Lets Talk Column Packing

[rad14701]

Also I am guessing the washer right behind the screw driver blade is to prevent the wire from accidently spinning backwards??

The washer is what the feed wire works against, which in turn causes the SPP to move outwards and off the mandrel... The amount of tension on the wire is what causes the amount of twist of each successive wind...

[DAD300]

Yes, kind of and so, so...

The 2" washer keeps the wire from binding on the moving face of the lathe chuck and the small one behind the mandrel pushes the wire to the right and off the mandrel as Rad said.

My wire feed is not very sophisticated...in fact it's down right crude. The wire comes off a spool hung on the end of the work bench, through a piece of pex water line, double wrapped around a piece of red pex as a guide device and on to the mandrel. I use my heavily leather gloved hand as the tension device to control the wrap/spiral of the SPP tube.

The lathe is only spinning at about 350 rpm. The break strength of the wire is ~60 lbs. The wrap around the red pex is providing ~45 lbs tension. So I can vary the tension ~15 lbs before it breaks. When/if it breaks the wire it is a non event. The break happens between the tension device and the mandrel. There is no flying wire.

It only takes about 3 minutes to make an 8 foot tube of spiraled wire. I cut it and start over. Later I set down in front of the tv and cut the spirals into bits with diagonals.

I've seen and studied the automated setups, with solenoid cutters. I just couldn't justify the engineering time to automate for something I'll only do once.

If you buy the SS 304, 308 or 316 welding wire off ebay, it'll be ~$3-$4 usd a pound for a 25 lb spool, you need 3.7 lbs to make a quart or liter and it takes almost four quarts to fill a 3" column 30". I have about six quarts total and can fill a 3" x 52". In a 2" or 3" column you'll never need more than 26-36"s with SPP.

I have used it in a 2" by 28" and it took ~2 quarts.

This is a 3" x 32" VM column on a gas fired keg. There is a heavy wire grid at the bottom, 2" of copper mesh and 30" of SPP.

[noknife]

well i ran my 2" column for the first time, and also had lava for the first time, so i can't do any kind of comparing really.( old still 1-1/2x 24" of packing. new 2"x35" of packing )but i know i hit at least 96.7. never came close before. was only running at about 3 to 4 drops a second, cranked it up to 4 or 5 and went down to 95%. all in all for 5 $ i do like the lava, thought i am thinking more and more about that ssp good tip dad on the welding wire, i did look before your post on ebay but "stainless wire" get soo many hits. guess i just gave up. by the way. beauty build there

[flyingdutchman]

I see a lot of hits on ebay for mig welding wire. Mostly its SS 308 not sure if thats good or bad lol .Maybe someone with more experience with SS could explain the advantages of one over the other? I am interested in making some also but might be tempted to hold off making it till we get results in on other materials. However it sounds really promising and I appreciate DAD sharing all that info on how to make it! I also thank Mash for putting this thread together and giving us all a chance to look into all this new stuff!

[mash rookie]

I am actually going to wind up some SPP this morning. Well, I am going to try. Many months ago I bought some de-ox copper welding wire to see if I could MIG copper. That was an expensive disaster. This looks like a good use for it if it will work. I have stainless on hand as well. I often change over wire and gas to MIG stainless. I will wind up some stainless too. I would like to have some SPP for a day of direct comparison testing against other packings.

FD I will post up which grade my stainless is. I think it is 308 but will check. There are at least two types I am aware of. Stainless welds only wire and stainless to mild steel welding wire. I use the stainless only stuff.

EDIT. Yes, 308

[noknife]

yes i second thanking MR. Without this thread i wouldn't know about any of the other packing ideas. and i just happen to find it just as i was starting my new build.

[ohyeahyeah]

308 is a better grade then 304 used mostly just for welding wire and filler rod.

[Odin]

Mash, what are your expectations on copper SPP? What comes to my mind: it should do a better job at controling sulphates in the end product, I can imagine. That might be a pro when compared to SS SPP. Copper is lighter than SS, so that might have an impact as well ...

Odin.

[mash rookie]

I remember that the Russians use 304 tie wire. NOT WELDING WIRE! Welding wire is like a spring. It certainly is not as easy as DAD makes it look if you are using welding wire.

LOL Maybe I was just having an off day.

It was a frustrating experience. I spent several hours with minimal success while making a mess. 2 hours trying to wind SPP and two hours unwinding the mess when I dropped my full roll of stainless wire. Some of it I put a pull tie on and cut it off the spool.

I welded three different mandrels before I got it working. I screwed up the first one when I tried to braze it. The second one I made too short. The third one I TIG'd it and got pretty close. I used a ground 1/8 ip tap. I was not square enough or long enough and struggled with tension early. It would stop winding as soon as it released from the notch. I found a small roll of 304 .040 tie wire on the shelf. It wound easily. When I finally started to figure things out I was burned out from untangling what seemed like 1000 feet of spring laying on the shop floor. All good. I will weld up a spring loaded tension device that will bolt to my lathe with a spool holder to keep the welding wire in check. I have some springs around here somewhere.
Next time I have the opportunity I should get it working.

[Bushman]

MR SPP came up this morning on another forum and I mentioned you using copper to try and make some and here is his response back to me.

When I purchased from the Polish guy he sent along a sample of copper SPP. It was larger in size and seemed to tangle and get bent out of shape easier. I still have that sample around here somewhere. If I can find it I'll post up a photo.

[flyingdutchman]

Hi Mash,
That has been my experience with SS 308 welding wire is that it is very spring like. I have seen SS lockwire by Malin by the pound that may be workable just not sure of the grade.

PS here are the "thread type tensioners" I have seen used for wrapping rod blanks and bow strings..

bowstring tensioner.jpg (8.15 KiB) Viewed 3635 times

Let me know if you come up with a work around with the SS wire
FD

[emptyglass]

I've got a few tins of stanless lock wire here, made by "National Standard" it seems. They are very old tins so not sure of what brands are available, but its aviation lock wire.
Its very flexable, low memory and would do what you want well MR, but I'm not sure if it contains lead to make it flexable. It could contain some other element not so bad for our purpose, but I don't know how you'd tell.

After lock wiring an engine, your hands end up black, but that may just be winding/processing oils. The rolls I have are 0.025", but I'm sure its available in different diameters.

[mash rookie]

I think the welding wire will work well once I have it dialed in. Where soft copper wire probably wont work for SPP BM, copper welding wire is tempered and will hold a shape as well as stainless.
The soft was easy. The welding wire requires much more tension to wind and a smaller mandrel used as it wont take all the bend.

I will have to build two devices. For the spool either a can to contain the wire like a sewing bobbin or a clothes pin type clamp and roller from the axle that keeps tension on the wire surface.
(or I could mount a camera and make money from funny/ stupid videos. remember the can of snakes?)

Secondly, I will build a spring tension device similar to the sewing thread tension control you pictured FD. I plan a “S” curve feed. In, over a roller, back and over/through tensioner and to the mandrel. I will use a much larger spring on a fine thread bolt. The assembly will attache to my tool post so that adjustments are easy.

I will post pictures. I Promise! This is exactly my skill set.

[noknife]

meant to post this the other day. not sure about the diameter, but it's 302 grade i think that's good enough. and it's dirt cheap. found some 430 by the same seller, think it's less than half the price but i don't trust any 400 grade enough for this kind of project. this is probably what i will get if I decide to do it.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/045T302-STAINLE ... 2a2a12d819" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

[mash rookie]

045T302-STAINLESS-STEEL-TIE-WIRE-6-POUND-COIL-

045t =45 thou, 302 grade stainless. Thats a good price and would work well winding easier than welding wire. It is what I would buy. I am going to make stiff wire work so I can use up the expensive copper wire I have. I should have enough copper, stainless welding wire and soft stainless to make enough for testing.

[noknife]

duh t=thou. ha. that's what i thought cause the 045. obviously. but the t threw me off.what the heck. don't need a t, needs a decimal.

[DAD300]

OOOooohhhh...I didn't say it was easy or I'd be selling it to you guys!

I said it was a once in a life time job to get enough for a large column.

[flyingdutchman]

OOOooohhhh...I didn't say it was easy

Ha good one!

[WIski]

MR,

I've been reading the proper diameter for the SPP is 1/10th column diameter and the wire should be 1/10th the diameter of the SPP. So with a 4" (102mm) column the SPP would be about 13/32" (10mm) diameter and wire size about .041" (1mm). Is this what you’re looking at or is this bad information?

Thanks....

[noknife]

Well my 2cents. Haven't done much research on ssp but that's the sizings i read. wanted to post something else though. I hit 96.5 last run, said 96.7 oops. but last time i must have set something up wrong or it's just cause i had 7 gal today as apposed to 2 last time. don't think so but this time I had a fast 5 drops a second and was still hitting 96.5, last time it dropped to 95% when I tried to speed it up. prob just getting to know my knew build, but man it worked great today.

[dracored]

The thead on lava rock packing seems to have died out. I'm ready to build a new 2 inch VM on a keg boiler and have ceiling room for up to a 5 foot tower. Gonna try lava. What is consensus on tower height and rock size to reliably pull in the 90's on one run of 10 to 12% sugar wash at high but reasonable rates? Thanks for advice.

[mash rookie]

I have hit perfection with as little as 30 inches. However that is with a four inch column. A two inch may require greater hieght to compensate for increased vapor speed. If you can go above 48 inches do it.

The packing thread has not really died. I have not had a chance to continue with my testing recently. I have some perlite to test. I will first try it at normal 32 inches first.

Once I get a chance to get back to making some SPP I plan to do side by side comparison testing with short loads of maybe 12 inches of packing. Using the same wash I will test compare Stainless steel wool, Scrubbers, Lava, SPP and perlite.

[dracored]

The max height I can go is about 42 inches of reflux tower with the condenser and sweep T on top. Most sources say you don't get much improvement over 36 inches but I have enough copper if its worthwhile. Any suggestion on rock size for the lava?

[manu de hanoi]

OOOooohhhh...I didn't say it was easy or I'd be selling it to you guys!

I said it was a once in a life time job to get enough for a large column.

lol, it took me days of work to get the first rig going. How much time did you spent making you rig, running it and then cutting the strands into small pieces so that you have enough SPP to fill your column DAD ?

[DAD300]

I'm lucky enough to have a lathe set up all the time. So, I spent about two hours making and testing mandrels, about two hours test winding wire, about an hour winding the final design and about five cutting the coils into bits.

If I were to make more, I would simplify the cutting of bits, but not sure how I would go at it. Something like a paper cutter with a stop outside the blade to set the length. Still using human arm to make the cut.

[WIski]

DAD,

I've been reading the proper diameter for the SPP is 1/10th column diameter and the wire should be 1/10th the diameter of the SPP. So with a 4" (102mm) column the SPP would be about 13/32" (10mm) diameter and wire size about .041" (1mm).

I think I have the diameter of the wire and the SPP figured out but how are you calculating the length of the coil? And is the length variable as to column diameter?

Thanks!!! Great info.......

[frozenthunderbolt]

Something like a paper cutter with a stop outside the blade to set the length. Still using human arm to make the cut.

i recon that a metal blad on a band saw with a bit of wood clamped to the top of it to give distance behind the blade (chopped coil length) would work primo. Flick flick flick flick - a chute and bin behind it

[DAD300]

I believe the coil diameter should be 1/10 the column dia and the length should be 1.5 x the coil dia.

The wire diameter is more dependent on the weight of the column filled with wire. The SPP at the bottom has to be able to withstand the crush of the SPP on top of it.

For a 4" column the SPP should be ~.031"-.036" dia wire, ~10mm dia and ~15mm long.

But use what you have or can get...wire dia in stainless steel was very limited for me. I used .031" and wished I'd had .025".

The SPP should be sized to the column size. Too small a size SPP will hold too much fluid and flood easier. There are videos on youtube of glass columns showing flooded SPP.

My belief is from studying the commercial Heli-Pak specifications. It is made in four sizes.

frozenthunderbolt, I agree with the stop idea. If using a cleaver type device, keep the handle as long as you can for leverage.

I even thought about a nice pair of tree limb loopers with one handle fastened to a work bench.

Limb.jpg (4.68 KiB) Viewed 3522 times

That may be overkill, but doing it with electrician wire diagonals ate my hands up and was slow.

[WIski]

I believe the coil diameter should be 1/10 the column dia and the length should be 1.5 x the coil dia.

Thanks for that DAD. Great info!! I'll give that a shot.......

[rumbuff]

It's been while since I've followed this thread, wow, there's alot of information here! MR, you said you thought about fiberglass? It would keep weight and cost down, and should be easy to get. I know you were worried about collapse. I'm thinking heavy duty fiber cloth, cut in disks, with spacing rings or washers. As long as they were packed vertically and held in place the cloth should be kept apart but at a very close spacing. You could probably even use a band of fiber, wound between the layers to get the same effect. Might work kindof like a flute, but without bubbling on the layers, and better seperation.