My dad used one of these toward the end of his life. He used the water for his CPAP machine. He had to wear the device even while awake. And he couldn't rely on a constant supply of plastic bottles of distilled water for the machine. He often mentioned that he'd like to change the temperature to 160 degrees Fahrenheit and make moonshine. Always a bright spot in the day to see a Big Clive video!

@BlondieSL

Жыл бұрын

There's definitely a way to do this, but it would require some knowledge of electronics. Personally, if I was to add a temperature control to ours (which I have no reason to) I'd be using an Arduino with a metal temperature probe and a cute little color TFT display. LOL Hey, maybe even a touch screen to really snazz it up! It would be pretty easy to do and in fact, adding a 2nd temperature probe could be used as an auxiliary safety feature. Using an Arduino, one could even perhaps add a fan speed control and even a "water drop counter" to measure output. That part would take a bit more work, but very doable. One could have some fun with a project like that.

@ZebbMassiv

Жыл бұрын

Just needs a potentiometer and a thermometer

@salerio61

Жыл бұрын

You don't control the temperature when you use a pot still, you reduce the power and leave the still to it. Easiest way is a small box with a diode in it and a switch to bypass the diode. Use it in bypass mode to heat up the fluid, then to half power to run the distillate. Don't try and control the temperature, that isn't how it works. The only thing the vapour temperature you is when you are separating the different components in the distillate, but if you don't produce methanol in the first place it's not really an issue.

People also use distilled water for medical devices such as for sleep apnea (Constant Pulmonary Air Pressure Machine)or CPAP. Also useful in humidifiers for avoiding scale.

@wirdy1

Жыл бұрын

CPAP is Continuous Positive Air Pressure. I've used one for the last decade.

@scpvrr

Жыл бұрын

…although the distiller itself does have to be descaled as well…through a much easier process.

@redsable6119

Жыл бұрын

@@wirdy1 15 years here.

@Doc_Hawk

Жыл бұрын

That moment when you try and sound smart but it backfires

@redsable6119

Жыл бұрын

@@Doc_Hawk I made a mistake, and if you are woefully ignorant of the concept.....Ask you dad.

I actually use one of these, specifically sold for Alcohol - but basically the same unit in all ways. But I use it for cleaning IPA after it's been used for resin printing. Recovers the bulk of the IPA for reuse. I'm not sure from an energy perspective it's a whole lot more cost effective than buying IPA, but during the height of covid response it certainly was as IPA had gone through the roof and was even difficult to get in volume. I mean I suppose from pure math it's a better value to distill it - though it is a pain in the rump for a bunch of reasons..

@bigclivedotcom

Жыл бұрын

Does the residual resin cause issues in the chamber?

@wolvenar

Жыл бұрын

@@bigclivedotcom For me it's entirely up to what resin that was mostly used.

@josephking6515

Жыл бұрын

Very clever George, very clever. 👍 I wish I was using quantities of IPA that I could do that to now because the power would cost me almost nothing due to my roof being covered with solar panels.

@birdpump

Жыл бұрын

Isn't boiling resin alcohol going to produce lots of nasty fumes

@jtjames79

Жыл бұрын

I've been researching this. So far, putting the IPA in a clear soda bottle out in the sun causes it to make a semi solid snot substance. I used a colander to separate it. Then I funneled it back with a coffee filter. It left a little residue, I don't really care that much. I use a three-stage system. Got a container to dunk prints right off the printer. Then it goes into the cleaning machine. Then a final dunking in clean IPA. The residue really doesn't need to be removed for the first dunk. My plan to deal with the residue is run it through a Britta water filter. If it can make rotgut vodka drinkable after a couple of passes, my hypothesis is it'll make it good enough for the cleaning machine. I just left the snot in the sun until it was a solid. Took a couple of days, but it was partly cloudy. Next time I think I might squeeze it with cheesecloth. Works for cheese. I am a mad scientist though so YMMV.

Love the color change for the table, but the wooden one was like a signature of this channel.

@bigclivedotcom

Жыл бұрын

It's just a second filming area for bigger items.

@RiderBlitz1.0

Жыл бұрын

@@bigclivedotcom happy to hear, have a great day

Thanks for the vid. I've got one of those and actually use it to make distilled water (mainly for technical uses). I make batches (store it in 2L fizzy drink bottles - well rinsed of course) of distilled water only in the winter so I get the benefit of the house being heated by the unit instead of wasting the heat in the summer.

@44RobC

Жыл бұрын

These units really do make good room heaters when distilling water. More volatile substances produce little waste heat.

@janami-dharmam

Жыл бұрын

this is an excellent room heater plus a humidifier! two in one.

@justaweeb14688

3 ай бұрын

Get a glass jug.

Such an elegantly simple device!Steam irons are another common use for distilled water.

@KeritechElectronics

Жыл бұрын

Agreed. Anything that has water channels that could be obstructed with lime is a good candidate for using demineralized water.

@rowgli

Жыл бұрын

@@KeritechElectronics there is apparently a distinction between demineralised and distilled water. Not enough to worry most people, but I believe distilled is not pure enough for some applications. Sorry to be that anorak.

@KeritechElectronics

Жыл бұрын

@@rowgli distilled is produced through boiling water and condensing the vapor, and demineralized is made by passing water through layers of anionite and cationite, effectively binding all anions and cations (or, to be more precise, substituting them for hydroxyl anions and hydrogen cations which recombine into water molecules).

@RandomBogey

Жыл бұрын

I figured that out the hard way. I bought an iron for the first time ever in my life and it lasted about six months before the holes were blocked up and it started sputtering dirty water/steam onto my clothes. I tried to clean it out with vinegar, and got enough of it that it stopped spitting mineral mud, but I couldn’t get enough of the build up to get it to steam worth a damn. Then the seal between the water reservoir and steam chamber started leaking and there was more steam coming up from between the hot plate and the plastic handle bit, and burning the shit out of me, than there was coming out of the steam holes. So, I bought a new one and just buy $1-something gallons of distilled water from the grocery store that seem to work well

@MikeTrieu

Жыл бұрын

@@RandomBogey In the future, use citric acid rather than vinegar to dissolve lime scale. It works so much more effectively.

I still have a Liebig condenser and a range of quick connect joints with a large 3lt boiling flask to make distilled water, I end up with tubes all over to supply the condenser with its cold cooling water, but it produces the purest of distilled water with zero risk of the water being boiled reaching the condenser and contaminating the distilled outflow. I used to have a number of very high-capacity lead acid batteries, which is why I made the setup, but the batteries have long gone, and it's been a year or three since I used it. Using an off-the-shelf condenser, like the one shown, is that alcohol boils at a slightly lower temperature than water and an off-the-shelf water condenser will not give you pure distilled alcohol, you'll end up with a large amount of water and some alcohol. I'll not say I did try distilling alcohol from homemade beer, and I'll not say I was careful to keep the boiling temperature at the boiling point of alcohol, and I'll not say I made sure that the temperature never went above the alcohol boiling point. I didn't end up with a small bottle of alcohol and I didn't try a few drops on a spoon and set light to it, there may not be any residue left in the spoon, thus it would be a very pure undiluted alcohol, not for drinking purposes unless you close one and only risk going blind in the one eye you keep open! K.

Great work Clive. I love your work

I literally bought one of these yesterday on Amazon Prime Day, and the next day Clive’s posting a video teardown. How convenient!

Thanks for the dimmer idea. I purchased different thermal switches to zero in on the evaporation neutral spirits.

Quite a rare and unusual occurrence actually being able to see you in the frame while you're filming your workbench as usual... :)

@muf1772

Жыл бұрын

That LED panel under the shelf above the workbench looks absolutely enormous.

Thank you, Clive! I have wanted a look at the fintube coil in an airstill for years.

Be good to see it working. Never seen one of these before. Great video as usual, thanks.

We have used one (not the same unit)now for 4 years making vodka, rum, gin and essential oils. Great hobby Please do not use the kettle lead it comes with as can be aluminium! Also replace the wire which connects earth from the plug on the side to the distiller's metal work for something you know is copper and thicker.

@bigclivedotcom

Жыл бұрын

I was pondering if the internal earth connections were big enough too.

@Electronics-Rocks

Жыл бұрын

@@bigclivedotcom test it be interesting. Is the lead supplied with your distiller safe?

@samuelfellows6923

Жыл бұрын

Chineseum crap? 😠

@janami-dharmam

Жыл бұрын

@@bigclivedotcom it just needs to trip the RCCB, that is usually set around 5-10mA, right?

6:20 Actually the fan pushes air out the top of the unit, Look at the curvature of the blades, the way you describe the blades would be running backwards and would be most inefficient. Since heat rises, you would not want to fight that effect, so air is pulled in from the sides and the heated air is pushed out the top.

@MikeTrieu

Жыл бұрын

You are correct. It sucks cooler air through the cooling disc fins soldered onto the condenser tube and blows the waste heat directly up. Can confirm as I own one. Not recommended to run in the middle of summer as it can quickly make a room uncomfortably hot.

@ryanmalin

Жыл бұрын

@@MikeTrieu I was thinking the same thing as soon as he said it drew air from the top. Good eye gentlemen

@samuelfellows6923

Жыл бұрын

Similar behaviour/output to a condenser tumble dryer ~ needs to be operated in a cold garage, house with the heating off in the winter

@wirdy1

Жыл бұрын

True. Hot air comes out the top. My garage is always noticeable warmer when I've distilled 5L of pure water 😊.

@abc-coleaks-info3180

Жыл бұрын

@@MikeTrieu Does it also increase the humidity in the room, or is the vessel pressurized during use? I currently only make RO for drinking/cooking but have noticed that it is also really good for coffee/tea and other devices that would normally develop deposits. I no longer have a serious need for distilled water, although it is always handy to have around.

Rather serendipitous! I just started using my Megahome Water distiller very recently. I used sink tap water filtered by a premium collagen filter & am surprised by all the crusty sediment!!!

Can't beat that little bacho 1/4 drive set, always using mine.

I really like your voice and the understandings you share. /Sweden

My unit was supplied with a kettle lead made of ALUMINIUM and the element failed to earth! The earth wire melted before RCD tripping. It gave me burns could not use two my fingers for a week and the worst shock in 30 years. Had to have a week off work. I work as an industrial/theatre electrician in highly dangerous environments and proud not to have a shock at work. Ok minor tingling as always test everything then back of hand first I did replace RCD afterwards but on testing it was still within scope.

I use distilled water for CPAP. I used to buy it premade at the grocery store, but then some time into COVID, the hospitals sucked up the supply and you couldn't find it on the shelf any more, so I bought a distiller to make my own. However, I got a stovetop version (something like a double boiler, but with three pans instead of two), so considerably less intricate than this device.

@HaralHeisto

Жыл бұрын

@@mobility_criteria 1 US gallon of water uses about 2.7kWh of energy to boil dry (350Wh to heat from 20c to 100c, then 2.35kWh for enthalpy of vaporization), not including heat losses or energy for the fan. Unless your energy is less than about 50c/kWh it's cheaper to buy than make.

Fantastic take down .lots of room for modifications for control unit .Almost bought One on Amazon with the temperature control unit .basically it's the exact same thing with better temperature control .the advantage is you can cook beer and wort and wine and distil good alcohol .

I always pictured glass tubes in a lab seting for water distillers. I guess this works too. It's amazing how simple it is. A heat source, something to collect and condense the steam, and somewhere for that water to go. I like this idea.

@lloydevans2900

Жыл бұрын

The reason laboratory distillation setups use glass (usually borosilicate pyrex glass as this is more resilient to thermal stress) is because they are usually not used for distilling anything so innocuous as water. Most chemistry labs get through a lot of "distilled" water for rinsing glassware after washing it, since you don't want residues from tap water contaminating your flasks. So it would be highly energy inefficient to run actual distillation systems for this - most labs use ion-exchange resin columns for purifying water since these are much cheaper to run and produce mineral-free water which is perfectly acceptable for rinsing purposes. Anyway, the actual distillation sets are typically used for distilling solvents, or purifying other liquid chemicals, some of which would react with metals or get contaminated by traces of metal oxides from the surfaces of metal condensers. Glass is chemically inert in nearly all situations, which is why labs use glass for reaction vessels and most other chemical handling equipment. Metal condensers do exist though - all you need is the two standard diameters of copper plumbing pipe plus some 8 millimetre copper tube and you can make your own copper "liebig" style condenser by soldering or brazing it all together. For distilling water this is perfectly fine, just not for some other stuff. It's also fine for distilling alcohol of course. In fact, every commercial system for making spirits by distilling some kind of fermented mash will have some copper components in direct physical contact with the alcohol being distilled - this is important since the copper reacts with and removes volatile organo-sulfur components which would otherwise give the distilled spirits a bad taste and/or smell.

Great gadget Clive thanks for the video

As someone who pays for youtube premium, soly to not see ads, I thank you for not having a VPN/hairloss sponsor message in this video!

I really enjoy your videos, but if I could make a minor suggestion, a lot of the devices you take to bits I've never heard of, or seen, or seen in action. Maybe you could show them run before tearing them down? Like, I know the process of distilling water but it just never occurred to me that there were countertop water distilling devices like this. It was neat to see its innards but I really wanted to see it in action too. Anyway, your videos are always very fun to watch and thanks for making them!

@bigclivedotcom

Жыл бұрын

It's not terribly exciting. It makes a boiling noise like a kettle and water dribbles from the spout.

@roygrafton6322

Жыл бұрын

don't turn it on, take it apart.😎😎

@janami-dharmam

Жыл бұрын

@@bigclivedotcom but I have never seen such a gadget! I have seen how water is distilled in glass stills, though.

I once worked at an organisation that used a lot of lead acid batteries for remote chart recorders etc. and we had a magnificent still made with copper tubing to supply distilled water. Apparently they had replaced it a while before and some years after that "The Revenue" came snooping around to see that they old setup hadn't been put to other uses ! Life is easier with these devices so commonly available.

Cracking Beard in the reflection! Respect Big Clive!

Dang buddy you find some cool stuff very interesting when I can’t sleep

You could fit a thermostat to it, so long as it's rated for mains voltage. Might need to check the wiring to ensure things are working just fine (perhaps even a solid state relay to take the load off the thermostat). Would make a nice little kit project.

Yeah Looks pretty nice and the fan looks like the shower head fan. Love theses kinds of machines

Great Video Clive! I bought one of these a couple of years back after watching your "Trash wine" video :) I didn't know that the spout came off I guess I learned something new!

@BlondieSL

Жыл бұрын

That spout is interesting. On ours, like Clive said, there's a little bag of carbon filter material. This is to "sweeten" the water for drinking. If one were to drink the water that comes out without putting it through carbon, may toss the cookies due to the horrible taste of unfiltered distilled water. Yuk! Buying their little filter bags is nuts, however. Way over priced. What I ended up doing was making my own little bags and using carbon filter material that is used for aquariums. The good stuff in the big jar. This made the water taste good. At that time, we only really used the distiller at the cottage where the water wasn't the best tasting thing. Plus, I don't trust water from the pond or lake without processing it first.

@wirdy1

Жыл бұрын

@@BlondieSL good idea with the filter bags. I've been doing similar with aquarium pellets for a pet water fountain for the last few years.

Wow!! there really is a BigClive on the other side of those hands. Love your work.

Adding a settable thermostat, possibly even a PID controller, in just the heater leg of the circuit would allow precise temp control (below 100c) unless you replace the temp cutouts. Someone mentioned using reverse osmosis to "deionize" water.. It won't work. You need a deionizer column with "water softener" beads in the column. Lab stills are made of a special glass tubing.. metal will leave all sorts of ions in the output. Thanks for the look inside.

When distilling you should really use the mid stream flow as the early stuff will have more volatile contaminants (such as ethanol) and the end of the run will contain heavier oils etc.

Good morning Clive! Have a nice weekend :)

OMG! We have one of those! LOL Not the "shiny" one, but it's all plastic white. This thing works well. Not that we use it very much anymore. In fact, I've only used it to make distilled water to top up lead acid batteries. But a really cool thing, is that we bought this tall pot that just happens to have it's rim the exact size so that the top part fits right on it. This way, we fill that with hot water and sit it on the gas stove (low heat). we plug the top part in and put a container to catch the distilled water. This saves a lot of electricity as the heating element in the lower part is a current sucker. On the gas stove, it works perfectly .In some of the places that we live, when it's completed a cycle, the buildup inside the pot from the hard water is very pronounced, showing just how much of the "hard" was removed. What a great product.

Got one of these at a boot sale for £2. Works great for making distilled water for my cpap humidifier.

Worth it just for the peek at Clive's setup.

I bought one of these after you first showed this off when distilling wine! I make my own rum and use it for that haha.

I have what seems to be the same design but with plastic instead of chrome shell. I do use it to make distilled water!

That opening with the reflection of Clive, was like when Dave Lister was talking to Talkie the Toaster in Red Dwarf. Awesome.

Love the cob light with missing led from a pervious episode.

Interesting to see your lighting comes from the LED COBs you did a teardown on several years back.

That one is way posher than mine! I've had mine for absolutely years and apart from that "burping" issue I had a while back it's always been great. I've made literally gallons and gallons of booze with it! It's not illegal to do over here in Portugal either! You have to keep the cooling fins very clean over here because if it gets fluffed up it barely copes with the higher ambient air temperature.

i like the 70W led panel for smooth illumination.

With the simple internal construction, an enterprising individual could easily hack that with a u-controller and mains rated relay to maintain a given temperature in the boiling vessel. Fit a solid state relay and you could even PWM the heating element for PID control

I got one of these for the.... Other uses. Works beautifully. Works best if you throw it out on your deck on a cool night. Less losses with cooler temperatures out there!

Great video Clive. Nice new table top. I shall tell my brother Karl, the accountant I'm marrying you off to, that you have a good sense of interior design.

During the Covid thing and the year after I found it difficult to locate steady supplies of distilled water. I'm an older guy and I use a BiPAP machine during sleep that requires distilled water for humidifying the air. The solution to maintaining a supply of distilled water was to purchase a countertop distiller very similar to the one Clive has shown. Thanks to him, I now know how to replace the activated charcoal filter. No, I'm not too old to learn but you might have to talk a little slower. :)

I was wondering if you could provide some more detail on the cooling fins around the condenser tube. E.g., coupling method

The best thing about this video was seeing you from an alternate perspective!

@bigclivedotcom

Жыл бұрын

There is a secret livestream channel that is basically a drunken pub meeting for around 1000 people. But it's not to everyone's taste. BigCliveLive.

I'm wondering if the internal cut out is controlling the temperature like a fixed value thermostat, easy to find out if the current cycles up and down. Drinking only distilled water can cause health problems, you would need to add essential minerals and nutrients, Nighthawkinglight covered this and said he added just a bit of the original (boiled) water into the distilled product.

You used to need a Customs & Excise licence, even for a water still in the UK, I know because I had to renew our licence in several schools, I worked in. Not the glass version used for demos, but the ones used for producing distilled water. Many were made by a company called Manesty. They used a kettle element.

I have one - best machine ever....in my humble opinion. I use it constantly for making pure water for drinking. You cannot get cleaner water. I love it.

The first thing I thought was for topping off batteries. People also use distilled water for baby formula. Somehow there was a distilled water shortage in parts of the US. Some local liquor distilleries chipped in and made water for a bit. Didn't effect me because I have one of these.

The whole thing actually resembles an electric kettle (one of the fancy ones you leave plugged in and it keeps the water hot), down to the heating element and top part, I bet they're both made using the same molds and parts but just swap a few things around (ie some thermal switches and the top part). I might look into modifying mine actually

That encapsulated element looks identical to the one in the kettle that I took apart the other day. I’ll bet they’re all made to the same pattern in one factory, just with differing wattage ratings. Unfortunately the kettle wasn’t fixable, the switch had overheated on the neutral side & melted the plastic supporting the terminals. I can’t decide whether to keep the element though, I’m thinking about starting some hot salt blackening for steel parts which needs sensitive temperature control, I was considering a PID controller, but I don’t think the old kettle will be big enough.

I bought a very similar distiller right at the beginning of the covid pandemic to distill water for my CPAP. With my local electric rates, I think it would be cheaper to buy bottled distilled water at the supermarket, but at the time the shelves were empty at the store. I continue to distill my own water rather than buying it in disposable plastic jugs.

Nice early upload my dear freind . Breakkfast both Clive . Ps as always great vid and a handy device ☺

They also sell a version made for water, alcohol or oil distillation. The main difference is you can set a temperature and run time electronically on the unit. So no mod needed!

The electricity cost is significant. Carbon + RO/DI is cheaper and better than a still, for purifying water in significant quantities. You can add a UV unit if you need to kill bacteria etc.

Add a digital thermometer with the sensor thermally glued to lower canister. That would allow fractional distillation.

Love this video! Please break down the air still pro - it has a built in reflux condenser and it's just been released.. I'm sure a lot of people will be keen to see how it's made and how it works

@bigclivedotcom

Жыл бұрын

It's also hideously expensive.

Very similar to the water distiller I use. They don't do a good job on alcohol due to heating power and what chemist would call a low theoretical plate count. This means poor fractionation as the difference between boiling points isn't much..30 degrees or so. Water and total dissolved solids have a much higher boiling point difference. It is a lovely 750 Watt heater as the maximum temperature is below 100°C.

If one wanted to control the heat, it's easy enough to power the fan separately from the heater since they've provided a convenient connector.

you could add the dimmer measurinuse a thermocouple set the tempriture of heater to biol off diffrent elements with in a liquid with some degree of acuacy. I guess you could also just poke a thrmocouple (between the lid and container )into the liquid and watch the temprature as it heats said liquid. Hany item to have about the home 2x👍

Clive, I think there is a thermal fuse in the unit, it would be under the fibreglass sleeve under the manual reset switch on the red wire. I will be sending you an email later today, I have an interesting device to send to you for a teardown video. Coming back to the Isle for the TT next summer, see you then. Cheers.

So the base cutout actually works on a different principle to Alec's favorite rice cooker, which relies on the Curie point of a magnetic cutoff switch. Interesting.

I have one of these for making vodka. I have the fan plugged into the wall so it's running constantly and the element on a 15 minute on/off cycle.

if you put a diode in series with the heating element, would that half the power (since it wouldn't see half of the AC wave)?

Clive cpap sleep apnea devices require distilled water so that the hard water deposits don't form in the humidity chamber.(my sinuses bleed if I do not use the humidity) I have a much earlier (1990s) version of this device and when I can't get a gallon of Distilled water at the store it works a treat.

I think you can by "plug-in" dimmer switches; though they suggest only for use with lighting? I'm guessing that resistive loads work but that the switching of the dimmer causes voltage spikes? wouldn't anything with A/C as input need to sort out any induction anyhow?

I've got the red fancy version with the white LED numeral display.

You can always leave the lid ajar for the first 10 minutes of boiling to get rid of the VOCs, Similar to alcohol distilling where you toss out the heads that have a lot of the semi toxic amyl alcohol from the fermenting process that cause headaches and bad taste.

@9demirtas

Жыл бұрын

doing that can trigger natural gas leak detectors, though. be prepared

There is a version of that device with temperature control. Might be very interesting!

I use one of these to produce distilled water for medical use, and whatever other uses come up in the home. Leading into COVID and throughout, supply chains for distilled water were disrupted at the retail level. This guaranteed that I had a source. They are slow to get ROI considering 1 hour of power consumption per liter of water.

I like the look of those and using one - as I also have a interest in ventilation fans, but we have already had a fling with those water filter jugs/kettles. I live in London and it has hard water and we get lime-scale in the toilets, shower heads, hot water/central heating system and in the kettle. And that Thames water says 🇬🇧 has the safest, cleanest water supply (in comparison to other countries) so those filter jugs are a financial drain/scam = buying and stocking the cartridge filters, commissioning the filter ~ filling and dumping the water 2x before using it and resetting the counter in the jugs lid - when it runs out you have to replace the filter. And most of the jugs are designed to put in the fridge, in the door pocket - taking/wasting space in your fridge, or you save used water bottles and put those in the fridge for cold water. With the more stylish ones to adorn your kitchen with, the filter kettles claim to remove the scum on tea and the kettle doesn’t scale-up = my mum puts milk in her tea and doesn’t see the scum and likes how it tastes, and we put vinegar in the kettle to de-scale it and most modern kettles now have a spout screen to stop the bits of scale from pouring into your hot drink so we don’t need a filter kettle. As for the taste; tap water has a distinct taste to it and a filter jug will remove it = making it bland and as water should taste - improving the squash drinks you make with it, but I am not fussed with the taste of tap water. And all modern dishwashers have a water softener built in you just set it and regularly put dishwasher salt in it. We put Calgon in the washer and it has a self-cleaning program so hasn’t got a scale problem. Unfortunately our mains water is shared with the neighbours - so we know where the stop-cock is but don’t know where it splits from there ~ to install a water softener. As for the distiller in the video - I assume it would be similar to a heater fan to run it

I'm pretty sure that there's a One time thermal fuse under that white fiberglass tubing on the right hand side.

Interesting. Ive heard that humidifiers release a lot of "impurities" into the air so that seems contradictory.

Cheers for that. Of course if distilling temperature was critical you could always put a temperature sensor in and use a motor control type circuit to chop the phase as you aim for you target temperature. I suspect a budding tinkerer has already done that...

We have a similar distiller we use to keep the scale out of our humidifiers during the winter. As there must be some heat loss through those coils, I had thought about adding a normally-open thermal switch to the side of the tank, with the idea of letting the heater bring the water temperature up before the coils get the active cooling. Thought is that maybe it'll cycle quicker and use less power.

@bigclivedotcom

Жыл бұрын

The heat loss from the top section is very low relative to the power of the bottom section. It only really affects the steam.

@McTroyd

Жыл бұрын

@@bigclivedotcom Interesting. Oh well. I have so many other projects I should be working on that it wasn't likely to happen anyway. 😁

Jim Browning,you truly are a Renaissance Man.

Distilled water isn’t great for drinking as it doesn’t contain the usual minerals but it is good for medical uses. I prefer using a Brita filter for drinking water as it keeps the minerals and still softens the water. Also I can keep it in the fridge.

Also - this device seems to beg for a temp sensor (Pt100?), a PID regulator and some interesting contents that starts to boil at 78 degrees C.

Very identical internals to those cheap rice cookers. Didn't expect that, but of course it is... that's how rice cookers work. They cut boil until they exceed about 100 degC.

You could always tweak the fan lead (safely of course) to use mains separately, whilst using the dimmer on the distiller part? Mirror surfaces, nice to see you got dressed up for this video.

Oh my word, did you now go break that distiller did you? I have a similar one but really made for distilling alcohol. Has a fermentation function built in, good to know how it looks inside

yooooooooooo clive man, an alcohol video! i love those :D ... although i don't drink :P

Vevor has one with a temp and timer controller.

I am sold, much better than the leaky contraption in the garage for purifying water of course, yeh.

the heating plate is indeed "welded" but from the base it might be soldered for a better term

I knew Big Clive would be an expert at getting tops off easily.

I'm guessing that without the fan you need a whole heap of extra windings to cool the steam off again ?

Depending on the minerals in the water you can also have "soft water". Instead of hard water with calcium and magnesium you can have soft water with lots of sodium and potassium... Often from natural springs.

@BedsitBob

Жыл бұрын

You can soften hard water chemically.

@1kreature

Жыл бұрын

@@BedsitBob Which adds the elements that the hard water ions like to bind with so it can settle out or at least be inert in the chemical sense for washing up... Calcium Hydroxide (slaked lime) for example can be added to make the Magneisum Chrloide in hard water precipitate out as Magnesium Hydroxide, then since you added extra Calcium you now have a lot more of that than before (hard water can be MgCl2 (Magnesium Chloride) and Ca(OH)2) (Calsium Hydroxide)), so to get rid of that you then add Sodium Carbonate. Result is precipitate of of Calcium Carbonate. In addition you are left with Sodium Chloride in solution. That's just one example though. For such a process you need to know a lot of what is in the water to properly "cancel it out".

What is the mode of operation of the latching thermal switch? if it has a magnet it might be using the same mode of operation described by the channel Technology Connections for a rice cooker, and it is brilliant. Essentially it involves creating a ferromagnetic alloy with a carefully selected curie point for the magnet to latch on.

@bigclivedotcom

Жыл бұрын

It's a bimetallic disk.

You could also properly insulate the distilling chamber

Would a unit like this work on 120V? Obviously the heating element will run at a quarter of the power, but I presume that just means it'll take longer to distill. I ask because I live in America and I can't seem to find a 120V unit online.

standard design found on the amazon 100-120v model is basically the same outside including the fan+carbon(you can see the carbon cartridge and metal fan) so yeah you basically dim the main unit and as the can use seperate IEC connectors you could use a simple variac or even cheap 1000w capable dimmer to run it at less power I would likely use a 24v ~1500va transformer out of an old UPS (APC models have great 12/14v transformers depending on battery size and even use connectors so you can just borrow it) to give the unit 24vac so roughly (750/120=Ao(6.25A), 120/Ao=R(20 ohms), 24/r=An(1.2A),An*24=Wn(28.8)) so roughly 30w of power for very slow careful boiling of spirits/volatiles I would likely use a set of valves onto a compression fitting on the output side of the cooling tube(so I can use it normally without them) to have a pressure/temp output measurement to auto change valves based on boiling point so I can set it up with a continuous flow of input(using a cheeky side-mounted float switch and input connector that is normally capped) then basically flow in my distillate source and keep the pot going slow and steady 24/7 point of that is so I can basically make a whole house purifier or full-auto ethanol maker/extractor for engine blends(yes boiling gasoline will be risky but with slow control I can get basically camp fuel and then the leftover semi-stable additives(minus the butane they add) so I can store longer as multiple parts and inject some butane into the addative+white gas mix when I need engine fuels of burn the white as-is for camping as I wanna live on a modular barge mansion property :P

@johnthefactfddict3281

Жыл бұрын

@@NOSUBSCRIBERSWANTED well it may be slightly more ingredients that are volatile (ethanol if you care balances octane to slightly higher "grades" cheaply) but as "white gas" is just pure "gasoline base" and butane can be cracked cheaply and simply from a purified anaerobic digester gas output, then if you have the "11 herbs and spices" in a powdered/hyper dense concentrate and simply use a sodastream-type device to inject butane at ~20psi (max before butane liquifies) the longer life of "white gas" makes it semi-ideal for storage especially in a climate controlled non-uv storage closet with 100% sealed plastic containers(metal might rust and if there is ANY air exchange it will begin to react with air and become contaminated) turns out if gasoline is stored inside(risky if vented AT ALL) it can be kept at the right temps to avoid the need to vent(circular argument on why to never store indoors) and so you can store for 5+years in at least the non-ethanol blend and white gas in an unbroken canister could last 10+ just reseal the containers(must hold 20-40psi so 2l bottles are ok) and your gas in a cool dark place can last nearly a decade before degredation makes it risky for any engines but you can always just re-distill old gas to get the sludge+additives out then mix then take the pure hydrocarbon base(white gas) and remix with additives and butane the petrochemical industry doesn't let this info be very available as humans would make a risky non-rated distiller and blow up their homes by cooking hydrocarbons indoors or maybe just greed as they change supply based purely on what they can force the demand to make us pay the real sad part is that we even have 100% renewable ways to MAKE gasoline from NON-OIL sources(it requires a 10 bar reactor at nearly 500 degrees Celsius) but we can make it without paying for foreign oil and is powered by the atom(one of the safest forms of cheap high energy) we can easily 100% dump the need for oil besides medical plastics(sadly the last thing that still can't be done without crude) but once the need for gasoline/diesel/kerosene/propane/butane is supplied by non-oil the research for non-oil plastic that is ideal for medicine will have no profit margin to suppress and so we can become a green society in a few decades just know that ANY LEAKS and your gas vapors(and the butane gas) will pool in your house if that amount reaches the ideal fuel+oxygen ratio even the heating element could make it go "boom" so ONLY outdoor hydrocarbon distilling if you do it inside you are at fault for the inevitable explosion now I have covered my legal ass and said why distilling gas is almost ok and can nearly be reversed so storing gas for emergencies (the apocalypse or soon-to be loss of ALL oil(gonna happen if we don't go green)) now you have the actual facts and some basic ideas on how to run your generator/car when the pumps dry up so you can be one of the richest members of the post-oil society

Many years ago I saw a secondhand water distiller - the glass system that every school chemistry lab had - and long regretted not buying it. But then the common thing to buy instead of distilled water (eg for batteries) was deionised water, I think produced by reverse osmosis. It was apparently just as good for most purposes. If deonised water truly removes all the ions that aren't H or O, then what is the remaining advantage of true distilling ?

@anullhandle

Жыл бұрын

theelmonk, iirc deionized uses an ion exchange resin although you could then run that thru ro. I think you can substitute distilled for deionized but not always the other way round. Deionized is cheaper. Note as the universal solvent 100% pure h2o is unobtainium.

@marossgnv

Жыл бұрын

Semiconductor manufacturing uses ultra high purity water. So pure it is actually toxic.

@janami-dharmam

Жыл бұрын

deionized water does have organic impurities- contamination from sewer will have ammonia that will not be removed by distillation. same way alcohol and acids (acetic acid) will be removed only partly by distillation. for lab quality water, you need to distill the distilled water and use a quartz still and heating without producing bubbles.

@jtreg

8 ай бұрын

?@@marossgnv

I use one of these regularly, nice to see it disassembled. The one I have has temp control though. Thanks for the video