Bubble Cap Plates - what makes them so hard?

[Manback]

Sort of said it all in the thread title..

Basically, I understand that soldering bubble plates using copper and drilling the holes would be a prick.. but if the plates were for a 3" column, stainless, and tigged together.. what would be hardest about it? Tigging like eight little caps into each plate wouldn't be such of a mission, would it?

But, obviously it is, and obviously therefore I'm missing something!

What's the deal here?

P.S. Please don't tell me to go and read. I've done that.

[JethroBodine]

The difficult part of bubble caps is getting everything soldered at the same time as they are so close together and copper concucts SO well. If you are going to TIG stainless, you will find the assembly MUCH easier as nothing should desolder/ remelt once in place. I thought of doing this when I was planning mine. I still see it as much easier and even tried TIGing my copper, but it was too much for the little machine I had. I prefer welding to soldering anyday.

[olddog]

There is nothing wrong with either bubble caps, valved plates, or perforated plates, I have never said there was. It all comes down to personal choice and which is easier for you to construct. A lot of people have either a propane or Mapp torch for their construction, but not many of us have Mig or Tig available to us. Make your own choice, it's your build.


OD

[Manback]

There is nothing wrong with either bubble caps, valved plates, or perforated plates, I have never said there was. It all comes down to personal choice and which is easier for you to construct. A lot of people have either a propane or Mapp torch for their construction, but not many of us have Mig or Tig available to us. Make your own choice, it's your build.


OD

OD - I never said you said there was, this is just about the difficulty side of things.. the bubble/perforated plate drama isn't one I wanna be involved in! And I didn't realize there was a problem with posting asking questions - if we all took the 'make your own choice, it's your build' attitude.. there wouldn't be much need for a discussion forum?

The difficult part of bubble caps is getting everything soldered at the same time as they are so close together and copper concucts SO well. If you are going to TIG stainless, you will find the assembly MUCH easier as nothing should desolder/ remelt once in place. I thought of doing this when I was planning mine. I still see it as much easier and even tried TIGing my copper, but it was too much for the little machine I had. I prefer welding to soldering anyday.

Right - well in that case I might try whip up a bubble plate.. can anybody point me in the direction of any info regarding bubble cap dimensions? And yes.. I've looked..

Plan is to implement the suggestion made by someone else, and maybe make a bunch of a sections out of 3", each with a bubble plate on top and tri-clamp ferrules on either end.. and instead of tube, maybe use reducing tees so the addition of a tri-clamp sight glass (a la condensificator) will be minimum hassle..

[Kentucky shinner]

I would love to see you take this a run with it. please post pics... I just wish like hell I had a tig welder. That would make things allot easier for me. I have welded my whole life but have never afforded my own tig machine..
Please variety is the spice of life.. I would love to see you head down this road...
Good luck,
KS

[Manback]

Well I'm still waiting on the thermocouples (actually.. where are they?? haven't heard for a while..!!) for my last build (which are pretty sick, I have to say.. will get pics up once they arrive)..


But in the meantime I figure all I need to build one "section" is a laser cut plate (be about 5$), a 3"x3"x1" reducing tee, two 3" tri-clamp ferrules, and whatever I need for the caps (a little bit of 5/8" and some 3/8" for the risers??)

Should only be about 50NZD for each section (minus sight glass stuff of course).. guess it won't be cheap with 10 sections (+condenser and output control) but the beauty of it will hopefully be in it's ability to function with only a couple of the sections, to start..

Oh, and I think I'll do a Bok head.

[MuleKicker]

There is nothing wrong with either bubble caps, valved plates, or perforated plates, I have never said there was.

OD

nobody said you did OD. Got a guilty conscience?

[JethroBodine]

Manback, in Joe's origional build, he was going to build a 4 inch vodka still and showed a layout of the plates he was going to use, http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopi ... 5#p6849968 His set up didn't have a center support shaft and his other stills used connecting rods on the outer diameter of the plates. I assume he was planning the same thing here. When I get mine done, I'm going to make some of this design to try.

[olddog]

nobody said you did OD. Got a guilty conscience

Nope just making it clear that my mind is open to whichever choice. I am not a member of the Flat Earth Society who cannot see other choices.


OD

[Manback]

If each section was gonna be separate, is there any reason the down-comers couldn't just be J-shaped vapor locks? A threaded bit on each plate could make them movable (up and down)... or am I missing something about down-comers?

[MuleKicker]

I am not a member of the Flat Earth Society who cannot see other choices.


OD

[JethroBodine]

J bends work just fine. OD and KS both have them on their bottom plates. I've gone with a self contained downcommer as well by TIGing squashed caps on the bottom of the downcommer itself http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopi ... 0#p6859231

[Chasin' Tales]

There's nothing to it! Below is a link to a bubble cap column I built last winter. It might have been a tad easier had i built it in stainless, but doing it in copper wasn't all that bad. FWIW...the 2" bubble cap column was built using a Miller Maxstar 150 STL running off 120v.

I do believe that a packed column is much easier to build and will give you equal or better results to a bubble cap column. Especially if neutral is your goal.

http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopi ... 17&t=13195

Best of luck! Let me know if you have any questions!

CT

[olddog]

A downcomer is basically an overflow levelling device limiting the amount of boil on each plate, as long as you have a no return like a J bend or cup to stop vapor rising through the downcomer, it will work fine.


OD

[Manback]

Thanks for the answers guys - looks like this should be easy as in stainless with tig.

With regard to a packed column being better - pretty much just finished building a 2" packed column with LM and VM take-offs.. this is more for something different (and super sweet)

[JethroBodine]

Where you going to have the copper, Man? In the condensor?

[Manback]

I will use copper for the condenser, yup. And I will either repeat what Rednose did with the copper caps over stainless risers - each plate will be accessible so cleaning would be easy, or have a 6" section packed with copper SPP (3.5mm x 3.5mm) at the bottom.. but I like the idea of copper caps. Just gotta figure out what I'm actually gonna use for caps.. sure there'll be something convenient that I can just slot.

[JethroBodine]

I was thinking of slots also as they would allow more vapor through as the flow was increased. Sounds like a cool setup. Cheers, Man

[Manback]

I'll get an order off to the laser-cutting place tomorrow for the discs and do a little shopping for reducing tee's & something for the bubble caps. Keen!

EDIT: This is gonna be sick!! I just wish I could finish my other build.. stupid thermocouples..

[castleclr]

Would one large bubble cap work as well as several small ones?
ty
c

[Manback]

+1 what castleclr said!

[Manback]

How so rockchucker?

Talking about 1 cap, taking up the same amount of room as several smaller ones.. why would liquid area be diff?

[olddog]

but tough to get a good arrangement that was removable.

It depends whether you want to just remove the whole assembly, or to be able to remove individual plates. If you only want to remove the whole assembly for cleaning etc, instead of mounting the plates on a center rod, solder them to 4 pieces of hard silver solder rod on the rim of the plates, I have done this on my last build, and it makes sure that all of the plates are square and flat with no tilt on the plate occuring when you slide the assembly into the column.



OD

[LWTCS]

Would one large bubble cap work as well as several small ones?
ty
c

Yes.

How big would'ja like?

[olddog]

That's not a cap, that's a helmet.


OD

[LWTCS]

Yes.

Actually, I got so excited about another opportunity to crowbar a pic of my stuff in that I didn't really consider your question.

More plates will offer more purity if that is what your where asking. Or were you asking about more bubble caps per plate?



I puts that helmet right down on me soft spot for protection and so forth

[Manback]

Question has sorta drifted a fair bit LW

rockchucker - I don't need a centre support, my column will be individual sections with a plate in each section, do you reckon that would make it easier to sus?

[olddog]

If you look at the diagram in Holstiens catalogue, you can see they are only using one cap, it should be easy to replicate using a 1 1/2"riser under a 2"cap on a 4"plate.

Holstein.png (241.23 KiB) Viewed 4175 times

I think the diagram is intentially fuzzy as not to give away too much detail, but it's enough to get the basic idea.



OD

[LWTCS]

Had to delete that last question. Gal dern brain freeze

On another note,,,how much liquid will be retained on each plate?

Loneswinger has created a calculator that does a really good job of forcasting performance.

http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopi ... =1&t=17925

Perhaps he could plug in your input values and give you some insight on what to expect from your forthcoming performance?

[Manback]

OD my column is 3" - what size would you reckon for that? 1.25" riser? bigger? As long as my area is big enough it's not a huge drama is it?

LW with regard to volume I haven't figured that yet but I figure I don't need to have that fully sussed to get going..

rockchucker - looks good!