Bubble Bowl Column Build (BBC)

[MoonWhisky]

I finished my first bubble cap plate. I soldered the caps together in a ring that way I can remove them for easy cleaning but yet they are heavy enough to stay on the in coming vapor tube.

[rad14701]

Way cool, MoonWhisky... I'll be curious to hear how this runs...

[Bob Loblaw]

What's your plan for reflux? Dephlag?

[FullySilenced]

I would drill at least one small hole for the plates to fully drain at the end of the run... maybe 2 or 3 if you feel comfortable with it...kinda of a clean in place feature thing

Then you can run clean water back through to rinse the plates off if you desire...

FS

You do plan to solder the plate fully into the bowl bottom half, do you not?

[Brutal]

Now that looks cool!!

[Halfbaked]

I gotta admit that your plate idea is lots better than I expected

NOW the bad part. Once you get running you won't have anything to compare with. Do you know anyone close to you that has a factory build one or know someone what you could run beside? OK that is not so bad but it would be great info. Could change the industry. I hope you are keeping track of every penny you are spending to put it on here at the end.

[MoonWhisky]

What's your plan for reflux? Dephlag?

I will have a shotgun condenser straight off the bowls then maybe slanted plates for take off. Really not sure what I'm going to to.

[LWTCS]

I like it a lot.

I do feel that you will have to run softly with only the one smallish downcomer. But the removable design will work best running softly I suspect?

Will you join the inner and outer ring for added weight ?

[MoonWhisky]

You do plan to solder the plate fully into the bowl bottom half, do you not?

No I plan on just letting the plates rest in the bowls and I will wrap the edge of the disc with ptfe tape so it will hold distillate.

[MoonWhisky]

I like it a lot.


Will you join the inner and outer ring for added weight ?

Most likely, it would look like a spider Web.

[LWTCS]

Pics of the underside?

[MoonWhisky]

[Brutal]

I don't know if you meant to, but this thing is taking on a UFO vibe in more than one way. I think it needs a re-namin'!

...shit. I can't think of one damn one that doesn't suck right now. I'll get back to ya. Hard damn day at work.

[MoonWhisky]

Haha that's funny Brutal. I will be putting the sights glasses on tomorrow. Then I need to figure out condensing. It will be a shotgun of some short cuz I think they're really cool than maybe a liebig after take off. Should I use 1" over 3/4" or 3/4" over 1/2?

[InglisHill]

1 over, go for gold mate. You are an inspiration!

A stillers muse

[bearriver]

Amazing stuff man! I'm inspired...

[MoonWhisky]

Amazing stuff man! I'm inspired...

Thanks bearriver!
Im hopping that this build is something that others will like to remake. So far it's a pretty simple build. Just very time consuming . There's things I'd change like using 4" ferrules & tri-clamp to connect the bowls instead of soldering them togethere & using nuts & bolts but that would get expensive as I'm making this with low budget.

[Prairiepiss]

Your work looks great. And I may use a layout much like this for my next bubbleball.

But I'm still wondering if not soldering the plate in. Or something to hold it in place. Won't have a negative effect. As in the plate not holding liquid. And or the vapors bypassing around the outside of the plate.

Since it won't be attached. What's to keep it centered and level? If its off just a bit. You will have more liquid in the lower side. Then the higher side. I took my time and really made sure to get fu man's plate as level as I could. Before I finally put solder to it. And it took measuring all different ways to make me happy with its positioning. And I still got it ever so slightly off. It bugs me a little when I run it. And can see the liquid level.

I like larry's idea of hooking the two bubblecap rings together. That mite take car of the other problem I posted about in the plate thread.

Waiting to see how it all works out.

Are you done yet?

[MoonWhisky]

No I still have more plates to make I'm waiting on parts. I'm going to make the ball bearing trap plate. (talked about in the plate thread). Then I'm going to make a shotgun condenser for the top of it. (not sure on length or size for 2" input is welcomed) I'm guessing I'll make a custom catcher for the distillate. It will side left to right for open or close. Hard to explain but will consist of slanted plates that will rotate inside a coupling. That or a basic everyday needle valve.

[MoonWhisky]

I Lazer welded lock washers on the bolts to make it easier to assemble & disassemble.

[frozenthunderbolt]

I've got one exactly like this about 2/3 done. going to pack it all with tonnes of stainless scrubbers and insulate the heck out of it. Haven't go the patience for plates!

[MoonWhisky]

Awesome you have pics?

[heartcut]

Very cool build. As mentioned, might need another/ bigger downcomer for that many caps.
This looks like what they make brandy with on Mars.

[BigSwede]

You have a laser welder and an EDM machine? You bastard! I thought my shop was well equipped.

Loving on this build, very much. If it was me, I would have gotten copper disks that get sandwiched perfectly between two bowls, cutting gaskets out of skived PTFE sheet, and with enough bolts and nuts to get a good seal. But that might be a challenge, in retrospect. The pressure of even a short column of liquid might weep out of the rim.

How about soft soldering a strip of copper to form a ring with a diameter just shy of the bowls. The ring would be what contains the pool.

Great job, this is fun to watch. And for USA peeps, Grainger has glass disks in a number of sizes, not too expensive, for home made sight glasses. Also, you can buy big o-rings to seal the glass. Moon, I hope your PTFE wrapped glass disks don't crack, as things heat up and shift, it can happen.

Press on!

[MoonWhisky]

The laser Welder and EDM are at my work. And I found pre cut 6" copper disc 18 gauge for 15 bucks. Plus I wanted the disc to set in the bowl so the bowl walls hold the distillate. I was thinking about soldering a copper 1" strip around the disc but we'll see how it runs without first..
Thank you on the positive feedback guys

[MoonWhisky]

Worked on sight glass ports yesterday

Brazed the first sight port on

Drilled littler holes to make it easier to cut out. My hole saw wouldn't even scratch it.

Gotem all brazed up the heat discolored the stainless big time

So I had to sand blast them to clean them up. Lost my shinyness but oh well

Braze joint

[BigSwede]

Nice... For stainless, I think abrasive blasting is a really nice finish. I like shiny copper, but to me, stainless looks awesome when either blasted, or brushed. 3M pads do a nice job simulating a brushed finish.

Now that it's abrasive-blasted, it'll be satin forever, barring a huge amount of work, but I think it looks great. Kind of like an old-school nickel plate or something.

Maybe I missed it, but do you have a boiler and power source large enough to power this beast? Essentially, you have a 6" plated column, even though it narrows at the neck. All that's going to do is accelerate the vapor at the choke point, but it'll decelerate as it enters the larger void of the next bubble.

Couldn't help but notice the Rio Grande sticker on that copper disk. http://www.riogrande.com/Home" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow Rio Grande is a huge supplier to the jewelry trade. Even if you're not into jewelry, they have a ton of interesting tools and supplies to tickle any craftsman's fancy.

[MoonWhisky]

I have a 15.5 gallon keg with a 5500w heating element w/ a diy ssr controller.

And I work in medical manufacturing. Everything I do is done under a microscope. We order from Rio Grande on a weekly basis. All our files and nsk wheels

I can drill holes in a hypodermic needle small enough the root of your hair won't fit through .

[InglisHill]

Nice.

I can drill a half inch hole through one of them needles I can drive a car through

[MoonWhisky]

Made my custom trap. I wanted to do something different with plates. I wanted more vapor flow than the normal 30degress 1" gap slanted plate.

Made the cuts in the pipe

My lower plate

Slid the plate in the pipe. I pre drilled the 3/4 hole

Inside view

Top plate in.

3/4 pipe in. I will have a gate valve off this going to the PC. You can see the plated in the pipe NY the solder lines