T 500 minor issues/teething problems/solutions.

[kiwishiner]

Hi from New Zealand guys.
I've been running my T500 for a couple of months now and love its user friendly functionality. I'd like to be able to say it is perfect, but it is not.
Out of the box, it was impossible to connect to water...until the manufacturer belatedly
supplied the missing fitting. (nothing else fits, so why don't they supply them?)
The fancy looking water adjustment valve is fiddly to set accurately each time.
I solved this by installing an inexpensive, garden splitter tap before the valve.
The thermometers are flaky; I have have required 2 replacement, top column thermometers as they simply stopped providing readout. The lower rubber covered sensor, eventually refuses to be extracted without terminal damage...very common according to distributor.
A smear of vaseline or other nutural lubricant on both sensors, sees them slide in and out with ease. I should have thought to try this earlier.
The column has developed an alcohol leak, where the lower end of condenser joins to the 'alcohol take off' plastic block. Another known issue apparently, and one I've yet to solve.
Cheers.

[Capt-Cudellez]

Hi Kiwishiner, glad to meet you. You may be able to seal the leak with some flour\water dough, but is the thing still not under warranty of some sort?

I found the build quality a bit shabby on my T500, but its still a great bit of kit and you hit the ground running and you can produce decent alcohol from the first run.

If its not under warranty, and you want to fix it permanently yourself, here is what you need to do.

1. Empty the packing out the column.
2. unscrew the condenser lower retaining mount at the product output (2 screws)
3. unscrew the cooling temp probe housing

This will then let you pull the whole top off with the coil out the top of the column. You will now be able to get at the retaining screw for the condenser mounting with a long cross-head screwdriver through the hole where the cooling temp probe housing was.

4. either re-seat and tighten, or swap our the offending o-ring with some alcohol safe material and reassemble.

Also a couple of wraps of PTFE tape round the top of the column end cap will prevent this causing you leaking issues later on. I had leaks there and at the cooling output, all easily put right, and the column worked great.

[kiwishiner]

Thanks for that. The still is under warranty, so my local distributor will get another visit. He's a good bloke, so I imagine he will pull another column out of a box and hand it to me. I wonder when the maker will correct this leaking issue though? I have read of it in other forums, but I guess there are many thousands out there.
I welcome a notice recalling still number o to whatever. Wait for the first attributable fire!