Turbo 500 major problems

[champion]

Hello I recently bought a new turbo 500 still.
On the first run it was working perfect and producing ethanol at about 90+ % abv with steady temperatures on both gauges.
After about 1.5 hours and 2 litres of ethanol production the bottom temperature shot up from 60C very rapidly and the coolant water outlet temperature gauge was forced out of its holder and a LOT of boiling hot water came shooting out of the hole were the temperature gauge should be.I attempted to refit the gauge into the hole but there was far to much pressure from the escaping water(now about a foot high).I switched the electric of and after about 2 minutes the escaping outlet water pressure subsided to the normal aprox 500 ml per minute as it was before the problem.
I switched the electric back on and after about 3 minutes the same thing happened, this time I also noticed it was producing ethanol way too fast about 200ml a minute.
Now every time I switch the boiler on the same thing happens.
I was using a standard vodkastar cleared wash with the conditioner and rings in the boiler PLEASE HELP

[Capt-Cudellez]

Hi Champion,
Whats your water supply like normally? Is it mains? pumped from a well etc? Do you notice any hammering or surging when you run the tap normally before its connected to the T500?

To me it sounds as if it's either your water supply pulsing, or you may have some air trapped in the reflux coil.

If your water supply isn't constant you are going to have trouble running any cooling management still like the T500 - you may have to rig up a fishtank\ pond water pump, and pump from the sink, or water barrel?

If you don't think its the water supply, first run the water quite hard to purge any air before turning the supply down to the correct rate for your run.
Watch for any air burbling back up the outlet pipe, if this happens you could either buy an plastic pipe reducer and reduce the outlet pipe diameter for running at a lower rate, or just sit the outlet pipe in a basin of water so its submerged - this is easier, but I like it less, as I like to see the cooling water is running.

A couple of turns of plumber tape (PTFE) should keep the probe in place, you actually might have trouble removing it, but that's no biggy, just keep it connected to the T500. If you really need to remove it, you can always unscrew the housing from the column, and push it out from the inside, so don't worry about that.


Let us know how you get on.

CC

[champion]

Thanks for the reply Capt-Cudellez our water supply is mains and no problems exist with it.
On my first run yesterday the still worked 100% perfect for about 2 hours producing 2 litres of high strength ethanol.Then suddenly the problem just started I did check the flow and it was still about 500ml a minute.I had a read this morning on this forum and some uses mentioned flooding the column if it was too tightly packed.
When I assembled it I followed the youtube recomendation and after the copper was inserted and i put in the clay?? pieces I kept tapping and shaking the column and got it well packed so this morning I took all of the packing pieces out and re-packed it without too much shaking /banging the sides of it I was left with about a half pint glass of the clay peices that were in it before but the column was still packed to the top.
I tried running it today and it seems perfect again if not better as the temps are a lot more steady.
My conclusion is it was overpacked so far so good fingers crossed.

[Capt-Cudellez]

Flooding the column will cause spurts of product coming out the output, but shouldn't affect the cooling pressure as you described.

Glad it seems to be working now.

BTW turning the cooling up to purge any air is still a good thing to do at start up, the T500 has the cooling lines plumbed the wrong way round so it's prone to this issue.

CC.

[kiwishiner]

Hi Cap. Forgive me if I seem obtuse etc. lol
When you say the plumbing is incorrect, are you meaning 'compared to other styles of stills?' I am on tank supply water, and other stills drained my tank dry.
I'm assuming that the designers of the T 500, in their intention to make an effective,
economical still, didn't actually screw up with their design? Is certainly works, so one hopes that wasn't a lucky fluke. Shame the thermometers die readily though...
Regards...

[Capt-Cudellez]

It is good practice to plumb the reflux with the cooling flow entering the bottom of the coil and exiting the top, the T500 is plumbed the opposite from this, if its plumbed the way I said, any air getting in to the system when running on a low volume is pushed out of the coil.

The way the T500 is plumbed means you can get air in the coil from the cooling output or trapped at the top connection which is then pushed back into the coil, causing problems with temp control - its a design flaw IMHO. I guess if your running this unit in warmer climates like goo old Auz, it's less of an issue, when running in winter here, my water is about 7oC and I was running on only 300ml/h ish so experienced this issue quite a bit.

I think the T500 was built with the idea of having one thing to control to make it assessable to the masses - it produces consistent product, but at the expense of running efficiently. It is overpowered for a short column to achieve a quick start up time - if I was redesigning it I would have 3 power settings. Full power for warm up, a low power setting for heads and faints, and a med setting for pulling off the hearts - you would need different temp targets for each of the power settings on the cooling output, so this does complicate things for the distiller.

I modified my column and got over 60% increase in output without any drop in ABV. I've since changed over to a larger vapour management still which is much easier to run.


CC

[jc57025]

Has anyone tried to set up a header tank to ensure that water pressure is constant?
I have heard a rumour that StillSpirts is working on this.
If so, how high should the head be?

[fuf]

Hi jc,

Have a look at this link viewtopic.php?f=12&t=2736&p=16580&hilit=header+tank#p16580

And this link viewtopic.php?f=12&t=2736&p=16580&hilit=header+tank#p16622

[jc57025]

Thanks for the feedback. Looks good. I have a float valve already.
Do you mean that the surface of the header tank water is 50CM above the top of the column or to the cooling water inlet? I am a bit cramped for space. I cloud put my still on the floor but then I have to get the exit water up to the sink.

[jc57025]

On second thought, the total head distance is from the top of the water in the tank to the end of the outlet tube in the sink. Also, if you are getting 25 times the necessary volume we can work with a little less head.