Re: Ruby the CM queen safety related issues

Post by **T-Pee** » Mon Sep 15, 2014 4:58 pm

The only thing we sell absolutely is safety. Otherwise, do what works for ya!

tp

Ruby · Post by **Ruby** » Thu Sep 18, 2014 4:59 pm

The more I think about this, the crazier I think it is. I took a lot of grief about the cm build. Obsolete, inefficient, hard to run, outdated, fiddley, to name a few. Never a real safety issue. Then I think about the post from maritimer referencing the watched still that caught fire. As I thought about this, it dawned on me, there is a highly regarded still on this sight that is routinely recommended, that can belch high proof alcohol out its top under normal conditions. Cooling water on, flame down low, and watched. By then, it's too late. How can this be. Then I remember all of the posts that say that a sight glass is a toy. That toy made it possible for me to run a cm, first time, no problem. That same toy could save a newb running an lm single condenser refluxer a lot of trouble. If the guy with the fireball would have had a sight glass, he would have known he was flooding, and on top of that would be able to accurately judge reflux. The exact thing that makes a cm hard to run, being able to judge reflux. I dig the sight glass. Best $65 yet. Just my 2 cents.

Ruby · Post by **Ruby** » Thu Sep 18, 2014 5:20 pm

I get it, hard to see a different path sometimes, just scary after reading that post. Totally preventable by an item that is frequently criticized. Just passin the safety.

wv_cooker · Post by **wv_cooker** » Thu Sep 18, 2014 5:22 pm

Sight glasses have been being put on LM's for a long time now.

Post by **emptyglass** » Fri Sep 19, 2014 4:44 am

Good thought ruby, but a sightglass wont help if your not there to watch the still, or if you have naps while stilling. I dont think a shutdown system is failsafe either. Just as easy to watch it, its not hard work, lol

Post by **googe** » Fri Sep 19, 2014 6:18 am

Yeah, a sightglass isn't a world.first, there not needed, but are good for beginners. When you learn from the start on a pot, touch, sound smell. There just for the joy of watching what's happening. Many runs equal knowledge.

Maritimer · Post by **Maritimer** » Fri Sep 19, 2014 6:47 am

If loss of coolant is number one, what is flooding? It's also number one if it burns your house down. But it's not so easy to build a flooding sensor. The alternative is to have a safe way to flood, detect the flood, and then turn off the heat. This means that you need containers that can safely catch the flood. There are two possible flood exits; through the product condenser and through the reflux vent. (Don't know if you have a reflux vent on a CM.) The sensor can be a microswitch with a cup on it in the flood path. Cup fills up, microswitch opens, heat is turned off.

Thinking about safety needs to go beyond the notion of continual personal watching. A sensor is more effective than a person--it is never distracted or not watching. It reacts instantaneously, preventing the danger from ever being realized.

What are some other dangers? Over-pressure, tipping, SCR in power controller fails by staying on (that's how they normally fail), boiler level falls below element, vent temperature rises above ambient (means there is vapour getting out, provides a backup to the flow switch), collection vessel overflows.

M

Post by **emptyglass** » Fri Sep 19, 2014 7:07 am

Maritimer wrote:Thinking about safety needs to go beyond the notion of continual personal watching.

I guess we must agree to disagree for the sake of keeping the thread on topic.

Maritimer · Post by **Maritimer** » Fri Sep 19, 2014 7:12 am

Ruby, are we talking about safety? Your call.

M

Post by **rad14701** » Fri Sep 19, 2014 7:18 am

While a conventional CM shouldn't have issues with flooding coming out the top of the column, LM & VM columns do... Not sure if I ever mentioned the idea I might incorporate or not, so here goes... If you cap the top of the column and have a vent tube bent into an inverted U, soldered into a small glass jars lid with a couple holes in it, or its own vent tube, this becomes a vapor sight glass as well as a flood indicator/catcher... The column can still breathe but any hot vapor will show as condensation in the jar, plus catching the initial flood is an added safety feature... But if you don't pay attention to the jar and it overflows, all bets are off... I envision using a small baby food jar because I have so many kicking around...

Post by **emptyglass** » Fri Sep 19, 2014 8:04 am

Maritimer wrote:Ruby, are we talking about safety? Your call.

M

Martimer, i believe you are a retired professor of sorts, I struggle to fathom how you could be so lax as to think saftey dosnt come into it at all points. A very reckless approach from someone so educated.
The discussion is not about weather we should talk about safety, in my mind it is a natural part of distilling, it should always be at the forefront.

I dont want the thread of rubys to degenerate to the point where it is locked again over something we should all put first. I'm not here to argue about whether safety should be discussed. If you want to argue a case for automation and its benefits/shortfalls, do it in a thread you start.

I'm still interested in how rubys still performs, but ruby needs time. As a theoretical expert, you of all people should understand this.

Post by **pfshine** » Fri Sep 19, 2014 9:10 am

Alright everybody pull their pants up and put the rulers away.

Ruby · Post by **Ruby** » Fri Sep 19, 2014 9:21 am

I have no problem with safety talk. I do appreciate it, and think this is as good of a place as any. I feel like I kinda started it.

Rad....that's a fantastic idea. A simple atmospheric vent plumbed into some sort of transparent receptacle. Kinda like a vent puke box. Could save a lot of people a lot of trouble. Even if you just plumbed it as a drain that has a take off far from heat and fire source. As soon as it pissed you could kill the whole thing.

Maritimer · Post by **Maritimer** » Fri Sep 19, 2014 10:02 am

Ruby, as a newbie, you might not be aware of the intense antipathy there is on this forum to automation. I am building an automated still, and I've given a lot of thought and had great discussions with cholme about safety. My thesis is that a still can't be automated until it is proven to be safe. We went through some crazy ideas, like having a pilot light at the vent, or having the still completely enclosed.

We both believed that sensors and effectors could monitor and react to dangers better than humans. cholme also insisted that two different technologies be used to deal with each danger. So, taking care of flooding is dealt with, physically, by providing a safe containment, and electrically, by turning off the power.

As a newbie, thinking about safety should be behind every action or decision you take, every modification you make to your still. Always imagine the worst. Warm fuzzy feelings are a danger sign and you need two technologies to deal with them: learning and critical thinking.

Guys, this isn't about automation. This is pre-automation. It's about seat belts and smoke detectors, or the ball valve that stops the water when filling your toilet cistern.

Shades of Ralph Nader!

M

SoMo · Post by **SoMo** » Fri Sep 19, 2014 10:11 am

Two technologies can't replace 5 senses, no way no how. Odins got automated stills and still has problems with them, nothing patient observation couldn't stop or fix. My .02$

RevSpaminator · Post by **RevSpaminator** » Fri Sep 19, 2014 11:06 am

I don't think anyone is suggesting that added safety features are a substitute for basic safe practices.

Some reactions here sound as if someone had said seatbelts made it OK to take a nap while driving. No one has suggested that or any other madness. A flow sensor or kill switch just adds another layer of protection, not a replacement for constant monitoring.

Maritimer · Post by **Maritimer** » Fri Sep 19, 2014 11:58 am

Reverend,

You can see the light!

M

Ruby · Post by **Ruby** » Fri Sep 19, 2014 1:00 pm

I can see both sides in this discussion. You can't have too much safety. Anything that can eliminate some catastrophic failure point is a good thing. That being said, the rule is to never leave it unattended, don't drink and run and always stay vigilant. In today's society there is this idea that everything must be idiot proof and without danger. I just don't see distilling at home one of those areas. Make it as safe as you can, but you have vaporized alcohol and heat, you must pay attention to that, and when you stop respecting that, you should stop making liquor.

Post by **googe** » Sat Sep 20, 2014 6:46 am

Glass jars are not recommended with distilling.

Post by **Sungy** » Sat Sep 20, 2014 7:58 am

googe wrote:Glass jars are not recommended with distilling.

Say What!

So what do you collect your product in?

Maritimer · Post by **Maritimer** » Sat Sep 20, 2014 10:20 am

One thing I've never covered is how to apply a flow switch to controlling your still's power. Using electricity, most people use a phase-controlled SCR. This is not what I personally use, so I can't give you my experience, but here is how I would do it.

The phase controller uses a potentiometer to control how much of the half-cycle is let pass.

The microswitch is single-pole double throw. In normal use when there is coolant deflecting the bucket, the switch's N.O. contact is closed. This directs the wiper of the pot to the SCR gate. If coolant stops flowing, the wiper is transferred to ground, cutting off power to the elements. The only way the elements can be powered is if there is coolant flowing. Just to get some thinking going, will somebody come up with a circuit to bypass the flow switch, which you might want to do, say, if you are boiling water for a ferment?

Relays are very powerful logic elements. In fact, the first digital computers were made with relays. They can count, add, make choices, etc, just like transistor logic gates.

The relay memory circuit is shown below:

The top of the diagram shows the normal way to draw relay contacts on schematics. Two parallel lines represent a normally open (N.O.) contact and two lines with a slash a normally closed (N.C.) contact. This allows you to have a relay's contacts anywhere in a schematic without having a mess of lines going to the kind of representation shown on the left.

At the bottom of the diagram is a schematic of a basic relay memory circuit. The N.O. contact is shown in series with the relay coil. When power is first applied to the circuit, the relay will stay un-energized. When the N.O. push-button is pressed, the circuit through the relay is completed and the relay contact closes. Now when the pushbutton is released, the relay stays energized through the now-closed contact. When the N.C. pushbutton is pressed, the relay will be de-energized and the contact will open. When the push-button is released the relay will stay de-energized because the relay contact is now open.

The circuit in the first diagram is probably OK for the flow switch, but if you have a flood, you have a serious problem and should turn off the power until you have fixed it. The cup that was filled by the flood and which activated the microswitch could have a little hole in it so that it will empty on its own. But that would re-start the power.

So here is a circuit that remembers the flood and needs a human to re-start the power.

The microswitch is shown N.O., which is what a flow switch would be. A flood switch would be N.C., opening when the cup is filled. I've shown two 120 VAC elements. Anyone care to modify the schematic for one 220VAC element?

A propane version of the above circuits would need an electrically-controlled valve, of course.

M

Post by **T-Pee** » Sat Sep 20, 2014 11:13 am

Why not use a simple across-the-line float switch?

tp

Maritimer · Post by **Maritimer** » Sat Sep 20, 2014 11:23 am

Please explain. If you have better solutions, please detail them. I'm not claiming to be all-knowing.

M

Post by **T-Pee** » Sat Sep 20, 2014 11:29 am

It is what it sounds like. A float rides on a rising liquid and trips a set of contacts at a user-selected point in its travel.

tp

Maritimer · Post by **Maritimer** » Sat Sep 20, 2014 3:36 pm

You're probably right. It would have to be able to work with only an ounce of liquid. It would definitely be smaller, look less corny (it could look quite sleek), and be more acceptable to people. Can you find something?

M

badbird · Post by **badbird** » Sat Sep 20, 2014 4:58 pm

There are plenty of off the shelf flow switches on ebay. I have one of these with a 0.75 to 5 L per minute flow range but haven't had a chance to use it yet as still looking for a suitably priced enclosure for the rest of the electronics and everything else is packed a way for a house move.

Kind of takes the fun out of building a nice copper one though.

Post by **T-Pee** » Sat Sep 20, 2014 6:56 pm

Maritimer wrote:You're probably right. It would have to be able to work with only an ounce of liquid. It would definitely be smaller, look less corny (it could look quite sleek), and be more acceptable to people. Can you find something?

Me? Naw. I have no intention of using one but thought I'd toss the idea out there.

tp

Ruby · Post by **Ruby** » Sun Sep 21, 2014 3:50 am

Normally in a logic setup like that, you would use an auxiliary contact for your latching contact. Using the contact with the high current load could be a potential safety issue. The contact that you are sharing with the element will have way more current on it, and the potential for it to weld shut is much higher. I know the microswitch would still stop the circuit, but the circuit would then start and stop on its own.

Maritimer · Post by **Maritimer** » Sun Sep 21, 2014 5:38 am

Yeah, I've seen contactors with an auxiliary pole. So that's what it's for! Like I said, I'm not all-knowing. It's input like this that we need.

Badbird, looks like I was looking in all the wrong places when I searched for a flow switch. I was looking at a minimum of $50 and filtering to 10 microns required. They were industrial types. Consumer, of course, is much cheaper. With prices in the $5 range, cost is not a limiting factor.

I had a weird thought this morning. One of the purposes of this forum is to prove that stilling can be done safely and to have it legalized. Now, if stilling were to become legal, the UL, CSA, EC, etc will immediately be in the picture. They will draw up documents detailing every minimum dimension and electrical requirement. They are not going to pass a still as safe on the assumption that the user will watch it constantly. So, it behooves this forum to work assiduously on perfecting a safe still.

M

Post by **Tater** » Sun Sep 21, 2014 6:07 am

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