Introducing the NEW +++ ProCap36 +++ Product Line-Up!

punkin

I don't think the concept is all that amazing as with all the StillDragon gear. Arranging things concentrically is a pretty common engineering trick to get multiple uses out of one whole. Unless there's something I'm missing this is just natural progression. I lot of people including myself would have come up with this already.

Sure they spent there time and money refining it too but the thing that StillDragon does very well, the thing they should be commended and rewarded for is they can produce it to a price.

The concept is nothing special, mass producing it and making it affordable is where the trick is.

As seen elsewhere. Alot of people would have come up with this already including the author, but haven't. :)) =))

Al_Q

Loving the new design! Kudos!

Its sounding like the key to these is to drive it hard, I don't have the power to run a large column, just 3Kw. But its not the size of your column, its what you do with it that counts, eh :)

Got me thinking, it would be easy enough to fab a single 2" plate using the 2" filter disk as a size guide. Cut a single center hole for the new ProCap36, and fit using the 2" custom gaskets to 2" sight towers for a low cost, low(er) power bubbler. Could even just use short tri-clamp tubes if you weren't bothered about seeing it working for an even cheaper option. Cool.

Edit: I missed page 3 of the discussion, you were already there before me doh

jacksonbrown

@punkin said: As seen elsewhere. Alot of people would have come up with this already including the author, but haven't. :)) =))

or have =)) Looked at the rest of the thread? Well done on making a cost effective product. Looking forward the the price drop once the hype dies down.

punkin

The price drop will be a while away. There's some development costs to cover, and only Lloyd knows how much...but it's in the tens of thousands.

Costs that those who copy don't have to bear. @-)

Lloyd

The ProCap is just another tool in the toolbox.
What sets SD apart is we provide the tools that distillers like to use.
We have a big lineup of hard-to-find and impossible-to-find-elsewhere products and that's certainly true for the ProCaps. We never intended to be a One Stop Shop where you can buy everything. Our focus and our passion is to provide the very best value that we can for the distilling parts that we want to use.

Like an alcoholmeter that's printed so the numbers cannot hide. Or the filter disks, ThermoTees, gin basket, Crystal Dragons, etc... all are products created by distillers for distillers.

Forum members have helped us to create some nifty items and the good work continues. The ProCap is just another step forward for StillDragon.

Its been a hell of a ride so far.

waxernz

With your 2.5" build you said you will have 2" ends rather than a reducer. Do reducers ever matter. In this case its a small difference but even in a 3 or 4" if you went straight to 2" would it make any perceivable difference in end product? Also on these rigs rather than an extra section for depleg is there enough room in a reducer for cooling. Maybe coil?

Lloyd

@waxernz I have samples here of 2", 2.5", 3", 4", 5", 6", 8" and even 12" TC sight towers.
For a single ProCap the 2.5" is the ideal size but I'm unwilling to stock all the possible combinations of reducers for the 2.5" TC size... 4x2.5, 3x2.5 in regular, bowl and end cap.
Instead, I'm getting the 2.5" sight tower machined with 2" ferrule ends to completely avoid that odd size. The prototype has not arrived yet. Maybe the 2.5" will need a new designation? CD2", perhaps?

Not sure what reducer you are referring to. I intend, unless something changes, to make everything 2". A pot of some kind (as yet not sourced) with a 2" top ferrule. Then the 2.5" sight tower - which now begins to get confusing because it uses a 2" clamp - and a 2" baby dephlem, 2" 180 (a 135 plus a 45 is also an option), 2" regular product condenser and finished out with a surge breaker. The parrot can be an optional accessory. With this design only 2" clamps would be needed so there would be no reducers until the surge breaker. Since everything is SD modular the individual parts would be available separately.

Once assembled with 4 plates, I could measure the total height of the completed sight tower and dephlem and replace it with a length of TC pipe to convert the bubble cap still to a pot still. That would keep the product takeoff at the same height. The pot still could be the entry still for many with the ability to add the bubble section later.

waxernz

Yeah I meant on the ends of sightglasses if one had a 4 inch one for instance and machined a 2 inch out like you are doing on the 2.5. I had seen mention of smoothly reducing vapor path being a good thing and was more thinking if there is any proof of it making a difference even on a larger scale of 4" to 2". The dephleg I was more imagining something like on the 3" to 2" reducer and wondering if a coil inside would offer enough reflux over standard dephleg. Just as a way of reducing height if one were using the normal sight glasses rather than your modified one.

punkin

I see the Swedish guy is still spouting his gibberish, and the other clown is now talking complete and total crap and resorting to quoting himself as a reference =))

grim

Still scratching my head over the claims that differences in specific separation techniques can selectively isolate and pass beneficial flavor compounds, whilst simultaneously denying negative flavor compounds passage.

Must be some kind of magic in them thar stills.

Guess that is the kind of story you need to come up with when you are trying to get a distiller to part with a princely six figure sum.

Smaug

And the thing is that my favorite rum,,,of the 160 choices available at the Miami Renaissance Rum Festival,,,,,,was not at all the rum that came from the business end of one of the German rigs,,,,,,no offence intended to the folks running those.

Mickiboi

I have done a bit of psychology when I was counselling post op heart attack and bypass patients. The Swedish guy and the clown both have a disease.

Its called Severe Terminal Undiagnosed Persistent Idiosyncratic Disease with Consistent Underlying Narcissistic Tendency Syndrome.

Think about it and my post now may have to be moved or deleted....sorry.

bentstick

A little under diagnosed EH!

cunnyfunt

Spectrum disorder with too much google?

Mickiboi

Read the diagnosis as capital letters STU...

cunnyfunt

Still nothing.. Can you give me another hint?

cunnyfunt

I guess it's already been said. Proofs in the puddin

fadge

@cunnyfunt said: Still nothing.. Can you give me another hint?

bloody hell man, like a puzzle, take each capitalized word and note it down on a piece of paper running down the page one word at a time, then write it out again backwards, then write it down again the other way, now take the first letter and write it concurrently in lowercase, then rewrite that again in caps twice the size.....

or spell out the CAPs ?

fadge

just spinning ya

cunnyfunt

lol im not a smart man

Lloyd

ProCaps are a simple way to eliminate downcomers.

The downcomer to drain all the plate fluid is built in to the ProCap so for the very first time the plate can breathe fully and produce the most amount of alcohol.

Of course we knew we'd have distractors and the Swedish clown on HD would be the best of the lot against us, that was a given. So glad he has proven himself, so far, a complete idiot.
Trouble is I like the guy and wish he'd stop hating me.

CothermanDistilling

@Lloyd - now you have room for a plate defeat mechanism ;-)

heartcut

This, IMO, parallels the Magic Flute- not really new, but a great idea that was not available. It's not super complicated in concept, but I think avoiding the development and optimization will make buying vs fabrication a no brainer for me. I can't see any merit in harley's technical objections to the ProCaps, but do find the "creative" insults amusing.

googe

I thought you ment no downcomer at all punkin, like mine, where's the fun in that lol. I'm curious about splashing I see on the upper walls in the video, is that an issue?. Does having the downcomer and cap in one unit result in a hotter plate?, so to speak. Is there some thermal heat making the plate more active?. There's always positives and negatives, changes are what make things happen.

Smaug

Googe this particular video may not be the best video to judge practical, more typical plate behavior.

Remember the point of the video was to try and force the system to flood. It could not be flooded even though Lloyd was throwing full power at the system and we could still see that the ABV at the parrot was very high indeed. In this instance I also expect temp correcting would be minimal as Lloyd is using that big ole 4" product condenser.

Also each plate was set up to discharge and direct liquid differently in order to demonstrate how one can literally aim return liquid to a designated location onto the next plate level downward.

The goal of the video in this instance was not to run the system optimally. As matter of interest, I am curious to know whom within the community can throw an inordinate amount of (full) power at their boiler with out flooding at least the top plate?

We will have some Larger diameters heading out to customers when our sea freight arrives and soon enough we will expect some running data that more and more participants within the community will be able to compare and confirm any assertions made here.

OD's "Magic Flute" started out with the good folks in the ivory tower making un qualified assumptions...They said it would not make good alcohol. They said it would offer poor quality separation. Shortly there after most of them seemed compelled to shut the hell up. Who here remembers how many and whom the detractors were within the community in those days? I do.

The more skeptical theorists will be back peddling soon enough...Or not.

googe

Didn't take into account the speed smaug, good point!. Only plate I know that maybe wouldn't flood would be the Weir ones?, dunno cause I've never run them!, a lot of lost plate space though. It's got alot of people thinking and trying things which is good for the community. Would like to see a video of it running at a.nice takE off speed or a deeper bath too. I'm asking out of curiously not malice.

Smaug

No worries about malice Googe. Your always open and a cracker innovator in your own right.

I always read your posts across all of the forums.

googe

As I do yours smaug ;-), I'll admit I was a bit judgmental and jealous when I first seen these plates, as im sure many were/are, tried to pick holes!, it's silly!. In the end, I love all this sort of stuff, if it works or not I don't care, I just like the thought it creates!. And playing with new things!. Will keep an eye out for more videos :-).

Lloyd

I placed the PID sensor at the bottom of the parrot which turns out to be the worst possible place to put it. The product condenser gets no water flow until the product begins to heat up and by then the entire condenser is hot. The sensor needs to be repositioned, in my opinion, about half way up the product condenser.

We'll be traveling during the next couple of days but hoping to get another run in soon after we return. It really is past time to make more videos and they should be aimed at an 'optimal' run instead of simply throwing all the power that is possible at the boiler.
Videos during the development stage were deleted from the camera to make room for more videos, didn't see the need to save them. The early failures were mostly about getting the hole and slot sizes correct and every small change meant more tooling to be made.

The flow directors are not really needed as you can simply offset the plate above and the reflux will land between the caps below. They were produced simply as another tool for the distiller to use. I like to have it channel the returning liquid against the glass so I can easily see the flow coming from a single ProCap.

The little funnel shaped downcomer adjuster is still a work in progress. Its been tooled twice and both times the tooling failed to produce acceptable parts so the third set of tooling is being made now. I have a few of the rejected prototypes that do fit so I can populate a plate or two, that would liven up the video perhaps.

Smaug

As I recall, Swede and OD are the only ones running with Weirs? And OD ultimately dialed his perf plates to run with 2400 watts.

Not sure what Swede has available?

bentstick

@Mickiboi, Duh I have it now, yes correct!