Hey guys. So I have an across international
T40 cold trap. Recently I broke one of the glass barbs, so im down to using only 2 of the glass inserts cutting the efficiency by 1/3. Instead of paying 150$ for a glass replacement, I was wondering if I could replace them with a simple stainless steel spool tube, capped off at the bottom, with a top triclamp piece with 2 barbs. A 2” tube fits right into the hole. Any reason why this wouldn’t work? Across international wants $1600 for stainless steel inserts which I feel I could put together for under $100. I included some pics to show what I
Mean. Amazon seems To have cheap stainless parts and since they won’t be under heavy stress I don’t think it matters if they are cheap. Suggestions? This would also
Solve a common leak in my system by not having to lube those 3 inserts
Parts needed-
2” SS spool, ideally with one end already sealed. If not I can use tri clamp but that might make it hard to take it out of the hole to empty.
2” top piece with 2 barbed fittings
I just want to recreate the glass
Piece with steel. This shouldnt
Cost $1600
(In the pic I’m just using that spool TEE as a size example)
Im not sure what size that ground glass joint is, but you could probably just buy a new glass piece for it. A local glass blower may be able to fix the one you have for under $100, although a steel version would probably be nicer and certainly more robust.
I can buy a new glass piece, but I feel i can replace all three with stainless for very cheap. Just wondering if there’s any weird technical reason this wouldnt work? I found this piece… ideally I’d like to find the barbs at a 90 degree angle but more or less, this is what I’m
Going for. Not only will this look cleaner, and be more versatile, but removing 3 large lubed glass joints would really be nice. They are usually the culprit of a leak. But yeah, 2” spools are super cheap on Amazon, and I found those top barbed pieces. Really now I’m just wondering if I can find a 2”spool with one end already sealed off permanently. I can insert the tube through the hole, then put the triclamp on, but I wouldn’t be able to remove the tubes to dump them out. So I need a spool where the bottom can be sealed but not be bigger than the diameter of the hole.
I’m thinking I can just get the spool
And cap and weld it shut
rebuilt the coil in stainless later. didn’t realize how bad it leaked until I tried distilling with it in the loop but it worked great on my rotovap for years.
The stainless insert is pretty nice. I swapped my SPD setup for one much better vac depth. If you want I have the old glass pieces I’ll sell ya half off whatever they want.
The coils might be a little much more than what I need, BUT I did forget about the dip tube setup so the eth can make its way to the other cylinders. Hmmmm.
Also, did ya get a moment to read my dm / post about hardware spec review? I’m not one to be able to calculate cooling and pump specs. I’d appreciate the genius chiming in
Ahhh I got you now with the single vessel. Yeah I could probably have a single large stainless vessel fabricated, because some companies want almost 2k for it lol. Right now I’m mostly using it after my roto consensor to catch whatever makes it past, and yes I also use it while distilling. It all works fine, but I already broke one glass vessel, and greasing them whenever I have to dump them etc is annoying and is a fail point for vacuum. I’m gonna try my idea of a 2” SS spool, with a cap on the bottom and a lid with 2 barbs like you showed above. I have to figure out that dip tube tho
thanks!
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