Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

Hi guys

Looking for advice on my 4" Re-flux condenser .

there is two pic below and im stuck on theory of opperation so my question is this ...
A: will having fewer tubes in the condenser make it harder to control the temp when it comes to letting bypass through to the P/C and take longer to stabilize. also will it take longer to load the plates due to fewer tubes. plenty of water around tubes but longer to load plates due to less tubes cooling vapour.

or

B: will having more tubes make it easer to controll the temp as there is less water volume around the tubes. will load plates faster due to more surface area for vapour and stablize quicker due to less water around the tubes ....

my theory is having less water around the tubes will make tuning the temp easer for when running through to the P/C and having more tubes will load the plates quicker

so if you under stood that i would like your feed back below pleas.

cheers
johnny

I vote for more pipes, the slower the vapour speed the better the heat transfer, less pipes will increase the vapour speed

I have this idea that the total square area of the defleg pipes should exceed that of the risers in the caps too, as to not restrict flow, but thats just based on "how things should work" in my head...

Go 12 tubes if you can fit them in. They won't load the plates any faster, that depends on the heat put into the boiler, assuming that you're achieving full reflux. More vapour rising and then condensing means more fluid returning down to the plates in less time,filling the plates up faster.

And you shouldn't have trouble holding full reflux on 2400 W with either 12 or 9 tubes with an RC of at least 100 mm length. The less water in your RC the faster it will respond to changes in water flow so if you make changes to your gate/needle valve you'll see the effect of it sooner. I would guess too that with 12 tubes you could go quite a bit shorter than 100 mm RC length too. Bt1 built a "tuna can RC" and had good results with it.

I've found less tubes is faster response?

Mine is 75mm long with 5 x 3/4" internal and will hold full reflux at 2400w.

My 6" is 150mm long and has a lot of tubes (you'll have to check my "mother duck" build to get details) it is slow to respond and is touchy as buggery. I'm toying with the idea of making it shorter and removing some tubes.

Just my experiences

Interesting woodduck :think:
I always thought from the build threads I've read that more tubes were better. Mine too is a lot like your's. It's 85 mm with 5 x 3/4" tubes. I have two 2000 W elements and my RC struggled to hold full reflux so I put copper mesh into the tubes and works fine.

I'm pretty happy with the response time of mine too.

well i forgot to mention its going to be a full stainless build

i was going to make R/C 170mm long to..

i wonder in woodducks case copper is a better conductor

More the better

My build is copper too, with copper mesh in the RC tubes.

WD, did you keep the half plate inside your RC? If so it could explain why it works so well.

I have a baffle in my 4" not my 6".

I wonder if length of the RC has a bigger impact on response time. Since the water flow rate is so slow, a longer RC will take longer for the temp of the entire RC to stabilise. :think:

I think most people tend to make their RCs longer than needed out of concern that it won't be able to hold full reflux.

I think 170 mm is way too long.

woodduck looking at you r/c in your 6" build I'm thinking there is not enough pipes which kinda confirms why the conciseness is the more the better i believe there is to much cooling water volume in your r/c making it hard to tune .... blocking them off would make it worse or more touche and would also confirm it..

so after having all you guys input im going to build the 12 hole R/C . now will the length do the same thing as having not enough pipes and make it hard to tune ... hmm i don't think so

I think i will stick to my tube length of 170mm it do feel like it will take longer for the heat to saturate but maybe that's the difference between .5 of a turn on control valve to like a full turn making the heat more manageable

so im thinking this being longer will widen the adjust ability of temps like 70 to 80 in one full turn on valve against being shorter and having a range of 70 to 80 in 1/4 of a turn

dose that logic sound fair to you guys?

any way i will start on the plates today maybe i will try to take some pics

EDIT " didnt see post above b4 posting this"

The 5 1/2 inch pipes in in my 5 star rc won't hold full reflux at 2200w. I have to knock it back to around 70% on my controller.

Try some SS or copper mesh in the tubes orcy. If you can get it to run at higher power it'll run faster and you'll spend less time in front of the still.

db1979 wrote:Try some SS or copper mesh in the tubes orcy. If you can get it to run at higher power it'll run faster and you'll spend less time in front of the still.

I might try that. Or just toss the piece of shit in the bin and build a proper one.

What sort water hoses you have orcy? If using braided line switch to garden type hose higher flow better cooling..

First I've heard a bad word against the 5star gear orcy...
Send it my way, I'll throw it out for you.

Having less tubes just means that you have a larger block of cold that the vapour needs to pass through to get to the output.

Depends how you run your still.
Adjust the water flow or adjust the power to acheive the power output required.

orcy wrote:The 5 1/2 inch pipes in in my 5 star rc won't hold full reflux at 2200w. I have to knock it back to around 70% on my controller.

When you run it at 70% and have your RC dialed in properly what flow rate of output do you get?

bluc wrote:What sort water hoses you have orcy? If using braided line switch to garden type hose higher flow better cooling..

I had the same issue and doing this fixed my problem.
I can now hold full reflux at 4800w
Thanks to db1979 for pointing it out to me a while back