Air cooled condenser. I'll NEVER go back to water cooling!

[googe]

Nice job mate , glad it worked for you!. I've always been interested in air cooled condensers!, me and water don't mix while distilling, Im clumsy lol. id be keen to see of the cooling ratio can be adjusted to work on a cm type condenser, but I guess it would be called a am (air management) condenser!.

[mason jar]

This is one of the things that irks me, about this community... The whole "cost" thing. ... Someone comes along,
with what seems to be a great alternative, and someone has to come along and "nay-say".

Thanks KY, I appreciate it.

It's all good though. I'm not taking it the wrong way. I've got pretty thick skin so I don't mind a little criticism.
Everyone has their own opinion about things and I want to hear them all, even if they are different from mine.

[mason jar]

I knew before I posted that not liking it would be an issue....sorry for not liking it. I will strive to like things from here on..

It's all good bellybuster. You can not like my stuff all you want I still have a lot to learn and I want to hear
everyone's opinions. Keep them coming!

[Kegg_jam]

Kudos for making it work!

Might be a nice way to heat up my basement...

I don't think I could take the noise though.

[bellybuster]

you don't seem to be the one with the problem there Mason jar. As I said before though, very cool build.
Personally, if I were in a water restrictive area I would simply use my cooling water for my next batch, next bath, soup, coffee the list goes on. Now for anyone with knots in undies this is a viable alternative to water down the drain

[The KYChemist]

Now, for anyone with knots in undies, this is a viable alternative to water down the drain

I too have a thick skin, and can tell who this was aimed at.
EDIT: MODS, please delete. Posted accidentally.

[The KYChemist]

Now, for anyone with knots in undies, this is a viable alternative to water down the drain

I too have a thick skin, and can tell who this was aimed at. While I feel like you don't have to spend K's, sometimes you do have to pay to play. My initial impression was a degradation of the innovation, based upon price.

[Hound Dog]

I just think it's cool to have something different work. Gives viable options for future expansion and experimentation. I have pissed more than a few bucks away playing around with this. Most of the money I wasted came from being cheap in the first place and having to spend more to make it right. Well live and learn on that.

I do agree with Belly, many guys spend a lot of time and effort trying to save less water than you use taking a shower. But like I said, I think the different idea is cool and applaud new different designs.

[shadylane]

mason jar keep us posted on the knock down power of your condenser.
Any information is appreciated. There's not much solid info on air cooled condensers.
I wonder what the air flow times surface area requirements are and at what point does diminishing returns begin.
The experiment I did, used probably half the air flow and a little more surface area.
At 1400w the distillate output was probably around 100F or more.
Didn't get a chance to use more power because at the time there wasn't any cheap phase shift controllers.
It was 5500w on heat up and 1375 for the run.

[mason jar]

mason jar keep us posted on the knock down power of your condenser.
Any information is appreciated. There's not much solid info on air cooled condensers.

Shadylane, I am also curious about how much power this thing can knock down. I hope to do another water
run next weekend, time permitting, and take some measurements using Edwin's method. I'll post the results
then.

[jedneck]

Good on you for trying it. I thought of trying a wall mounted liebig using the same stuff inside a piece of four inch pvc. As far as noise it can't be any louder than the ag ferment that I got going rite now. The air lock is going flippin nuts.

[The KYChemist]

I do agree with Belly, many guys spend a lot of time and effort trying to save less water than you use taking a shower. But like I said, I think the different idea is cool and applaud new different designs.

The standard shower head is 2.5gpm... My Boka uses 1.125(avg) LPM. Good reason for wanting to save water... That's about 170 gallons per run. Or... About 8-9 ten minute showers worth, per run.

[mason jar]

mason jar keep us posted on the knock down power of your condenser.
Any information is appreciated. There's not much solid info on air cooled condensers.

Shadylane, I am also curious about how much power this thing can knock down. I hope to do another water
run next weekend, time permitting, and take some measurements using Edwin's method. I'll post the results
then.

Well, I'm impatient so I just went and looked up the specs on my kitchen stove. It runs on natural gas and
the burners are rated at 9500 BTU. Google says this is equivalent to about 2.8KW. So that's the best answer
I can give right now. I know it can EASILY knock down that much power. I might try to do a water run in my
garage using my propane turkey fryer burner. I bet that sucker is more than 9500 BTU. I'll let you what
happens if I get a chance to try that.

[shadylane]

During freezing weather, when it's too cold to run a liebig in the shop.
A air-cooled condenser works double duty as a shop heater.

[Hound Dog]

KY, from all the pump questions I would guess that most boka users like myself recirculate water in a barrel and only drain off and fill as needed when it gets hot. I doubt I use 170 gallons of water. I did get a cooling coil and fan from a walk in freezer to make a water cooler with though. I'll use that since it was free.

[The KYChemist]

KY, from all the pump questions I would guess that most boka users like myself recirculate water in a barrel and only drain off and fill as needed when it gets hot. I doubt I use 170 gallons of water. I did get a cooling coil and fan from a walk in freezer to make a water cooler with though. I'll use that since it was free.

If your on city water, there's no reason, as far as I can see, to not use it. My personal exp leads me to believe it's the best way to go. Especislly for flow reliability. Especially for a reflux unit.

[T-Pee]

Just did a five hour reflux run, made almost two gallons of 93% neutral, used three gallons of water that evaporated from a five-gallon sump
and the liebig never even got close to losing a gradient.

I also live smack in the middle of California's "Exceptional Drought" area. Just sayin'.

tp (and his hot-rodded personal swamp cooler)

[mason jar]

Just did a five hour reflux run, made almost two gallons of 93% neutral, used three gallons of water that evaporated from a five-gallon sump and the liebig never even got close to losing a gradient.
I also live smack in the middle of California's "Exceptional Drought" area. Just sayin'.
tp (and his hot-rodded personal swamp cooler)

Yeah yeah, I get it T-pee. Water is better I'm just don't want the hassle any more. No more
buckets of water, tubes, pumps or other such things for me. I just plop that sucker on my counter, hook it
up to the still and wait for the good stuff to come out. I mean come on, you gotta give me that right?
If you can get past the cost (or do a better job scrounging for parts than I did) then it seems to me like
this is the way to go 'cause it's so easy to use.

Anyway, it's all good. You use water and I use air

[Swag]

So, based on your experiment, would you say that 2 feet of finned copper would do the trick? It looks like your copper pipe is 1/2" or 3/4"? I notice they sell fins for 1.25" copper pipe too. I'm just wondering how little is necessary. I'll bet you could get away with about half those fans too.

Cheers,

[thecroweater]

Interested to see how well it runs stripping to low wines

[bellybuster]

edited to protect the innocent

[woodshed]

You could run 12 volt fans from a step down and really cut down on electric. Upfront cost maybe a little more.

[mason jar]

So, based on your experiment, would you say that 2 feet of finned copper would do the trick? It looks like your copper pipe is 1/2" or 3/4"? I notice they sell fins for 1.25" copper pipe too. I'm just wondering how little is necessary. I'll bet you could get away with about half those fans too. Cheers,

Well, for the amount of power I was putting into the still at the time (which was apparently
about 2.8 KW) I suspect that 3 feet would have been about right. I'm very curious to see how
much farther I can push it.

Interested to see how well it runs stripping to low wines

Me too. Hopefully I will be able to do another water run this weekend with a much larger
burner so I can found out how far I can push it. I bet a stripping run won't be a problem though.

edited to protect the innocent

Come on BB.... Give it to me straight doctor, I can take it!

You could run 12 volt fans from a step down and really cut down on electric.
Upfront cost maybe a little more.

Well, typically if you want to maintain performance (same air flow), when you lower the voltage then
current will need to increase so the power (volts times amps) will be about the same. I did actually
start out planning on using 12V fans, but they do require quite a bit of current so I would have needed
a fairly hefty (and expensive) power supply. It ended up being more economical, and just simpler, to
go with the 120V units.

[mason jar]

Nice job mate , glad it worked for you!. I've always been interested in air cooled condensers! ...id be keen to see of the cooling ratio can be adjusted to work on a cm type condenser, but I guess it would be called a am (air management) condenser!.

Googe, actually you could control the cooling ratio by controlling the fan speed using a variac:

It's basically a variable transformer that allows you to control the voltage to the fans which
will control their speed. A friend of mine has one of these so I borrowed it to see if it would
work and it does a nice job of controlling the fan speed. They aint cheap though (I think about
sixty bucks min.) so that would add a big chunk to your cost, which probably wouldn't be too
popular.

[woodshed]

Shows what I know. I think it is cool though.
I use 12 volt PV pumps on my stills for recirc of cooling water. Works great. Thought it may be about the same but after what you said I see how it is not.
For your situation I think you have an answer.

[shadylane]

Started to post on how to control a air-cooled product condenser.
Terms such as AC synchronous motor, universal motor, DC motor, pulse width modulation, phase angle controllers, variac auto transformers and variable frequency drives were in the post. Then I realized for a air-cooled condenser all that matters is the vapor gets condensed.

[mason jar]

Started to post on how to control a air-cooled product condenser.
Terms such as AC synchronous motor, universal motor, DC motor, pulse width modulation, phase angle controllers, variac auto transformers and variable frequency drives were in the post. Then I realized for a air-cooled condenser all that matters is the vapor gets condensed.

Right, for my case (simple pot with a condenser) that's all that matters so I wouldn't need to
cut down the amount of cooling (unless it huffed, but i doubt that will happen!). Googe mentioned
possibly trying to control the cooling for a CM still. Theoretically all those methods you mentioned
would work to control the fan speed which would allow changing the amount of cooling, but I bet
that wouldn't really be practical because of the bulk of an air cooled condenser.

[Brutal]

You could run 12 volt fans from a step down and really cut down on electric.
Upfront cost maybe a little more.

Well, typically if you want to maintain performance (same air flow), when you lower the voltage then
current will need to increase so the power (volts times amps) will be about the same. I did actually
start out planning on using 12V fans, but they do require quite a bit of current so I would have needed
a fairly hefty (and expensive) power supply. It ended up being more economical, and just simpler, to
go with the 120V units.

One used pc power supply out of a 10 year old computer could handle 20+ 120mm high performance fans on the 12v rail. No need for an expensive controller just know the trick to make the power supply come on without being plugged into a motherboard.

[WalkingWolf]

Nice work Mason Jar -- air-cooled condensers have been discussed over the years with just a few ever getting past the concept stage. You did a great job on getting this up and running. As for as the $$$ goes, we have seen far more money spent on far less right here on this forum. I'm with you on tackling the challenge -- it was there and just seemed to need to be done . Obviouly, it's not for everyone and so-be-it. Bet you wouldn't have thought your little weekend project would have stirred up so much "talk"? Enjoy the fruits of your labor.

[ga flatwoods]

Water always has seemed a pita to me and a waste of a valueable resource if not readily available. When I lived in town and was on municipal water, when the bill arrived at the end of the month you could always tell when I had made a run. Sometimes $20 higher, mainly the sewer fee as whatever comes through the meter is billed for both supply and waste service. Electricity is cheap and clean. Worrying about the money is not always the best approach in this hobby but it is a large part of the reasoning for many. Satisfaction cannot be bought similar to patience! Nice job Mason Jar.
Ga Flatwoods