StillDragon® Community Forum

Welcome!

Be part of our community & join our international next generation forum now!

In this Discussion

4" ProCap Plate not bubbling

edited February 2016 in General

Hi Guys

I have 3 x 4" plates in my setup, the top one was standard bubble caps and the lower two have 3 x ProCaps in each.

I noticed the bottom ProCap plate was not very active compared to the other which was quite lively.

I swapped the bottom ProCap plate with the top standard bubble cap plate so I now have the two ProCap plates above the standard one.

However this same plate, now at the top, still shows very little activity compared to the other, could it be possible there's something wrong with one of the ProCaps allowing vapour through the down comers or something?

Comments

  • How much power are you feeding it. Procaps use more power. I'd start around 6kw and adjust from there.

  • I was only running at 2.5 KW, 3 KW is my max off my domestic power supply.

    It seems strange that my other pro-cap plate is much more active

  • I can't see how you'd get blowby in a procap but if it was to happen you should be able to see it? Maybe pull the caps apart and make sure they are all seated properly and all look correct.

    StillDragon Australia & New Zealand - Your StillDragon® Distributor for Australia & New Zealand

  • turn off the power and then turn it back on, it should reset the downcomers..

    a good, in focus pic with the working and non working one in the same pic would be worth a thousand words..

  • or preferably a video

  • Are they upside down?

  • I should have taken some pics as I had it running earlier, I strip my neutral wash's with the three plates.

    I'll take them out later and have a look

  • @FullySilenced said: I know.... L-)

    It's happened before.....

    StillDragon Australia & New Zealand - Your StillDragon® Distributor for Australia & New Zealand

  • edited February 2016

    @CothermanDistilling said: turn off the power and then turn it back on, it should reset the downcomers..

    Every once in a while I get a stubborn liquid level on a random plate - sometimes top - sometimes bottom. It seems to persist until I can let it dump. Never during a run, always during startup and heads compression. More often if our coolant tank is very cold (40f).

    I don't measure the liquid temp on each plate, but I have a sinking suspicion if you slug the column with some cold reflux, it parks itself on a plate and causes the column to act in a little it of an atypical way.

    When we run back to back and we let the coolant tank warm up a bit, it seems to never do it on the second day.

    My bottom procap plate always has the lowest overall liquid level during a run, especially when I'm pushing the power up to keep proof low. The bubble action is similar across all plates, but the resultant splashing and spray is more active in the higher trays.

  • I experienced this during the beginning of a run. It then disappeared later after equalization. Have a video of it but now able to upload it. @moonshine can you help me?

  • I’ve had this with ProCaps and lots of power.
    If they’re not charged you get vapour passing up the centre, the downcomer bit.
    Is that what is meant by ‘blowby’?

    This happens for a few reasons.
    If the column isn’t level all the reflux will go to one side of the plate and through the caps on that side. The other side can’t charge.

    This happens a bit on start up too. With lots of power the vapour blowing up though the center can stop some caps charging but this usually sorts itself out after a while.
    It's more likely to happen if you run with shitloads of power and a really well insulated column and really low reflux rates or no reflux at all.
    The small 'well' in the cap can dry out from the vapour heat as it isn’t replenished and you loose the vapour lock in there. You get the same thing.
    You are running with the reflux condenser hooked up aren’t you?
    Running at for a while at 100% RR will help to ensure all caps a charged.
    Priming the column with a big flush of fresh water at the start of the run helps a lot too this but it might change your run characteristics a bit if you don’t equilibrate for a while.

  • @Unsensibel said: I experienced this during the beginning of a run. It then disappeared later after equalization. Have a video of it but now able to upload it. moonshine can you help me?

    StillDragon® 4" Dash™ - ProCap Run Observations

    Watch @Unsensibel make some observations about the bubble action in his 4" Dash™.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghgB9JAfSLY

    Your Place to be >>> www.StillDragon.org <<< Home of the StillDragon® Community Forum

  • Thanks @moonshine

    @Anavrin is this what you've experienced?

  • Strange because I have done stripping runs through my ProCaps and the plates always stay loaded. Nothing coming down obviously and that is with the full 5,500w running.

  • Well for one thing, mixing plate assemblies as the OP mentions is going to make evaluating plate behavior more difficult. Particularly if the end user has no other experience with a more conventional arrangement with which to gage plate behavior/baseline.

    Check your plate assemblies and make sure all of your parts are well tightened and that alignments are uniform.

    The caps and plates are essentially mass produced so there should be little to no difference from one cap to the next.

    StillDragon North America - Your StillDragon® Distributor for North America

  • @FloridaCracker said: Strange because I have done stripping runs through my ProCaps and the plates always stay loaded. Nothing coming down obviously and that is with the full 5,500w running.

    I'm stripping that way as well. For me, plates typically get loaded at the beginning of the run through while the whole column is heating up. Usually, activity settles down quite a bit later though.

    The vid above was during the beginning of a run and later, the behavior disappeared. At first I thought that I had a clogged cap but that didn't make sense as each one is both a cap and a drain. It seemed as somehow, the regular vapor path was blocked and the drain was filling, pressure building up, and then blowing out through drain.

    Took the video to post here but then the plate started behaving normally again and I pushed it off...

  • does it look like this?

    image

    captured from my YouTube video in my thread 8" Crystal Dragon R&D...

    ProCap - improper operation.jpg
    268 x 390 - 12K
  • @CothermanDistilling that's pretty much how my plate was behaving. Was yours on top of the column? Weird thing that mine started working after while...

  • If I know I am going to do quite a few stripping runs, I will remove the plates/caps to keep them clean (especially on rum). The way I look at it is if I am removing them to clean or to strip it is almost the same amount of work either way.

  • yes, at the top of 24 plates.... I turned off power, let the plates dump, which filled the downcomer cavity, and restarted, and it worked fine... I now, kind of as habit, turn the power off for 30 seconds before heads compression...

Sign In or Register to comment.