Plated column questions

[PalCabral]

Hiya guys!

I've always felt the plated columns are out of my league, at least for now, but recently I was asked if I was interested in buying a used 4 inch perforated plate, and that jogged my interest. However, I really don't know much about them, and thus I've read many threads here about perforated plates, especially Higgins's and Haggy's threads. I still have some pretty basic questions I was hoping you help to answer. Bear in mind, I am only thinking about making rum and whiskey, not the slightest interested in making neutral spirits.

My first question is really about the need for a view port or a sight glass. Besides being nice to look at reflux, what is it that we are looking for from the operations point of view? I mean, are we looking at upper part to see the bath, or below it to see the reflux downcomers? In the below picture from the internet, and forget it's a bubble plate in this example, the view port is below the plate. I would guess I would be more interested from an operational perspective to to view the bath, to determine that we are loaded and refluxing. Am I right? What value is there to look at the downcomers? Or would I need another sight glass mounted on top of the Tee to view the bath side?

Tee with plate and view port.jpg

Second question is really about just using one plate, or in my specific case, using one plate above a copper onion. Will I even get the effect of the plates in this case? The copper onion adds heaps of reflux in my rig, would the perforated plate be a "second" plate in my set up, or just something that smears the carp out of the fractioning effect I am getting from copper onion - two wonderful cheeses don't necessarily make a good sandwich? Even without the onion, will one plate have any meaningful effect? I am talking about making rum and whiskey here.

Final question. Is the plate useless without a reflux condenser? I am assuming it is but in my research I stumbled across someone from Milehi (which I have little regards for) saying it's possible to run it without reflux. Is this actually true or just more horse manure from that particular person?

In my case, my RC is 2 inch shotgun and I would have a reducer between the plate and the RC - the RC itself in 20cm tall (8 inches). Would the RC be enough to work with a 4 inch plate, or do I need a 4 inch RC for my one plate example?

I realize that just by asking these questions, I am not really ready for using a plated column yet, but knowledge will never hurt anyone.