Baby Dragon - Ace of Hearts

rossco

They are very excited, last I heard hey were trying to put it together. It fits into the its easy when you know how category. Hope it went well.

Lloyd

How many prototypes does it take to get a little glass parrot right?
I don't know yet but 5 sets so far and counting.

On the far left is the latest/greatest and its getting really close. If the spout had been raised up about 10mm it would have been ideal.

Inline glass surge breaker.

I found these are not really needed as two small holes in the wall of the 2" bowl shaped hose adapter solved the problem and after 4 test runs on my Baby Dragon not a single drop came out of the holes.

CothermanDistilling

@Lloyd said: If the spout had been raised up about 10mm it would have been ideal.

Why?

grim

I'd break that parrot sooooo fast you wouldn't know what happened, and I'd probably break the hydrometer at the same time, just for good measure.

CothermanDistilling

You could use a chemistry lab clamp to hold it in place off the column.... and keep @grim away from it

punkin

It does look kinda fragile where the inlet joins the main column. But if they survive international shipping then they'll survive day to day handling, and that's for sure. Glad to see they've got it right Lloyd, great work.

Sadi

=D>

Lloyd

By raising the spout up we can also use the new 3-piece set of alcoholmeters that are a tad taller than the BabyFire alcos.
The prototypes are fragile but the production pieces should be a lot tougher. They are all constructed of borosilicate (Pyrex) but only the production pieces will be annealed to toughen them and to remove the internal stress of melting the pieces together.

starkid101

any body got any 100% we can give to boat bound for punkin to make it go faster.

i pre ordered and paid for Ace of hearts can't wait for it to arrive

sitting in warm fridge waiting is 16 lts strip outer my sold 4 inch pot and 25lts ujsm .

tis a great hobby

happy new year to all

starkid101

Gee

Ran my Ace today and had a real problem with flooding, mostly on the bottom plate. Running on one 2400w element dialed down to 45% (see pic), RC turned completely off as the power was so low, the rate was about 1 drip per second. There were a couple of things that were different from my last runs, 1 it was a TPW (already stripped), the others have been just sugar, 2 I ran it in a new 30L boiler instead of my usual 50L. It was so hopeless I had to switch it off. Any ideas what may be wrong????? Many thanks.

Lloyd

Hi @Gee, what was the boiler charge? The higher the % the less power you need.
I had something like that happen to me before, too, and I believe my boiler charge was close to 45%.
If I recall correctly, I shut down the still and then slowly added more and more power to find the sweet spot. My Ace only gets a maximum of 2000 watts. With a 30% boiler charge I usually run it wide open.
I've also found the top plate can flood when the alcohol is depleted from the boiler.

Gee

Hi Lloyd, thanks for your reply. The charge was 13.3L @ 41%, but I also added 12L of water to ensure the elements were covered when all the alcohol was removed.

Kapea

@Lloyd said: How many prototypes does it take to get a little glass parrot right? + I don't know yet but 5 sets so far and counting.

On the far left is the latest/greatest and its getting really close. If the spout had been raised up about 10mm it would have been ideal.

Get'er done @Lloyd !

I do grab samples for measuring ABV, but I see the wisdom of continuous monitoring with a parrot.

I've been saving my allowance and soda bottle deposits for a glass parrot or 3. Please take my money!

Lloyd

They actually are made but arrived too late to be shipped to Australia or the US. A few did got on the last boat to EU.

Myles

@Gee that doesn't add up. With that dilution you should have been fine. Ultra cold water supply, or controller fail so it was on max power?

Or was your boiler charge 41% including the water you added. My superhero senses are tingling because something is wrong. ;)

grim

I wonder if the section of spool below the column is somehow causing this problem.

25.3 liters in a 30 liter keg. Is it possible that with the boiling action in the boiler, there just isn't enough head space? Boiling up into the column section. Very very unlikely that a spirit run would foam, but if did, that could potentially cause some of the draining issues on the bottom plate. That's the first thing that came to mind here.

I'm more used to the top plate flooding in situations where you are overpowering the column (entrainment flooding).

punkin

I would advise putting the packed section on top of the plated section (assuming it has packing in it).

Some people have reported that the filter discs can hold reflux up and that sometimes it's better to not include them if you want a higher reflux rate.

If the packed section is flooding it will cause the bottom plate to also flood. The only realistic way for a procap to flood at these power levels is if the reflux is not getting away from the bottom of the cap.

Gee

Thanks @Myles and @grim, but it seems it may have been as simple as removing a filter disk that I had between the boiler and the 300ml section below tha ace. Been equalising now for 25 minutes, so far so good!

Gee

Thanks punkin, that all makes sense, sorry I didnt see your post till just now. A couple of hours in and all is well, removing the filter disk has totaly solved the problem. Alchometer reading 96% @ 20°C, so pretty happy with that. The 300mm section below is packed with SS pot scrubbers and also have a 540mm section above also packed similarly.

punkin

Good info Gee. How many scrubbers does it take to fill 800mm?

Gee

Have 6 in the longer section with some copper saddles at the top, and 3 in the shorter section. Wasnt sure how many to pack in, didnt want to restrict it.

brewsmith

Interesting setup there @Gee, so you are basically sandwiching the Ace between a pair of packed sections? Not sure if I have seen a hybrid run that way...

Gee

The original intent with the 300mm section was just for height, but punkin suggested packing it, seems to be performing quite well.

Lloyd

Glad you solved the problem @Gee.
Walking to the office this morning I was convinced that you had blowthrough until I read about the filter disk. That's were so much power is applied that the downcomer cup does not get a chance to fill and the vapors blow through the cap and prevent the cup from loading.
Once the cup is loaded, the cap can accept a lot more power without blowing through.

But this was not the case. It was a filter disc. Beats me how it can behave as a perf plate with such a large percent of open area but I know its true, seen it happen on my 4" CD before. Possibly because the packing was in contact with the filter disc?

Gee

Thanks Lloyd, the run was good from start to finish in the end. The funny thing is the filter disk was in place for the last runs and caused no problems, maybe something to do with the larger boiler and more head space, there wasnt much in the 30L boiler. The packing in this case was a couple of inches above the disk. Cheers.

luckyliqueur

PUMICE - I bought some from New Zealand.

The plan is to cut this down to a useful size . . . . but that's not going to happen for some time.

They baked the pumice in a kiln before shipping it over ~ nice to know there wont be any bugs in it.

So if you want it, you can get it from NZ.

punkin

I don't reckon it's the first time the pumice has been baked either. :))

luckyliqueur

The Kiwi's tell me, twice fried chips are best.

I guess that's how they feel about pumice too.

dellae

and washed as well - looks like the stuff they dig out of the river.

FullySilenced

it not like my scoria... that's much more dense and way less porous