New upcoming spd here

Mines a tight fit.

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Ive read somewhere that you can use the fireplace insulating rope to fill the gap when putting a 2l BF in a 5l mantle…

For burn in did yalls mantle come with a black plug that goes into the BF probe port?
why was the BF in the mantle during burn in, my instuctions were vague so i did it without the BF in, and used the plug which makes the mantle use an internal sensor to determine temp.
Mine is usa labs, this is the plug

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I postwd this in terpins thread as well.

My 2l mantle set to 40, shot up to 75. WTF china garbage! I even turned it down to 25, and still was going up and up.

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Where is your thermocouple controlling the heater located at

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In the bf with thw crude

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Honestly the thermocouple in the RBF does not an accurate up to date reading of the temp - try plugging the thermocouple with the black adapter so it reads from the mantle sleeve

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There is NO black adapter

Unless im not understanding what your asking

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can you wedge the controlling TC between the boiling flask glass and the fiberglass sleeve of the mantle? in the flask temp should be used for measurement purposes not controlling of the mantle

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it should have come with your mantle. you plug it into the thermocouple input on the mantle.

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Temp probe is plugged into the mantle, probe is in the crude in the 2l bf.

Nothing came in 3 mantles i own from usalabs. Other than the mantle, instructions, stir bar, and metal support rod

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I do need some other advise. I did a test run this afternoon.

I did swap bf/mantle from a 1l to a 2l.

NO heat, just a vac test pull. Got down to 315 microns, but noticed quite a bit of bubbling in the bf. Im assuming its a bit of residual ethanol. My microns went up to 1100.

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Ya it sounds like some solvents boiling up

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Thats wha ii thought. And that will make the microns rise, correct?

I need to get the mantle temp under controll.

I have more knots on my head from banging it on my work table.

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I wouldn’t be too concerned with the mantle not staying steady at temperatures below 100c.

I have a cheap Chinese 2l kit and I start with mantle set at 100c, let it settle in while pulling vacuum. Then I bump up to 140c and start to pull the first heads. When dripping slows down I go up to 220c and look for the color and thickness change and rotate to collect main body fraction. This usually happens at 180c-200c head temp.

Regarding vacuum level I first do a dry run before loading crude and make sure I can get down to below 100 microns. Usually only get to 80-90 micron (I chalk this up to leaky Chinese glass and cheap Chinese vacuum pump)

When collecting heads vacuum will be pretty high like 600-1,000 micron or higher. When I rotate for main body vacuum is usually about 300 micron continues to go down and then fluctuates between 100 micron to 170 micron for the remainder of the main body fraction.

One thing I will emphasize is keep your cold trap loaded as much as possible with dry ice or your vacuum will start to suffer.

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Its much easier after you get a run or 2 u der your belt im sure. But for a rookie, doubts are always lingering in my head. Ive learned so much from tou all over the past 4-5 months or so. Its just discouraging (to me), not knowing how to do something. I feel like i just popped my 1st seed…

Ill be grabbing 20lbs of dry ice tomorrow. Probably way more than i need, but would rather have more than not enough.

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Judging by his photos his mantle is the older model without the full digital pid which has the internal thermocouple,
however even with the internal i believe its more accurate for a pid to have the internal and an external that way it can use both, i think the plug is primarily for burn in which bypasses the external, so that it knows its temp vs having a liquid to try and heat to the same temp as the internal temp…
Maybe im mis understanding the way it works but I was told it uses both, vs just one which is to prevent overshooting.
The instructions were vague at best…

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Now Its Time To Put What You Have Learned To Good Use. You Will Be Fine Just Hit Your Set Points And Enjoy Your Spoils.:+1:

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Ran up to usalabs today. I swapped out The crapy overshooting mantle for a newer upgrade with touch button PID controls like you guys have

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OSS is lower quality glass than Laboy. Lots of OSS glass has bubbles in the joints, showing that they were broken and fixed/fused. I’ve also had a few oblong and odd-shaped ground glass joints from OSS glass, where I’ve never had that issue with Laboy. Don’t underestimate it just because it is Chinese or ordered from Amazon Prime.

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I have a few layboy glass items. All look great.

Starting up at 7

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