Plates Plates Plates

[MoonWhisky]

I believe the reducer trap will work with a washer or wire soldered in placed over to keep the ball from poping out

[googe]

only one way to find out moonwhiskey, all the theory in the world doesn't count compared to trial and error

[MoonWhisky]

Also I'd like this thread to be a place for other to see and post pics of there plates. I know flute talk pretty much covers it but that's 67+ pages.
I'd like to just simplify this to just plates and design on plates.
I made my first plate last night as its not completed. I'm going to solder 6 gauge copper wire over the top on the caps to keep them in place. That way a can remove them with ease for cleaning.

My "J" bend for vapor lock

Bottom side

Again if you have or use plates let's see them!

[Bob Loblaw]

How'd you drill the holes in the caps MW? Drill press? I was trying to cut slots in a cap and farked it all up. Yours are neat and tidy!

[MoonWhisky]

I tried cutting slots as well and failed. Not one was the same depth nor were they spaced evenly.
So yes I used a drill press and vise. Made a mark on my vise where to drill once the hole was made I rotated it till the first hole lined up to the corner on the vice and made second hole and so on. I used a 11/64th drill bit and was able to get 8 holes around each 3/4 cap

[Bob Loblaw]

I tried cutting slots as well and failed. Not one was the same depth nor were they spaced evenly.
So yes I used a drill press and vise. Made a mark on my vise where to drill once the hole was made I rotated it till the first hole lined up to the corner on the vice and made second hole and so on. I used a 11/64th drill bit and was able to get 8 holes around each 3/4 cap

Thanks!

I'm going with a DIY version of the new SD cap design. Three combo bubbler/downcomers per 4" plate. Second pic is a WIP version of my "tester". I haven't gotten much further - I flared the 1/2 and fitted it - but then made a mess of the slots. I'll post a new pic once I have something I'm not embarrassed to share!

I've got a bunch of caps coming to me for my plate project. That advice clarifies one of the steps for me. I'll post up some new pics once I start getting them together.

[MoonWhisky]

Excellent keep us posted!

[MoonWhisky]

I stopped in my local hardware store and see what I could find. I found that a 1/2 copper bushing would work perfectly with a 7/16 ball bearing. The bushing cradles the ball very nicely and is deep enough to hold it in. It would have to take a lot of pressure to pop them out and the more you have the less pressure build up you create. Once the ball lifts up it has plenty of gap around the ball for vapor pass thought but keep liquid from draining.

I will post a video link of me playing with it so you guys can get a better understanding.

[MoonWhisky]

Video of me playing with my ball.. bearing---> Ball bearing plate: http://youtu.be/eCDgZa3ZVoM" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

[thatguy1313]

Reminds me of the water bottles my hamster drank out of when I was a kid. I don't see any reason why that wouldn't work.

[MoonWhisky]

Yep! What do you guys think?? I'm going to try it out. Just not sure how many ball bearing caps I want to use on a plate.

[Brutal]

I have to kind of apologize. I over-did it last night and don't really remember posting multiple times in this thread.

It looks like I had an idea there but I have no experience in using balls in a still. I feel like the vapor wouldn't push them out of the hole unless A) they were not seated deeply in the hole B) they were not mounted level, or C) you didn't have enough of them to handle a high power/heat application.

I guess what I like is that the orifice that is opened when they are forced up is only as big as it needs to be to slip the vapor through. This means the vapor speed as it travels through is very high.

Once again sorry guys. I promise I'll never drink too much again. Promise.

[googe]

Half inch downcomers can flood some times, mine do, im changing them to 3/4", should have listened to od . I like your plates!, you don't muck around when you get an idea!!. Are you still putting holes in the base of the riser?. The ball fits good!.

[googe]

no.need to apologize brutal, I'd had a few last night to and was worried what shit I'd dribbled when I veiwed posts lol. We make alcohol and where on a forum about it, bound to be some cross over .

[FullySilenced]

drill two holes and put a ss cotter pin to keep the ball in place or just copper as a safety wire... or solder a heavy copper wire across the top.. as a ball limiter..

50 ways to get this one done...

and you may want to tap the ball to make sure you got full seated contact with the base... reducers were never designed to act as seats... or you could us a counter sink inside to machine a small flat contact area for the ball ....

[MoonWhisky]

Yeah I really don't see how the SS ball bearing would come out. Like I said the more ball bearing traps you have the less pressure will be on each ball bearing. Secondly does any body have calculations on pressure in plate stills. I'm guessing the higher the liquid level on each plate the more pressure is needed since you are forcing the vapor to pass through a layer of liquid. The sieve plate I'd imagine has the least amount of pressure build up. But a bubble cap and "J" bend plates will produce some type of back pressure since it acts like a barrier to the exit. Thirdly the amount of pressure being produced can't be that much, certainly not enough to blow SS ball bearings around like popcorn. Once the ball bearing breaks the seal to release/relieve the pressure (which may only move up .060"-.100") it will set back in place and repeat 100's times a minute .. I need to take a air compressor with 100lbs of psi open the air hose on full blast and move it closer and closer to the ball bearing till it starts to move and keep going till I can get it to pop out of the bushing. I know it won't be the same because the air won't be contained but I could get an idea. But again I have no knowledge on plated columns as to why I started this thread! Thank you to all that are participating!

[googe]

You asked for plate ideas, everyones seen these though. Not.many people playing with plates that I know of apart from you, me, cookey and sd. You'll find it hard to get new ideas from others I've found.

[emptyglass]

Sungy was the guy that used copper pennys. His still is still working as far as I know.

Noble idea, using balls as valves, but with the extra issues of keeping them in place, its almost as much work to make a traditional perforated plate or bubble cap.

[MoonWhisky]

Awesome googe! And yeah its kinda a shame that out of the 20,000+ members only a few experiment with new idea's. Main problem is the hobby can be very expensive. Or they know what works and why and try to reinvent the wheel? I personally just like to build things and to make it different than everyone else.

[Bob Loblaw]

Yeah I really don't see how the SS ball bearing would come out. Like I said the more ball bearing traps you have the less pressure will be on each ball bearing. Secondly does any body have calculations on pressure in plate stills. I'm guessing the higher the liquid level on each plate the more pressure is needed since you are forcing the vapor to pass through a layer of liquid. The sieve plate I'd imagine has the least amount of pressure build up. But a bubble cap and "J" bend plates will produce some type of back pressure since it acts like a barrier to the exit. Thirdly the amount of pressure being produced can't be that much, certainly not enough to blow SS ball bearings around like popcorn. Once the ball bearing breaks the seal to release/relieve the pressure (which may only move up .060"-.100") it will set back in place and repeat 100's times a minute .. I need to take a air compressor with 100lbs of psi open the air hose on full blast and move it closer and closer to the ball bearing till it starts to move and keep going till I can get it to pop out of the bushing. I know it won't be the same because the air won't be contained but I could get an idea. But again I have no knowledge on plated columns as to why I started this thread! Thank you to all that are participating!

Pressure on each plate should be equal to the weight of the amount of liquid in the plate above, I would think. Or some fraction of it that's above the bubbler and below the downcomer. For your design, you'd also have to add the weight of the balls - so it would add a bit of pressure.

[BigSwede]

I like the concept, and those bushings look to be spot-on as far as how they'd fit and work. One thing though... 98% of the pretty shiny balls you'll find out there are going to be extremely hard chrome-moly CARBON steel. If they are, they will rust, big-time.

Stainless balls are available. I've looked for them in the past to use as tumbler media, and they can be very expensive. The ideal SS ball would be one designed as a low tolerance ball for applications OTHER than ball bearings. The latter have crazy tolerances like +/- 0.000001" and this jacks the cost way up. But it can be done.

My own noob lame idea - ultra-fine stainless steel cloth. You can get stainless "screen" that is just crazy fine with tiny pores. Is there any reason a disk of such material wouldn't support a layer, a fluid bed? A perf plate is a balance between higher pressure below, and the pressure of the fluid layer as it forms. Of course, bubbles in this would be more like fog than bubbles, they'd be so fine, and wouldn't that be a good thing? Extremely intimate vapor/liquid mixing.

Here's a company that makes it. It's not uncommon. Note that the "holes" start at 0.002" and go up, and the open area ranges from 36 to 70 percent.

http://www.microscreen.org/index.cfm/pr ... ting/mesh/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

[Jacksonbrown]

It's not really plates or random packing for that mater, but I've often wondered how one could incorporate atomisers into the column. The spray would allow for very good vapour/liquid interaction. I figured it wouldn't be very easy to implement so didn't given much thought beyond that.
Any ideas? Has it been done already?
You could use the boiler pressure to drive it the same way a bubble cap does I guess.

[Brutal]

@Mr. Swede, That mesh sounds like a great idea. Maybe use 2-3 layers of a slightly larger mesh. That way it could prevent clogging and not have to be so fine. And provide a slightly more complex path for liquid to return, creating the restriction needed for a liquid layer to float on the upcoming vapor.

@Mr. Brown, if you made a plate with small diameter tubes protruding downward about an inch each, and a downcomer with a sufficient p-trap to it, the pressure of vapor at some point would cause all the tubes to flow upward. It would take a lot of reflux and might be tricky to keep it going. But the small diameter tubes would create little jets of vapor. Maybe even restrict them at the top a little to create a nozzle. Put a deep enough liquid bed above this and it might not atomize but would surely spray liquid and vapor upward. Hell you could bend them all 75-90 degrees above the plate and aim them in a circle creating a swirling typhoon!!

Great ideas coming here everyone. Keep it going!!

[BigSwede]

Thanks Rockchucker, Brutal, I really like your notion of more than one layer of perhaps coarser stainless cloth. It might even be possible to vary the action by changing the angle of two disks in relation to each other.

I'm thinking of gaskets cut from a sheet of relatively thick PTFE to clamp the SS mesh disks. Or... find a copper disk that is a tight sliding fit inside the column, and carefully soft silver solder the ss mesh to the Cu cylinder section.

One drawback to mesh, if the boiler pukes or solids get in there, it might clog. Dual (even triple) pressure relief systems on the boiler might be considered mandatory.

I actually have some of this stuff, forgot the specs, but if you apply water to the top, it does not fall through. Alcohol might, being lower viscosity and much less surface tension. But I think there's possibilities with this material.

Agreed, good thread with good ideas.

[Sungy]

Sungy was the guy that used copper pennys. His still is still working as far as I know.

I do love the performance of the valve plates and the new trap design in my new build. Although very repetitive to build they are self regulating and self priming. Weighing 4.5 grams each valve. The holes in my plates are 7/16 and there are 12 valves per plate. What weight does the ball have?

As for the weight of the balls ...I have some concerns. I think the ball weight would add to much pressure in the boiler and now you have a pressure vessel. Your pressure would have to overcome the ball weight plus the liquid height on the plate. The higher pressure requirements could result in more alcohol vapor leaks at the joints for your still.

As a side note, (personal observations and experimentation.) I did find liquid height on the plate will change the flavor profile of your distillate. For my vodka I run six plates. I have sleeves that go over top of my 10 mm tall downcommer tubes that make the downcommer 25 mm tall. This gives me a higher ABV with less flavor. For my Rum I run only 2 plates and remove the downcommer sleeves. This gives a 10 mm liquid bed on the pates. The result is a rum with lots of flavor, character and lower ABV.

[MoonWhisky]

http://m.ebay.com/itm/310181140602" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow Here's a link for SS balls and I don't think that's to overly expensive. It's cheaper than buying 3/4 end caps.
And good idea with the mesh. I was thinking about using SS drain screen that fits over the sink drain but I didn't know the grade stainless steel.
When I was at the IMTS show in Chicago a company specialized in micro filters out of SS as they used a laser to pop holes in a pipe. The pipe had over 2 million holes in it and looked like normal pipe till they put a light inside and it glowed. Pretty cool. I forgot the name but I'm sure they can do any size hole.

[MoonWhisky]

The pressure that would build up on a ball trap plate should be about the same as a "J" bend plate. They only force would be gravity. And the balls would actually become slightly lighter submerged in distillate. I'm going to build one out of a 6" diameter copper disc. I should be able to get 25 ball traps on the plate which I think maybe be to many as only 10-15 of them might work but better safe than sorry. The cool thing about my Bubble Bowl Column is I will be able to test run these plates with the top of the column off to see them in action

[Hound Dog]

So Snugy, your experience shows a deeper liquid bed for more neutral and a more shallow liquid bed for more flavor? This makes sense but have not heard it before. Thanks for throwing that bit of info out there.

Looks like a fun experiment. Like to see the results.

[MoonWhisky]

Finished me first plate tonight! I soldered a ring over the cap to keep them in place but this also allows me to remove the caps for easy cleaning. The caps aren't soldered down and they are all connected together, they should be heavy enough to stay put.

[BigSwede]

Very nice! Clever idea with the rings!