Thought i would start this post for people deciding on single or multiple bubble caps. Dont even know if im posting it in the right location but this seems right. If anyone has any input or corrections to my sums feel welcome to add to this. Ive looked before and didnt find much on this so this may help others. This is just my findings along my travels here at Aussie Distiller and may help influence someones bubble plate design :handgestures-thumbupleft:
I was thinking about the large single bubble caps and multiple smaller bubble cap methods and wondering about their benefits...
I'm no expert on still making but in my short experience it seems like the multiple smaller bubble caps might be the way to go to increase ABV. When i was working out the area of my shotgun condenser i found that 2 1/4" tubes combined had the same perimeter as a single 1/2" tube but half the area.
Ive also read somewhere and i may be wrong, but what i read was the thinner the slots and with more slots in the bubble cap they will produce a higher ABV, more smaller bubble pretty much.
So in a 4" still if i were to have a single 2" bubble cap then this cap would have 159.6mm perimeter with small slots. the area is 2026.8mm^2
If i were to have 2 1" caps then the combined perimeter would be 159.6mm and the combined area would be 1013.4mm^2 which is half of the 2" cap
The area in the column after the bubble caps are taken away would be for a 2" 6080.5mm^2 making the average diameter of the column (once taking out the cap area) 87.98mm (4" is 101.6mm)
and for say 2 1" bubble caps the column area would be 7093.9mm^2 making the diameter 95.04mm
Im wondering if 7mm is much in diameter to increase speed, probably not but maybe it could be :think:
so...
If there were 4 1" then the area left would be 6080.5mm^2, the same as a single 2" cap but the perimeter of the 4 caps would be 319.19mm twice that of the 2" cap
So
if you do 4 1" caps instead of 1 2" cap then you have twice the amount of slots with the same area being consumed with the 4 bubble caps as the single 2".
Im Thinking that smaller bubble caps may give a higher ABV and with no loss to take off speed. And a single bubble cap may be easier to solder up or less work but have less ABV.
I have not run a bubble cap column yet so maybe the difference between single or multiple caps in a 4" still is zip to none and this doesn't matter. but maybe it does...