Russ's bubbler

Perforated & bubble cap plated columns

Re: Russ's bubbler

Postby Russ » Sun Sep 16, 2018 1:15 pm

Cheers guys.

Today I finished the PC and breather/reducer.

Pics or it didn't happen.

Time to start cleaning and organising. I annealed some pipe to start on the plates, while I will make caps eventually I think I will be lazy and make perf plate for starters. Is 3/8 big enough for plate drains or should I go to 1/2?
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Re: Russ's bubbler

Postby bluc » Sun Sep 16, 2018 1:41 pm

most use 3/4 for downcommers :handgestures-thumbupleft:
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Re: Russ's bubbler

Postby Russ » Sun Sep 16, 2018 3:22 pm

Crikey righto, I was hoping to make a nice neat J shape in smaller pipe to form the trap, 3/4 wont bend that well haha.
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Re: Russ's bubbler

Postby hillzabilly » Sun Sep 16, 2018 4:45 pm

My advice would be ta get the FSD downcomers,why because they work flipin well,ifn ya plates or downcomers are not working well then the set up will fail to deliver on all fronts.cheers hillzabilly ;-)
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Re: Russ's bubbler

Postby bluc » Sun Sep 16, 2018 4:53 pm

:text-+1: or whole plates or both :D
Last edited by bluc on Sun Sep 16, 2018 4:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Russ's bubbler

Postby Russ » Mon Sep 17, 2018 6:56 pm

I have a stack of 3/4' pipe for the downcomers and a fair bit of 1" for the liquid lock, so I will have a crack at making them.

Not really worthy of any photos but today I split open some 40mm pipe to make the plates. I had annealed them a couple of days ago and that made it super easy to flatten out. I just opened them by hand mostly then with a piece of timber on a flat steel surface got them nice and flat ready to work on.

They won't be as pretty as the bought ones but I have the satisfaction of making them. Also I am also on a very limited budget so I am being a cheapskate as well.

I cut out the hole for the 3" sight glass on the final T piece for my mate to TIG, it had kinda gotten forgotten about.

I am using PTFE seals and the inside diameter is the same as the inside on the 4" pipe, do I just make the plate the same diameter of the outside of the 4" pipe and sorta jam it all together with one seal or put a seal both sides of the plate? I think two seals as well as the plate will be too thick, but as the seals are quite hard I may need to die grind a chamfer in the 4" pipe for the plate to sit in. Hope that makes some kind of sense.
Last edited by Russ on Mon Sep 17, 2018 6:57 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Russ's bubbler

Postby db1979 » Mon Sep 17, 2018 7:20 pm

I just soldered my plates in.
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Re: Russ's bubbler

Postby dans.brew » Mon Sep 17, 2018 8:31 pm

Good on ya for having a crack at making your own plates... i was in the same boat, trying to save a bit of coin too. You can always buy some 5 star plates down the track if funds are available.
I found i could only fit 1 seal between my tees before it was too fat to get tri clamp done up. My plates are sorta counter sunk down in the tee sitting on the curve of my easy flanges. Seems to work really good, never had any problem getting a good seal.
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Re: Russ's bubbler

Postby woodduck » Mon Sep 17, 2018 8:53 pm

I made my own plates out of flattened pipe for the glass duck and you wouldn't know by looking at them, they'll be fine.

I'm not 100% sure because I dont have a modular still but I recon 2 seals and the plate will be too thick. By the sounds of it the seal sits around the outside of the plate and is sandwiched between the two flanges. That means the seal needs to be thinker than the plate so it compresses enough to seal without the flanges bottoming out on the plate. Remember the plate needs to seal as well or it won't hold a bath. So your plate needs to be slightly larger than the inside diameter of the column. I'm happy to be corrected on this one.

Good luck :handgestures-thumbupleft:
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Re: Russ's bubbler

Postby Russ » Mon Sep 17, 2018 11:03 pm

dans.brew wrote:Good on ya for having a crack at making your own plates... i was in the same boat, trying to save a bit of coin too. You can always buy some 5 star plates down the track if funds are available.
I found i could only fit 1 seal between my tees before it was too fat to get tri clamp done up. My plates are sorta counter sunk down in the tee sitting on the curve of my easy flanges. Seems to work really good, never had any problem getting a good seal.


What seals are you using ? I would think the silicon seals would easily squish around but the PTFE ones seem pretty stiff, there is a surprising amount of clamping force with tri clamps though, this seems to be the way most are done. I find its the little details like this that are difficult to find, next will be bath depth and then I think most of my stupid questions wil be asked, well as far as building goes, I'm sure once I start using it I will find another stack of stupid questions!!

woodduck wrote:I made my own plates out of flattened pipe for the glass duck and you wouldn't know by looking at them, they'll be fine.

I'm not 100% sure because I dont have a modular still but I recon 2 seals and the plate will be too thick. By the sounds of it the seal sits around the outside of the plate and is sandwiched between the two flanges. That means the seal needs to be thinker than the plate so it compresses enough to seal without the flanges bottoming out on the plate. Remember the plate needs to seal as well or it won't hold a bath. So your plate needs to be slightly larger than the inside diameter of the column. I'm happy to be corrected on this one.

Good luck :handgestures-thumbupleft:


I agree two seals will be too thick, and I reckon as you say if the plate just sits on the 4" pipe section the seal should kinda seal the plate and also between the easy flanges, hopefully.

db1979 wrote:I just soldered my plates in.


I am tempted to do this but I really want to keep it modular, I know the plates could be desoldered later but that is more work again. I do wish to put bubble caps in eventually.

Thanks for the input everybody, I am getting a bit excited that it may actually produce something one day rather than just burn up all my free time.
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Re: Russ's bubbler

Postby dans.brew » Mon Sep 17, 2018 11:25 pm

Yeah i used the PTFE seals and your right they are fairly stiff. I took all the ribs off with a very sharp stanley knife and a steady hand.
Tri clamps can be done up fairly tight, but you still need to have a very flat surface for the seal to sit on. I ground all mine on a shearing grinder used for sharpening combs and cutters. Worked really well, but i had to make sure i held on to my tees nice and tight.
Use the search feature, you might save having to ask those 'stupid questions' :laughing-rolling: Thats what i did where i could.
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Re: Russ's bubbler

Postby Russ » Tue Sep 18, 2018 5:32 pm

I do try to search before I ask, also look at other builds for clues, I don't think I'd make a good detective, I seem to miss all the details haha.

I am toying on the computer and I can easily fit about 280 of 1.5mm holes using a 3mm spacing apart, even allowing a 1 inch liquid trap and the 3/4 downcomer, that seems a bit excessive, from what I have seen and read 150-200 is more on the money.

I have a machine to drill these out so they will be accurate and quite easy for me to do, going to see how 4mm spacing goes instead.

Good thing in my case is that I can easily make a plate in about 5 minutes, excluding any soldering, so I can experiment to my hearts content. I also have meters of 40mm pipe to make plates out of.
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Re: Russ's bubbler

Postby Russ » Tue Sep 18, 2018 5:45 pm

Here is a pic of the first attempt in simulation.

Going to try larger spacing.
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Re: Russ's bubbler

Postby woodduck » Tue Sep 18, 2018 5:50 pm

I think from memory 5mm spacing is used quite regularly. There is a template somewhere, I've seen it, I know I have. Look through bt1's builds, he was big on perfs and remember him explaining how he drilled them etc etc.

I find the "search our site" button next to the recipe button is a way better searching tool.
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Re: Russ's bubbler

Postby db1979 » Tue Sep 18, 2018 6:00 pm

You'll get more holes on your plate too if your downcomer doesn't extend down to the plate below. Put a cap on the bottom of it and the gap between plate above and the top of the cap can be as little as 5 mm.
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Re: Russ's bubbler

Postby Russ » Tue Sep 18, 2018 6:03 pm

Righto I'll check out his build.

That is a better way of searching, thank for the heads up.

I did another one, this one has roughly 180 holes, I guess the top one doesn't need the liquid lock area so could have a handful more.
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Re: Russ's bubbler

Postby Russ » Tue Sep 18, 2018 6:10 pm

db1979 wrote:You'll get more holes on your plate too if your downcomer doesn't extend down to the plate below. Put a cap on the bottom of it and the gap between plate above and the top of the cap can be as little as 5 mm.


I guess I am being lazy with the downcomers, I had thought of making them "floating" above the plate below but this way was a bit less work, of course the bottom one will have to be like that.

Speaking of which I was thinking of a downcomer bypass for the bottom plate, so that it could be unloaded, this way with the turn of a ball valve I could go from a 5 plate to a 4 plate and not need to pull anything apart, still not sure if its worth the effort, will ponder.
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Re: Russ's bubbler

Postby Russ » Tue Sep 18, 2018 6:53 pm

So thanks to woodduck's advice on the search our site tip, I stumbled across P3T3rPan's plates, over 300 holes!

Also found numbers above and below the 200 mark, all working just fine, which makes me a lot happier with my plates. I think I will go the 273 ish (man they are tricky to count) plate I first came up with.

The software I used allows a spacing value, I used 3mm, which equates to 4.5mm between centres, that'll do for me.
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Re: Russ's bubbler

Postby Russ » Tue Sep 18, 2018 10:17 pm

So after some more reading it seems 8-9% of the plate area is the ideal amount for the holes, so I did this version and it gave me 343 holes at 1.5mm dia, which by my maths is about 8.2 percent of the total area. Close enough for me.

Now the OCD side of me says that for the top plate I should have the same number of holes therefore the same area so maybe move them around a bit over the well blank area.

The she'll be right side of me says to just fill in with more holes...or just leave it the same and have a blank spot.

I think I'll just move some of the holes around and keep the same amount, it is really just a few mouse clicks.
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Re: Russ's bubbler

Postby db1979 » Tue Sep 18, 2018 10:21 pm

I think you're over-thinking it mate :teasing-neener:
I just drew up a 5 mm grid and started drilling holes.
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