4" stainless 4 tray bubble column design

[Swede]

Thanks Mac :)

Today, I made the endcaps for the 2" shotgun product condenser. I marked and center punched the tube holes, then drilled them out to 1/2" on a strip of stainless. I the squares off, and put a 1/2" bolt in the center tube hole, then chucked it in a lathe and turned them to the correct size circles (forgot a pic of that).

Here's a pic drilling out the pilot holes, these were enlarged to 1/2" to fit the tubes.



Then I fit the 5 tubes into the endcaps, they are 1/2"OD X .065" wall stainless, and 24" long. This gives me 10ft of cooling tube in the shotgun. I hope this is capable of knocking down everything I have to throw at it (4500W). It should, considering it's 5X bigger what I use now (2ft of 1/2" copper leibig). I do realize that stainless has lower thermal conductivity than copper, and the ID is smaller on the stainless, but it should be more than enough. :D

[Swede]

Today I made the dephlemator and welded on the ferrules to the column body. I still need to mount the half couplings on the water ports of the dephlem, and the sight glass windows on the column.

Here's some stainless porn :D

Fitting up the dephleg



Dephleg construction pics







Here I'm using a wet cloth to prevent welding spatter from sticking to the column body. I'm using a mig, I ran out of gas on my tig, so mig with stainless wire is what I'm using here...



More pics of things set up







That's it for now :wink:

[crozdog]

looking great Swede!

you're going to end up with a great unit you'll be really proud of. top work

[SBB]

Nice work Swede. I'm having enough trouble with building one of these with copper which is easy to cut/bend/solder,
My head spins just thinking about trying to do it in stainless :lol:

[Swede]

Thanks for the compliments guys, believe it or not, I'd rather do this in stainless than copper, I find welding easier than soldering big bore copper any day.

[Swede]

Here's a look at the product condenser with the tubes tacked in, below, after welding and grinding smooth...





And the shot you've all been waiting for, :lol: :lol: the mockup, and a look at the overall hieght so far...

[Swede]

Some more pics of the internals. Here we see the trays, they are a slide in wier downcomer type.











A pic of the parrot finished, the vent is a bit different than I origionally thought of, but it's nice and tidy, it's sitting up against the product condenser.

[Swede]

Alright, the tedious stuff. I made some bubble caps, I used 3/4" caps for this.

First, I clamped my die grinder in the vise, and cut the cap slots...



I used a hose clamp as a stop to get the slot heights even, cutting each slot separately, and dipping in water to cool it in between each cut so i didnt burn my fingers...



The intent was to get 50% open space with quite narrow slots to give the finest bubbles with the least restriction, it worked out pretty decent (you dont want to see the first few attempts, :doh: )



And finally, the risers are made from 1/2" stainless tube, the spikes are cut to stick through corresponding holes in the cap, they are hammered down much like rivets to secure the cap. I tested this method, and it works well, if i need to remove a cap, I may have to solder to the new cap to the remaining stub. The risers are going to be welded to the trays.

I plan on setting the riser height the same as my wier height, does this sound correct?

[MacStill]

No blood spatter from holding the caps like that is pretty impressive :laughing-rolling:

Once you start building one of these things it's addictive isnt it, then you start to appreciate the amount of time it takes to get them finished.... they're a fairly big project arent they :mrgreen:

[SBB]

And blokes like you make it look so easy :laughing-rolling: ...then people like me try :laughing-rolling:

[Swede]

MacStill, boy you can say that again, buildin is just as addicitve as any other aspect of this hobby :lol:

Also, I definately shined up the tips of my fingers a few times, never broke through the skin though :laughing-rolling:

SBB, trust me, it took me a little while to warm up, you should see my practice scraps, look like chook shit :oops: when it comes to welding and metalworking in general, you just gotta do it regularly, or else you lose the touch...

[Swede]

Made some progress today. I figured out a way to make the bubble cap assemblies basically "slip on". The tangs act like spring loaded barbs, and the bites into the cap when it's pressed down into place. It works very well.



Here's a finished tray, all the caps are pressed on...



A look at the tray slid in the column



And a look at the downcomer plate seal bolt. It's a piece of threaded rod, and a nut welded onto the downcomer plate, when the rod is unscrewed from the nut, it forces the plate tight against the column wall.



Here's the column with the sight glass ferrules installed



And a look at the tray though one of the sight glasses

[Swede]

The bottom tray needs a "j" trap or some other way of retaining liquid, and after much thought, this is what I came up with. I didn't want to restrict downflow, so I used two 1/2" pipes and a "cap" to catch the liquid.



Here's the "cap" covering the tubes, it's a piece of 2" pipe flattened a bit, and capped on the bottom, the side is cut away to form a spill wier for the downcomer tubes.



another look at the bottom tray arrangement

[olddog]

I like that downcomer arrangement for the bottom plate, much easier than the box section I put on mine. Great build, I can't wait to here the run results. :dance:

[Swede]

No blood spatter from holding the caps like that is pretty impressive :laughing-rolling:

Once you start building one of these things it's addictive isn't it, then you start to appreciate the amount of time it takes to get them finished.... they're a fairly big project aren't they :mrgreen:

You can say that again friend, I'd never have figured the amount of hours necessary to complete one of these. Not sure what the trade-off between copper and stainless is, build time wise.

There is likely an equal amount of polishing necessary to make a presentable unit. I figure that fabrication costs are cheaper when working with stainless steel than copper, I didn't have to buy any soft solder, silver solder, or flux and MAPP/Propane. I did however spend over $70CAD on argon gas for my TIG welder to do the stainless welding. Most of the welding was fusion welding, so there was little filler metal needed.

All in all, I'd say, stainless is likely easier for me to work with, due to my skill set than copper, but that's just me. YMMV and your experience may differ.

[Swede]

I like that downcomer arrangement for the bottom plate, much easier than the box section I put on mine. Great build, I can't wait to here the run results. :dance:

It was very easy to build, a piece of 2" pipe crushed in the vise untill the outer profile was close the column wall profile, and capped in on the bottom. All I needed to do then was remove half the profile until I maintained a liquid depth greater than the plate above, I did this to ensure that there was no way for the last plate to drain due to lower static pressure (pressure drop across downcomer liquid lock) due to it being the lowest plate.

(Please advise me if this makes sense)

[SBB]

Excellent idea for that bottom downcomer Swede. I used a J type on mine but looked at a few different ideas.

[Swede]

Another hard day's work, and the end is in sight. Today I finished up the trays, cut a larger hole in my keg and welded on a 4" ferrule to mount the column direct to the keg. I did a little more polishing and finished up the plumbing too.

I still need to get the sight glasses, and the 1/2" NPT fitting above the top window is going to get a 3" temp gauge I ordered yesterday (I had the room, and it'll look cool!!) I also need to figure out where I'll mount the temp probes for my controller. The port on the bottom of the dephleg that has a ball valve on it is eventually going to be for my automation valve, to control dephleg water flow with my controller.

Aside from those few things, she's basically ready to go :!:

Here's a look at the column set up, it's about 6'6" tall, and pretty hefty!!



A look down at it, you can see the caps through the window a bit...



And a closer look at the plumbing, I'll get a nicer valve for the air bleed, or maybe even put a "maid-o-mist" automatic air bleed valve there instead. The two red handled gate valves control water out flow only to regulate cooling to the dephleg.



All I can say is, I sure wish my welding would have been as pretty at the start as it was towards the end of the build, it took a while to get the feel of things again.

[MacStill]

That's a beautiful bubbler mate, very impressive looking made from SS :clap: :clap: :clap:

Well done!

[Kimbo]

Maaaate,
well done, it sure is a pajama tightener :clap: :clap: :clap: