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8" Crystal Dragon

Its getting closer everyday.

The custom gasket has a recess on both sides to capture the glass "chimneys" and a slot to hold the plate.

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The 8" SS sieve plate is based almost entirely on Harley's suggestions.

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Chimney, plate and gasket assembled:

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The cup and downcomer system:

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A special Thank You to Law Of Ohms for the drawings that made this possible and to RedDoor Distillery for the design help and for buying the first 2 columns that are produced. And of course, to Harley for making me start this project.

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Comments

  • Exceptional Lloyd, and very nice nails too.

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

  • Does the gasket work with 4" chimneys Lloyd?

  • @minime said: Does the gasket work with 4" chimneys Lloyd?

    When the 8" is finished we're hoping to take a vacation.

    Then begin work on the 4" Crystal Dragon. The gasket will be the same but just sized down for the 4" chimney. I don't have the mold made for the 4" gasket yet. The 4" should much cheaper and easier to get the parts made.

    This 8" stuff gets expensive so fast but it holds the promise of about 15L per hour.

  • edited June 2013

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  • Sexy project guys. Nice.

  • will the 8" bubble trays fit the gasket as well or just the special sieve plate? Mix and match kinda thing?

  • Yes, the 8" bubble cap plate and the 8" perf plate are the same size so they can be mix-matched.

    The modular model rocks!

  • Loving it. Cant wait to get my hands on it and run it thru hard testing.

  • @RedDoorDistillery said: Loving it. Cant wait to get my hands on it and run it thru hard testing.

    Dude, that thing is going to knock em dead while viewing from your tasting room environment. Super good opportunity for teaching environments as well. I'm sure the good folks at Downslope will be watching as well.

    StillDragon North America - Your StillDragon® Distributor for North America

  • RDD are you getting sieve plates or bubble cap plates or both? 20 plater?

  • He's going with 2 sections of towers with 5 plates each and 1 plate between the 2 sections for a total of 11 perf plates.

    He's counting every mm of available ceiling height and we're making a custom 8x4 reducer so Smaug doesn't need to install a skylight in his ceiling :))

  • edited June 2013

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    8" Sight Tower with a 2" Sight Tower inside to show scale.

    The 8 connecting rods have a double nut arrangement. It's the nuts between the flanges that determine the amount of pressure applied to keep everything sealed yet resists the extra weight exerted by the dephlegmator and condensers.

    Custom rods would need to be made depending on the number of glass sections used. An all-threaded rod could be used but it wouldn't look as nice.

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  • I am going with the sieve plate design. I want to have a plate system that is fully draining so I can put CIP at the top and wash it down. Also sieve plates should produce about 20% more output then the Bubble Caps as it is a more efficient use of the surface area of the plate. As Llyod said I am going with 2 sections of 5 glass with an extra plate in between the 2 sections for a total of 11 plates.

  • We expect a complete report on everything related to these 2pc columns to do, both flows, power consumption as% out of them, like a little video when everything is running ... I think you'll be pleasantly suprised .. Cheers :ar!

  • That is the plan. I intend to start a full thread on it. With all the fun details and pictures. Looking like Lloyd might have everything to me in about 2-3weeks so I can fire it up and put it thru the paces.

  • @RedDoorDistillery, pictures & videos as many as you can make please! Oh, and what do you mean with "put CIP at the top and wash it down"? I guess with CIP you mean a certain product, whereas CIP generally either means "Cleaning In Place" or "Cleaning In Process".

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

  • It's clean in place, so he will be putting a port in at the top to enable a cip process

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

  • Correct. CIP Clean in Place. With Bubble caps you would always have some amount of liquid that would remain on each plate that can not drain down. With the perf plates all the liquid would drain off the plate. Putting a CIP port at the top of the column will allow me to back wash everything back down to the boiler.

  • Ok, now I understand. ;)

    Maybe a stupid question, but why use bubble caps at all if the same can be achieved with perf plates as well but are easier to clean, or does it only work on larger sizes like the 8"? CIP surely would be great for all column sizes.

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

  • That debate, perf vs bubble caps, deserves its own thread.

  • That's like asking what size breast is the best size.... it all depends on what you want and what your needs are at the time....

  • @FullySilenced said: That's like asking what size breast is the best size.... it all depends on what you want and what your needs are at the time....

    :))

  • @Moonshine said: Ok, now I understand. ;)

    Maybe a stupid question, but why use bubble caps at all if the same can be achieved with perf plates as well but are easier to clean, or does it only work on larger sizes like the 8"? CIP surely would be great for all column sizes.

    Also very interested in this topic.

    M.

  • There is alot of Debate about Bubble vs Sieve Plates. I agree with Lloyd a new thread for this would be good.

  • Just to throw the caps back into the equation. Harley reccomends drilling a very small hole (<1mm) in each bubblecap plate to allow them to drain completely after each run. This would allow you to still use CIP.

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

  • edited June 2013

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    Downcomers and their cups and connecting rods and this is done!
    Maybe a week, two at the most.

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  • @punkin said: Just to throw the caps back into the equation. Harley reccomends drilling a very small hole (<1mm) in each bubblecap plate to allow them to drain completely after each run. This would allow you to still use CIP.

    Yeah, tried that. It stuffs up the fluid lock. Still wont run right. Sweede picked it up. He asked me if I had a weep drain. I blocked it off, still ran right again.

    If you run the still on the next run with the j cup full from the last run (be that water or tails), the plates will charge differently.

    Its a bitch of a problem getting the bottom j cup to drain. It seems to make a big difference to the next run when using perf plates.

  • edited June 2013

    What I mean and Punkin referring to is that you can drill 1pc 1mm hole somewhere in the middle of the column between 2pc bubbelcaps so bubble plate caps - pan slowly empties itself after distillation, and this idea, I myself downloaded-get reading that Rednose is doing in a another forum, and so he does and has done for a number of years without problems ...

    But reflux or water still learning to stand in the j-tube or liquid-vapor locks after distillation. 1pc 1mm bore drains, as I said just the plate-pan. This is a problem that I have just started looking at how I can solve it so even liquid locks-j-tube drained and plate-pan much faster, so a think that a shall copy the Big boys solutions.... Kothes solution is good and note so complicated...

    Cheers :ar!

  • edited June 2013

    @punkin, do you have a drawing of the plate and gasket you use here?

    I was thinking if the plate would fit in a 8" tube, of machining the outside of the seal till I can press it in the 8" and it would seal, a bit like a lip seal.

    Then I would need no type of suspension of the plates and no ring for the height. This for a 3-5 plate column.

    M.

  • @emptyglass said: Its a bitch of a problem getting the bottom j cup to drain. It seems to make a big difference to the next run when using perf plates.

    How about just putting in a drain valve under the lowest J cup? Either internally or externally. Valve closed and the J cup is in use, valve open and it will drain back into the boiler. I presume you can flush the upper cups through with water.

    However if at the end of the cleaning cycle you push steam through the system by boiling water, does that not get the cups all hot enough to dry out?

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