Hmmm. Maybe I’ll give it another run, and jack up the temps? But again, why was I having success before if I’m so off? I never went over 220 on my mantle and would pull 500ml of disty out of a liter. I kept very good notes of all my runs, and they are all consistant. Looking at them now, at 154degrees on the bf, I started having heavy heads. And around 212 I start getting honey and that would just go into cruise control for like 2 hours of just non stop syrup swirl. How could I have done that, with my numbers , so many times with great success? And now not even get heads or anything when I’m way over that
This wonderful joan lab doesn’t exactly have c or f options unfortunately so I just keep good notes of my settings
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Well guess thats where the prob is
C and F got mixed up
Don t be afraid of high temps
I have distilled decent crude at 260C
And distelate was ok
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I’m going to reassemble and jack up the temps
Still don’t understand why the exact process worked for me many times and now failing completely
I’m going to start back up again and I will be careful to note all temps and correct c or f.
Can’t imagine again, why my normal process stopped working. But I’ll listen to the advice and jack my temps jp
Make sure you are reading units correctly… mistake fahrenheit for celcius & it’s no big deal, mistake celcius for fahrenheit & you’re gonna have a bad time.
I agree and I’m training myself to only work in Celsius
With that being said, my mantle only has one unit. And that unit never had to go over 220. Ever. 220 on the mantle, would eventually give me 200ish on the head temp, and for 2 hours non stop I’d get honey swirl. So regardless of that, I still don’t get what’s different and wrong this time. Alas, I’m restarted and will jack my temps up as advised
Running blind is not an option brother. Before you jack anything up get another reading on your mantle to confirm its units.
200C is 392F
392C is 737F
You see how this could get ugly. 
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Mantle is Fahrenheit. Current temp on mantle is showing 182 and a temp gun shooting right on the rim of the mantle is reading 178-182
So according to above advice, my mantle temp should be around 440f to reach desired temps… so why have I never gone over 220 on my mantle with great results? Something is off. There’s no way I’ve been off by 200 degrees on all my prior runs
Honestly, I’m shutting down and looking into either a new mantle or setup. I’ve never had overshoot problems before. It’s set to 205 and I just watched it climb to 381. This is of course what the mantle is saying.
As I wrote this I watched it hit 390, and now 2 minutes later reading 226
I’m pretty sure this mantle is what’s ruining everything. I guess it just went to shit at some point
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Something is very wrong. Because based off of what worked for me for a lot of runs, and what you guys are advising as proper temps, nothing is making sense. And now that this mantle just overshot 200 degrees and came back down, I’m wondering if the mantle has always been wrong and that’s just what I was working off of? Vac depth is down to 212. But yeah, at this point I know i cant trust this mantle
Mantle was set to 240f…I lifted the boiling flask up and hit the mantle inside with a heat gun. I’m getting readings from 150f-600f lol. Today is done. Fuck this mantle.
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Any chance your mantel is pluged in a diffrent socket 110V or 220 V
When I heat my mantle to 205C, all it understands is that it needs to heat the thermometer to 205C. It doesn’t consider whether the probe in a block of crude, an empty flask, or even in the flask at all.
I’ll eat my lab coat if you pulled off a 220F distillation
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Definitely upgrade to a better china model or the techno mantel over at summit. My cheap shitty mantle did the same thing I upgraded to a better cheap China mantel and haven’t had the issue since. Also a poor vacuum seal can cause this issue in my experience with a cheap quality mantle. Without being there during operation, I would have to suggest upgrading mantles and checking for a a vacuum leak.
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I will join you for labccoat dinner 
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Your mantle might have some way to switch between C and F. Sometimes it’s something crazy like turn the dial all the way left, then right. Or holding the up and down buttons for 10 sec. It could be anything really. It seems unlikely that your mantle is strictly F but only goes to 220°. I’d be willing to bet that it was on C° when you first got it but somehow reset to F° when you began having issues. Just my guess.
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I’m certainly not arguing anyone, just telling you what worked 15 times in a row and made liters of disty without fail until 2 runs ago. Gonna look into a new mantle. Or ideally a new setup
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I going to try and grab a new mantle. Ideally I’d like to upgrade the whole system sooner or later. But for now, any suggestions on a cheaper mantle that will do the job for now? This shitty joan lab one, which was leftover from the last operator did the job while it lasted. So until I can fully upgrade, the just need a decent replacement for now