My Still

[Saltbush Bill]

Stupefait.

Dont be "amazed" its really very simple " Also, from past posting history, this topic seems to quickly boil down into an almost religious flame war. Thus we simply will not put up with it, and posts about any form of plastic use will be edited, deleted or locked. # "

[The Baker]

I have read of a form of 'plastic' tubing that is made of okay material
(similar I think to plumbers tape but I can't think of the exact word right now.)
Incredibly expensive but I MIGHT use some to connect stainless tubes if I ever
get my coffee jar/ oak lid 'barrels' done.

Geoff

[matjans]

PTFE, or teflon.

[The Baker]

PTFE, or teflon.

Thanks.

Us old buggers tend to struggle for a word.

Geoff

[matjans]

Teaser. Building a new potstill controlller.
Operations screen

Menu

Warning and error. Configurable in the menu.

Need a smaller cabinet.

No connectivity, just a standalone controller based on an arduino and ssr.

Why, you might ask? Working on a new boiler

[Wildcats]

Are those all sensors/thermometer?

[matjans]

The last pic, no, they’re heating pads. 12 x 300W.

[Yummyrum]

Stop it , you’re having way too much fun

[Wildcats]

Well come on, let see that thing!!!

[matjans]

Something like this. A colleague hobby dude from one of the dutch forums, not very experienced distiller but a kickass welder built it for himself. I'm doing the still controller and together we're doing the testing & pad controlling stuff. When the first version is finished, he's helping me out with the welding for my still and i keep supporting the controller thingy.

The idea for the pads was actually his, although i've seen pad heated water boilers before. My still will be slightly different wrt design, ie. I want to be able to remove the outer shell covering the pads and I won;t have a see through thing on it for filling, but rather a standard ss door-thingy.

And yes, yummy, we *are* having fun building this thing.

[MooseMan]

Very interested in the heat pads concept.

And great looking still.

[matjans]

Welll the pads work, so far. Currently no isolation over the pads, and 11 pads @ 300W (full pull, 100% power) heat up 40L of water from 18C to 98C in an hour and a half without the stirrer engaged. Works out, efficiency should be somewhere around 60-70%. We'll add isolation over the pads later on. Hope they can handle the additional heat buildup.

It's not very fast, but i don't mind. During a run you won;t use the full 3.4kW anyway, only during heating up.

The whole idea is to get a copper still with indirect heating, ie no element in the still, but still electric as it's cheap(ish), easy and safe. Where I live (urban neigborhood) I can't really go about fussing with a wood fired thing, and (bottled) gas is quite expensive here.

Steam heating, although rather ideal, is out of the question for diy as I don;t want to have a big hot diy'ed steam pressurized thing in the backyard with kids running around, and i doubt the original copper boiler can handle the pressure (from the wrong side, outside).

[MooseMan]

Welll the pads work, so far. Currently no isolation over the pads, and 11 pads @ 300W (full pull, 100% power) heat up 40L of water from 18C to 98C in an hour and a half without the stirrer engaged. Works out, efficiency should be somewhere around 60-70%. We'll add isolation over the pads later on. Hope they can handle the additional heat buildup.

It's not very fast, but i don't mind. During a run you won;t use the full 3.4kW anyway, only during heating up.

The whole idea is to get a copper still with indirect heating, ie no element in the still, but still electric as it's cheap(ish), easy and safe. Where I live (urban neigborhood) I can't really go about fussing with a wood fired thing, and (bottled) gas is quite expensive here.

Steam heating, although rather ideal, is out of the question for diy as I don;t want to have a big hot diy'ed steam pressurized thing in the backyard with kids running around, and i doubt the original copper boiler can handle the pressure (from the wrong side, outside).

Yes I'm interested in it for exactly the same reasons.
I'm sure that with the right insulation in place, your efficiency will go up a lot and make the heat up time much quicker.

I've been looking at/for a simple heat pad option to go on my next build, it will still have internal element heating but also a couple of pads under the insulation so if I want to use that option I can.