Compact Air Condenser

[Swag]

......I also have a scrubbie in the column.....which would act as a filter to large particles.

Now, you know from your extensive reading that scrubbies are not needed or effective in a pot still (column), right Swag? You should know this already.

Nag, nag, nag I mostly use my pot still for stripping sugar washes. A few scrubbies in there won't do anything but add a small amount of reflux. I'd take them out if I were doing anything where I wanted to preserve the flavor.

Cheers

[Swag]

Thanks for the formula MJ, that will be helpful. I got 4 new fans with higher airflow, plus I have added cooling fins along the perimeter of the frame. I'll do a test this weekend and keep track of the time and quantity of condensate so we can have some numbers.

Cheers,

power in kW = (evaporation heat of water) x (water weight in kg) / (collection time in seconds)

[InglisHill]

Thanks for the article still_stirring.

[Swag]

I tested the new and improved version today. I added two more fans and some heat sinks to the frame. The white crap around the sink is heat sink compound.



The added fans provided plenty of air across the sinks. Here are the results from a run with only water:
Run time: 1 hour
Yield: Approximately 2 Quarts, 1.8 liters
Ambient air temp: 60 F, 15 C
Exit water temp:130 F, 54 C
Fan power draw: 80W

Here is a pic of the setup:



I insulated the still and removed the scrubbie. I didn't want any vapor condensing before the condenser.
Here's the yield:



I'm not really sure why the water is so milky. This is a "new" boiler (for me anyway), and although I cleaned it out it has some crusty crap I couldn't get off on the inside. It may be from that crud, as everything else is pretty clean. I may try burning it off with the torch.

Cheers,

[Danespirit]

You did a perfect job there Swag..!
I like the compact size of this build, it has been enjoyable to see the progress.
One build that came to my mind as i saw your build going on, was Mason Jars build here: http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopi ... +condenser
Both of you really inspired me to a build still to come (uhh....i have a few going on atm).
So..bookmarked this is..

[mason jar]

1 quart is about 0.95 liters, so 2 quarts = 1.9 liters.

1 liter = 1 kg, so you collected 1.9 kg of water.

Collection time was 1 hour, or 3600 seconds.

Using the formula:

Power in kW = (evaporation heat of water) x (water weight in kg) / (collection time in seconds)

and plugging in your numbers gives:

Power in Kw = (2257kJ/kg * 1.9kg) / 3600s = 1.19 kW

That is pretty impressive for such a small condenser

[Swag]

Hey thanks, I was happy with the results. Water is tougher than alcohol to knock down, so I feel confident that I can use this condenser in any application. The exit water temperature was also lower than I expected, which was a pleasant surprise. It's nice to have some buffer in case the ambient air temp is high.
I have one more design I'm going to experiment with, which I'll start building tomorrow.

Cheers,

[ranger_ric]

I love your creativity..

I am following this... I am curious how much noise the fans make.. Would I hear my dog barking outside the wellhouse if someone pulled up in the drive???

[Swag]

I love your creativity..

I am following this... I am curious how much noise the fans make.. Would I hear my dog barking outside the wellhouse if someone pulled up in the drive???

These fans aren't that loud. You could have a normal conversation right next to them, and certainly hear the dogs barking. You can also get fans which are specially designed to be quieter. They have more of a swept design blade, or serrations on the trailing edge, which cut the noise down pretty well.

Cheers

[skow69]

Looking good man. Keep it up. I wish i had something to add, but it looks like you are on track.

[Swag]

Version 2 has been started. As before, I cut a 4" X 18" heat sink in half. Then I attached some 1/4" X 1" strips of aluminum to the flat part of one half to act as spacers and drill guides.



My plan was to bore 7 holes for 1/2" copper pipe through the width when both halves are put together. This will be the vapor path.
So I got the holes all drilled and they came out pretty good. Nice tight fit against the copper.



I then cut seven, 5 1/2" lengths of pipe for the through pieces. I started to make a manifold out of a section of 1" pipe, but the machining tolerances were so tight I couldn't get it to fit right. So plan B was to get a bunch of "T"s and cut the ends down so they would fit side by side. I cut them on the band saw, and with some tiny little sections of pipe, fit the whole thing together. Then I just soldered it in place.



I stuck some rolled up copper mesh in the cross pieces before I soldered it up. We'll see how that works as an additive. Then I covered all the surfaces with heat sink compound before final assembly.



Here is the unit at this stage of construction:



I still need to attach the 4 fans and put ends on the pipes, but it's a fairly simple build. I have a total of 28" of pipe in contact with the sink, so we'll see if that's enough to knock down some steam.

Cheers

[shadylane]

Swag, I'm impressed. If there was a smilie for getting on my knee's and worshiping you, I'd use it.

[ranger_ric]

Holy BeJeepers Batman...
That was some fine copper work there... Patience out the wazooo...
If it works half as good as it looks than it will knock down a freight train...
Good Job Swag!!

[skow69]

Way cool, Swag. How will you orient it?

This is for a product cooler, right? For some reason, every time I look at this one, REFLUX CONDENSER hits me in the brain. Have you given any thought to that?

[Swag]

I'm glad you guys like it, it's been fun to build. I was originally planning on orienting the pipes lengthwise down the sink, but I couldn't figure out a way to drill a 9" long hole without cutting the sink in half again. I suppose I could have bought a longer bit, but I'm too cheap.
It will be oriented with the copper top and bottom, with a 45 degree tilt like the last one was, and the fans on the side. I hadn't thought about it as a reflux condenser. With the pipes going through lengthwise it might be feasible. I'll give it some thought.

Cheers

[Danespirit]

Again you did a perfect job, Swag..
I can understand why you had second thoughts about drilling them lenght wise.
If you whish to do so, milling would give a much better result.
Should be easy enough to mill in aluminium, it might even be done in a drillpress if you don't have a millingmachine at hand.
Make a "sled" where the workpiece can move sideways and put a milling bit in the drillpress.
You would have to get a hold on top of the piece , so a movement upwards would be impossible.
Take only a slight chip at the time...then it could be done.

[Swag]

Again you did a perfect job, Swag..
I can understand why you had second thoughts about drilling them lenght wise.
If you whish to do so, milling would give a much better result.
Should be easy enough to mill in aluminium, it might even be done in a drillpress if you don't have a millingmachine at hand.
Make a "sled" where the workpiece can move sideways and put a milling bit in the drillpress.
You would have to get a hold on top of the piece , so a movement upwards would be impossible.
Take only a slight chip at the time...then it could be done.

I actually have a small milling machine, and looked into ball end bits, but the way the spacers need to be machined to fit around the pipe demands drilling. The base of the sink is not thick enough to handle half the width of the pipe, so I need the spacers. The spacers become concave on their edges after drilling, and fit tight around the pipes. That combination of shapes and tolerances would be tough to do on the mill (and I'm no great machinist!).
I could drill it if I had a longer bit. The groves provided by the spacing of the aluminum bars provides a guide where it's possible to drill in from both ends and have the holes actually line up. It's certainly doable.

Cheers

[skow69]

Ya know . . . I'll bet you could improve it a bit by tapping the end of the aluminum channels and threading copper nipples into them, eliminating the copper pipe inside the aluminum.

Per still_stirrin's (the engineer) PDF:
Q=kAc/t(deltaT)
where t is the thickness of the conducting material, or distance the heat has to travel through it. So heat conduction is inversely proportional to the thickness. Leave out the copper, it gets thinner. Might make you have another look at the hole size and spacers, too.

Of course, you would have to determine whether the improvement is worth the extra labor. It's easy to juggle equations, sitting here on the couch.

[Swag]

I didn't think aluminum and alcohol got along well. Am I wrong there? The other issue would be sealing the whole thing up. One of the reasons I built it this way was to have a sealed system without having to build a box, because they're a pain. Anyone with a drill press and a hack saw could build this thing.
I'm really curious what the exit temp of the water will be. That will tell me more than anything how efficient this one is compared to the other one. It should be ready for a run this weekend if I can knock off the honey-do list first.

Cheers

[just sayin]

Swag,
You are the MAN! You are single handedly pushing ahead the boundaries of hobby distilling. Pint-o-Shine did air cooled distilling years ago with a 50 or 60 foot coil of 1/2 or 5/8" copper tubing and a beefy box fan, but you are building an apartment/stovetop scale rig that anyone can use. Thank you for what you have done and please don't stop your research now.
Just Sayin'

[Swag]

Swag,
You are the MAN! You are single handedly pushing ahead the boundaries of hobby distilling. Pint-o-Shine did air cooled distilling years ago with a 50 or 60 foot coil of 1/2 or 5/8" copper tubing and a beefy box fan, but you are building an apartment/stovetop scale rig that anyone can use. Thank you for what you have done and please don't stop your research now.
Just Sayin'

Thanks, I'm just having fun. I really like Mason Jar's concept of using heater elements. You could string a bunch of short lengths in parallel and use the same type of manifold I used in this last build. Make a little frame for the fans and you're good to go. That would be a lot easier than drilling out a heat sink, and would probably work even better. I may try that next...

[skow69]

I didn't think aluminum and alcohol got along well.

You're right. Oops. Brain fart.

[Swag]

The test run went well. The exit temp of the water was 116 F, 46C, a drop of about 14 degrees over the last test. Air temp was at 70 F, which was 10 degrees higher than the last test.



There was a lot of crap in the pipes, as you can see by the murky water. Nice little stream coming out though.



I would recommend this type of design over the last, not only for it's higher efficiency, but also for it's ease of construction.
Merely plugging this condenser in, without having to hook up a bunch of plumbing and dealing with water, is a really nice. I can now take my rig up on my deck, kick back with a cold one, and watch the jars fill up.

Cheers

[bitter]

Might want to look into peltier coolers also.

Awesome build !!!!!! Excellent Job!

B

[rad14701]

Nice works, Swag...!!!

The only thing I'd add to that would be some sort of deflector so the air exiting the top of that unit was directed away from the column to avoid accidental reflux if the column wasn't insulated...

[just sayin]

Congratulations Swag!!! Waterless distilling means distilling can go any where you have electricity. Outstanding, Man! Just outstanding! Please don't stop now! Focus that mind on the next level: air cooled "heat pipe" reflux condenser or Liebig? You are the brain here....whatever keeps your creative juices flowing!
Thank you for bringing excitement to this forum again ....Just Sayin'

[Swag]

Thanks for the enthusiastic responses, I appreciate it.
The variations on this theme are endless. I have all kinds of designs running through my head. I would encourage anyone with an idea to build it. Don't worry if it doesn't come out perfect because that's part of the process. I'm certainly no machinist, but it's amazing what you can do with a few simple tools if you have a little patience and a plan. Give it a try.

Cheers

[Swag]

Here are some interesting links to cooling devices. The peltier in particular opens a wide range of new options:

http://www.customthermoelectric.com/Water_blocks.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

http://www.peltier-info.com/photos.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

[Danespirit]

My friend and me, experimented with some of those peltier elements, but it never came to my mind to use them in distilling.
The perfect world would be, Peltier elements on a heatexchanger and the elements delivering current to fire up ones still...
Of course this would have to be set up like solar panels, with a regulator and a battery.
The elements would charge the battery, the regulator would handle voltage spikes and prevent overcharging the battery. Now we just have to find a heatingelement that matches...ahhhh...me going crazy again..

[Bagasso]

Here are some interesting links to cooling devices. The peltier in particular opens a wide range of new options

Peltiers are very expensive, last time I checked 1kw worth of peltier cooling cost about $900 and every set up I have seen uses a heatsink and fan to pull the heat off of the peltier.

Is it me or are those liquid boxes just condensors designed with a flat side for mounting on a CPU?

One thing that I found to be a good idea used by CPU coolers, which can be applied to your condensor, is the idea of moving the cooling unit off of the item being cooled.

You use a regular liebig but the liquid is pumped through your air condensor which sits securely on a counter or tabletop away from the heat and keeping things from getting top heavy.

Here is an example:
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/cooler ... 25148.html