Plumbing for Product Condenser and Dephlegmator

micheltann1960

Still don't understand how the plumbing works on Crystal Dragon and how the product condenser and dephlegmator are fixed to it.

I am planning to purchase a 380L boiler with an 8 inch , 6-16 plate Crystal Dragon or Dash. I have been through the manual but still not clear about the condensers and plumbing.

punkin

The manual show two different ways to plumb the condensors?

crozdog

You can plumb the condensors so they each have a separate feed (see figure 38 in the manual) or daisy chain them so the output of 1 is connected to the other as the input.

For example connect cold into bottom of the product condensor, warm out of the top of the product condenser goes to the top of the dephleg with hot out the bottom of the dephleg (this has both condensors setup in counterflow & requires all air to be bled out before using)

GD50

Do you really think it is important to plumb the dephleg as counter flow as it it so much easier to set it with cold in the bottom warm out top so no air entrapment. I have run it both ways with regard to a separate flow to each but have found i like the warmer water going into RC. I do have a 5" big RC with lots of grunt which helps.

crozdog

Hi GD,

I'm running on a closed loop reservoir system and also have one of the original dephlegs so like the counterflow setup to make it as efficient as I can.

if I had a super dephleg I probably wouldn't bother

I simply swap the lines around to fill from the bottom, then once full, connect back up in counterflow - the quick disconnects make this easy.

CothermanDistilling

I run a 1000L tote with water and a small pump, it splits the flow to the PC(4"x1-meter) and the RC(dephleg).. separate loops, the PC uses a danfoss valve to minimize water flow to keep the output about 145F (could go higher if receiving container could handle it or if had a radiator to cool it before returning... the RC uses a proportional motorized valve controlled by a PID with 4-20mA output signal. The valve is on the outlet of the RC. both condensers flow bottom to top, the RC efficiency loss is minimal because we are doing phase change, not heat exchange, and counterflow is not needed.

GD50

Agreed. Mind you i have a 3" PC and even with quite warm water i find i only need about 1 - 11/2 lpm to do the job so it is not imparting that much heat into the water. Running 50l boiler with say 6kw during operation. If running with the total 9.6kw i can knock it down with RC but flood the top plates.

mark85

There's something Iv always wondered about a counter flow set up on a condenser where the vapour is heading upwards...

I sometimes run a vm that uses clear piping for the condenser water. Going in (from the mains tap) I can see no air bubbles at all. It goes through the PC counter flow then daisy chains to a copper coil RC then out into another clear pipe and to the drain. Coming out the pipe is full of bubbles (adorably my dog chases and paws at them) which I suppose are dissolved gases coming out of solution because we just heated the water up to 60c or so.

In a dephleg setup with cool water going in through the top and warm coming out the bottom wouldn't these gases coming out of solution just float and pool in the top of your condenser killing it's efficiency?

CothermanDistilling

@mark85 said: There's something Iv always wondered about a counter flow set up on a condenser where the vapour is heading upwards...

I sometimes run a vm that uses clear piping for the condenser water. Going in (from the mains tap) I can see no air bubbles at all. It goes through the PC counter flow then daisy chains to a copper coil RC then out into another clear pipe and to the drain. Coming out the pipe is full of bubbles (adorably my dog chases and paws at them) which I suppose are dissolved gases coming out of solution because we just heated the water up to 60c or so.

In a dephleg setup with cool water going in through the top and warm coming out the bottom wouldn't these gases coming out of solution just float and pool in the top of your condenser killing it's efficiency?

yes, you would have to vent or high-speed purge any air bubbles.. but since counter-flow does not matter if their is a phase change (discussed in pretty good detail here on SD), just put the cool water in the bottom of both condensers, be done with it, and spend time on perfecting fermentations and cuts...

mark85

Yeah that's how I run it, filling both condensers bottom up. Iv just seen a counter flow arrangement (falsely?) recommended for a RC

CothermanDistilling

if you had it under pressure (say city pressure, with an air bleed, it might get you a couple percent more efficiency in cooling liquid, but do you want efficiency in that? I think not, you want to just get the vapor condensed, not cool it, as cooling would be an energy waste, just like running too cold of water in the dephleg...

Spiritintheair

Newbie here. If you run cold in the bottom of the dephleg and warm out to the bottom of the product condenser (pc), if you control the flow in with the needle valve (or out of the dephleg), will this control the product condenser side of the cooling or do you need to use the second needle valve either on the in or out of the pc or at all ?

Unsensibel

If anything, you need to plump it the opposite (cold in pc, warm out into rc). Otherwise you'll have a tough time knocking all the vapor back into liquid

grim

Tying both condensers together is a compromise, run two valves.

Smaug

100% Grim

If you choose to utilize your PC waste water to feed your RC, you will have a very (very) limited amount of control and will likely never be able to run the system as fast as the system is capable.....Unless you have a monster PC that will not at all be affected by very slow flow rates. Certainly speed and quality of separation have to be prioritized according to one's point of view,,,but there is no reason to be limited to 12 LPH when the system is capable of run at 60 LPH with no compromise in quality......True story.

flidget

After working out the plumbing, next up is to decide if you want your flow restrictors (applies to RC and PC) on the cold water in side, or the hot water out side. I'm leaning to placing the flow restrictors on the hot water out side. That might help keep a top-down RC (counterflow) full of water during the run.

Smaug

@flidget said: After working out the plumbing, next up is to decide if you want your flow restrictors (applies to RC and PC) on the cold water in side, or the hot water out side. I'm leaning to placing the flow restrictors on the hot water out side. That might help keep a top-down RC (counterflow) full of water during the run.

Not sure about the rest of the SD crew, but here in the states we always recommend installing the flow control on the discharge side.

Spiritintheair

Cheers guys, got all that ! Two feeds it is and control valves on the returns.

One other question (for now), Best place for the thermos tee piece? to measure which temperature ? Please bare with me on this .... I am a still virgin (on the ridiculous sometimes)

CothermanDistilling

you want the thermometers as close to the exit as you can.. there is a thread on here called 'temperature sensor locations' or something like that that has a good amount of discussion...