less energy than a water pump.
="decoy" i cant see the difrance the hight i place the radiator of the ground would make tho.. as the liquid travels thru a closed loop
Fair enough. The closure wasn't clear to me, nor the fact that the heat exchanger outlet is at the same level as the inlet. Personally, I would be inclined to use a pump that was capable of running open or closed. They're hardly expensive, but it could be a bit of an ask in 12 V. Also, add in the drain of the fan and the issue arises of whether your battery would provide enough running time. That's what I'm getting at with the over-elaborate comment - use of both a pump and a fan, when you could probably get away with one or the other.
="decoy"
a car radiator has hundreds of smaller cores yoining a upper and lower resivor so the water only drains down with minimal resistance, the test will be wether it will be as affective to cool the water as the refrigiration radiator.
Depends on what sort of fan is used on each.
I'd set the car radiator up so that it stays full rather than just trickling through. Put the hot water in the top and take the cooled water from the bottom. Bring the outlet from the bottom up to near the inlet height before it overflows into your storage container.
The purpose of an AC coil is to reduce pressure and increase resistance. AC systems (residential) run at about 150-200 psi into the coil and 40-90 psi out of the coil. The pressure is reduced by the orifice first and the coil length and turns second. The theory is to keep the refrigerant in the coil as long as possible to make sure it changes to a gaseous state. This is not all that goes on but I don’t want to right a book on it so forgive me if I left some things out.
If you are using a “used” coil it should have some oil residue on the inside walls – nasty stuff. They sell cleaners if you want to clean it, but never run your drinking product thru the coil! Even if it is spotless!
The things you have to balance are: Liquid temp in, Liquid flow rate through the rad (GPH), Air temp blowing through the rad, and Air velocity through the rad (CFM). If you change any one of these it will affect the liquid temperature out of the rad. If you live in a warm climate, it may only work seasonally.
After saying all that, I have to ask “Why go thru all that when you can do it a simpler way?”
Are you seeing if it can be done?
on a pot still you can have a large 1/2" coil or worm with a fan on it which would work and has been used before by moonshiners.
but on a vapour or liquid managed reflux still to put a large copper coil or somthing on top would add to the hight and size dramaticlty, altho i am working on a couple of ideas and i will give them a try and let yous know how it goes.
in sydney the dam is low on water and we have water restrictions in place so i decided to try difrent ways to save on water when distilling.
i chose the water thru radiator idea because i can easily adapt the still to this by adding a water pump and a fan cooled radiator cheeply enough without hacking or changing anything on the still and still have the option to pump from a swiming pool, water tank, dam or just go back to tap water.
i get more plesure working on the still and learning about how it works tinkering and making stuff for it then making any spirits.
and all the better if it encourages or helps others like waftman save on water, then all is good.
mech eng i am courious what your simpler way ideas is ?
mech eng i am courious what your simpler way ideas is ?
I see by the first picture in the post that you have an open system. This means it is open to the atmosphere. A closed system is closed from the atmosphere.
I would take the blue bucket and switch it with the red bucket. Disconnect the coil from the circuit and unplug the fan – put it in the garage. Fill the red bucket with ice, water, and pump - plug in the pump and your done. If your ice starts to melt – add more. It looks like you max capacity is only 3-1/2 to 4 gallons in the pot. That shouldn’t run to long to empty the pot. You can even freeze a plastic 1 gal milk jug and just put that in the 5 gal pal. When it melts – swap it out for another. When you are all done for the day – put them all back into the freezer
I like to tinker too. That’s why I was asking if you where doing it to see if it can be done.
From the picture, it looks like all you have is a pot still with a condenser. I could be wrong, but if that is the case – constant liquid temperature through the condenser is not needed. The liquid temperature has to be cool enough to condense your vapor coming out of the still. If the liquid is a bit cooler or fluctuates below that critical temperature, it doesn’t matter as long as it is below that critical temperature. If it goes above it – you have a problem –vapors come out.
You can probably get away with just a big garbage can full of water. No ice required. No coil required. You can also use your pool as a water source. This will give you a constant temperature if you need it for some other set up and you won’t be wasting any water.
Think of it as a big bucket of water that your still will never heat up.
