I bought an extractor and its a spider web of lines. My background is in aviation; sheet metal and airframes (FAA A&P). I’m looking at this mess and thinking how easy it would be to bend up a set of hard lines. My question is the materials. My go-to would be 5052-0 Aluminum with AN aluminum fittings. Nominal 3/8 ID is rated to 1500 psi. MIL-T-7081 aluminum alloy tubing (6061) is good to 3000 psi.
Any reactions, issues, metals leaching, etc.
I wouldn’t use an. I would go all compression fittings personally. With stainless
You could also put 90° or 45°s on the nipples and shorten the hoses so there’s less slack hanging around
All the braided lines are already AN fittings. AN and JIC are both 37 degree flares and interchangeable. I’m not worried about the fittings, I’m worried about reactivity or contamination from the aluminum.
Swagelok and SS tubing. That’s going to be a lot of fun math.
I know what a armynavy fitting is… I said use stainless. You dont see aluminum for a reason on any extractor.
This is where i stop trying to help.
I recently bought my stainless steel line on amazon and all my compression fittings from open source steel.
Hardline compression manifold is the kitties titties
Not fun at all. Haha
I went with oss over swagelock, simply because of the price. As much as I’d love to go with the later, it’s just not feasible when there’s 15 valves in the assembly
Good enough. That answers my question
You can use JIC flare with stainless, honestly I think they fail less than swagelok when done correctly (not that either is a real issue). They also hold deep vacuum better IME. Aluminum is porous and generally not used for food/drug manufacturing process piping because of that (and reactivity which may or may not be an issue).
304 or 316 stainless ONLY. You can make it all compression fittings and by tubing from swagelok
Edit: Those bottom fill lines aren’t totally necessary, you can reduce lines that way. Get that chiller/heater a little further away, if you have a gas release (which you will when you eject product) it’ll be a nice big boom if it intermingles with electric. You can also manifold feed and liquid outlets.
The chiller will be outside the extraction room with the vacuum pump when construction is complete. Frankly waiting on the lab to be finished is what got me thinking about it. I can’t run it until it’s in a safe place.
It’s like a motorcycle. I can’t ride it so I want to accessorize it.
If you go with hard line be sure to get thick enough thickness so it doesn’t kink. You’ll need .040 or greater. I bought .032 welded because I didn’t bend any
