I haven’t found an ir thermometer worth its salt yet.
Was the bar magnetic afterword?
I am reading temperature (and controlling the Glas-Col PID) from inside of the boiling flask. Since I started distilling, my preference was always to stick a thermocouple between the boiling flask and mantle so that I can track the actual heat input of the mantle. I can keep it from overshooting easily that way, as I keep a very consistent heat rate throughout the run. Needless to say, I did not trust the first two mantles I owned.
With the Glas-Col probe underneath the boiling flask, I find temperature increase to be too slow, and the evaporation in the boiling flask often overcomes the heat input (I’m sure this wouldn’t be the case if I also had a thermocouple in the flask, as I would be less scared to overheat the liquid in the flask).
Yes, works but only at low rpm
The liquid can only get as hot as the mantle. Overheating is a non issue when controlling a mantle directly with the internal sensor. Tempature increase in the flask is slow because you don’t Have the mantle despritaly heating a sensor it can’t feel until it’s too late. The mantle simply gets to temp, then you wait till it boils. Think of it like boiling water with excatally enough energy to do it. The takes a while to heat but it will boil. Heat applyed quickly and a probe far from the heat source make for a bad time.
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i need to go meet these guys…
Agree with you @Soxhlet. Here is a rule of thumb I have adopted. I place a thermocouple on top of the boiling flask. In the case of spd near the neck. I have a meter for this. My mantle thermocouple is placed at liquid level outside the glass and between the flask and the mantle.
When the two readings are more than about 40C apart top to bottom it is time to turn down the PID and give the compound time to catch up to the glass. Give the top glass time to catch up to the bottom in temp. When running I do not like a greater than 30C differential. I wrap my boiling vessels in fiberglass cloth in an effort to get all the glass close to the same temp inside the vessel.
I have found in my rigs I can precisely predict when cannabinoid will begin to flow into the collection bulb based on the glass temp at the top of the boiling vessel measured on the top of the glass of the boiling flask near the neck. Horizontally this happens at about 135C as measured on the glass for the horizontal rig at ¾ micron.
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NM. No adjustment needed
Can’t find a suitable thread after a bit of searching so I’ll post it here - has anyone ever purchased or has experience with a contaminated mantle? I’m going to turn it on for some tests today but it seems like a boil over or spill happened into the mantle and the mantle is covered in resin on one side. I’ve used some fucked up mantles in my chem days but I never did bulk resin distillation on those mantles, so I know mantles can continue to work in poor shape.
Will the resin burn off or will it burn for real and start a fire? Do I need a new mantle? Can I slowly ramp to prevent black charring? This is a LS 12 mantle w stirring.
@spdking you’re a wealth of knowledge help pls
Have you opened it up to look inside? you might need a deeper cleaning than just burning the resin off.
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Riveted shut 
Side note all components work.
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you got a pic of the mantle where it was contaminated?
It’s painful to see, I know. Either way I’m going to run an extension cord outside and grab an extinguisher prior to testing. Should be fun
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Running it completely out of control (no thermo-probe) might actually achieve flame, but the fiberglass shouldn’t actually catch fire or burn.
If there is enough crude inside the device, it might not survive a “burn out”, but if you’re not willing to drill out the rivets and look inside, then you might as well give it a try…
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If plan A goes wrong and is salvageable I’ll switch from lazy mode to money saving mode/plan B and pull out some tools to look inside.
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Hey,
sounds like a plan, ramp it slowly so it wont burn as @cyclopath suggests. Keep us posted on how it goes.
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I’m just glad it’s the one mess you didn’t make me clean up! Haha.
And didn’t you also try to (solvent) wash the crude out to some extent? I remember being more worried about the solvent catching fire over the crude.
@NewLevelProcess, if one were so inclined, I bet a bunch of the soaked in crude could be cleaned out if the mantle were suspended upside down and sprayed heavily with solvent, blotting away the tincture with clean rag as it starts to become saturated. Haven’t tried it, but it works out in my head. Best of luck getting it back operating normally! 
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Yeah, but that probably qualified as another Bad IdeaTM…
so I wasn’t gonna share that part. I thought about it. Thanks for having my back 
Edit: maybe @CuriousFurious can address whether the damn thing ever quit smoking?
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50/50 start a fire.