|
Post by cye on Nov 26, 2013 15:48:13 GMT -5
Here's a few pics Orange emailed me. Great work! Attachments:
|
|
|
Post by cye on Nov 26, 2013 15:49:51 GMT -5
and the second pic... Attachments:
|
|
|
Post by orange on Nov 28, 2013 4:13:52 GMT -5
Hy Cye Hopefully you got the pictures of my Cylinder,, I Plan to get it all sealed up tonight, I intended calling in Maplins today to pick up the bits to make a switch.. But their website doesn't show a "nd 10" they list a 150k,100k,47k,15k and a4.7 k.. Since there is a Maplins 2 miles from my house I might call in anyway and ask, otherwise I will wait to hear from you.. Many thanks for your patience
|
|
|
Post by orange on Nov 28, 2013 14:44:14 GMT -5
hello Cye after much ado I sealed the keg back up.. my first time welding stainless.. just when I was getting smug about my welding skills,, a waterproof weld in thin gauge stainless brought me down to earth with a big bump! anyway I final got there but it looks like a car crash,, so I started on my insulated box,, and made a catastrophic mistake,, I had to resort to using push fit elbows to connect my coil's to my flow/return. and intended using the same outside the box (to keep them away from heat) so having done all my welding with the keg full of water to protect the fittings.. I drained the water to make it lighter to form the box... and like a fool soldered an elbow (forgetting about the lack of coolant) to make the pipework neater... and I have melted an internal elbow.. dooohh .. so I either have to try a and open up the keg and replace the elbow .. or the more realistic option open the keg salvage the coils and fit them in a bigger more accessible plastic drum,, in all honesty by the time I buy another bottle of argon and I am out of stainless mig wire a plastic drum is a cheaper option and will give me more capacity.. I am sooo annoyed with myself.
I did call to Maplins today and bought a thermostat and a 15k thermistor.. though my hands were not assembled with soldering pcb boards in mind!
|
|
|
Post by orange on Nov 28, 2013 14:48:30 GMT -5
hello Cye after much ado I sealed the keg back up.. my first time welding stainless.. just when I was getting smug about my welding skills,, a waterproof weld in thin gauge stainless brought me down to earth with a big bump! anyway I final got there but it looks like a car crash,, so I started on my insulated box,, and made a catastrophic mistake,, I had to resort to using push fit elbows to connect my coil's to my flow/return. and intended using the same outside the box (to keep them away from heat) so having done all my welding with the keg full of water to protect the fittings.. I drained the water to make it lighter to form the box... and like a fool soldered an elbow (forgetting about the lack of coolant) to make the pipework neater... and I have melted an internal elbow.. dooohh .. so I either have to try a and open up the keg and replace the elbow .. or the more realistic option open the keg salvage the coils and fit them in a bigger more accessible plastic drum,, in all honesty by the time I buy another bottle of argon and I am out of stainless mig wire a plastic drum is a cheaper option and will give me more capacity.. I am sooo annoyed with myself.
I did call to Maplins today and bought a thermostat and a 15k thermistor.. though my hands were not assembled with soldering pcb boards in mind!
|
|
|
Post by cye on Nov 28, 2013 15:58:33 GMT -5
pic1 received by email from orange great work. i didn't know that SS weld would stick well to copper. (i have used old pre-decimal copper, i.e., real copper, pennies to support the 'puddle weld' filling in of blow holes in thin car bodywork. this worked well because the steel weld did not stick to the copper, with the penny held on the underside of the hole preventing the weld from falling through the hole until it solidified) Attachments:
|
|
|
Post by cye on Nov 28, 2013 15:59:13 GMT -5
more of orange's fantastic work Attachments:
|
|
|
Post by cye on Nov 28, 2013 16:01:34 GMT -5
well, even if it didn't work out, you have proven that it is possible, and shown us too! many thanks is it the velleman kit ? maplin stock another kit too and they use different sized thermisters. if it's a ntc10k one you need i will post one to you. regards cye Attachments:
|
|
|
Post by orange on Nov 28, 2013 16:20:11 GMT -5
hi cye it all worked fine... until I went on autopilot.. or switched off! I am prone to rush things.. its that bottom left hand pipe that is the culprit! I wont be beaten though ..
I am ok on demolition and heavy lifting but you are the one that has injected science to my projects.. so if Maplins don't stock the item you suggest then yes I do need one,, I will obviously pay you for it..
in the meantime I am drowning my sorrows with homebrew.. on a school night
cheers
|
|
|
Post by cye again on Nov 28, 2013 18:24:37 GMT -5
no worries i'll just post you one, they're only a few pence.
just check first whether it's the 10k thermister that's in that kit you've got.
(there will be a circuit diagram on the packaging of the kit you've bought.)
regards
cye
|
|
|
Post by caveman on Nov 29, 2013 8:59:19 GMT -5
Orange, If you are worried about soldering that kit up, you can send it to me and I will send it back done. It would not take long to do. c
|
|
|
Post by orange on Nov 29, 2013 14:59:38 GMT -5
Gosh Cye That's a great offer.. but I feel that would be a big imposition .. I will give it a go tomorrow and if I find it hard going I will let you know. I think I have salvaged my cylinder I cut an access hole in the bottom earlier (s**t or bust) did my best "James Heriott" and changed the offending elbow. having realised my limitations as a welder (and not wanting to fork out £15 for more Argon or buy a roll of stainless wire) I made a "patch" out of an old stainless kickplate cut some cork into a gasket tomorrow I plan to bolt it in place with some sikaflex as an extra seal.. I wish I had done it this way in the first place (if it works) as Clint Eastwood once said "a man has to know his limitations" ..I keep pushing the boundaries of mine
|
|
|
Post by cye on Nov 29, 2013 15:37:32 GMT -5
hi there. would high temp silicone, such as the red or blue 'liquid gasket' used for vehicle rocker covers and sump seals not be a safer option than silkaflex? if there's a cook in your house, then those oven friendly silicone baking trays can make great gasket.
i think that was caveman offering to solder up your thermostat kit - i would be a hundred times slower than he.
now, on the subject of the thermostat, do you want it to be a differential temperature controller (as used in solar hot water) or a normal stat. if it's differential, the pump will only come one when the pipework near the stack coil (flue coil) is X degrees hotter than the water in your keg tank. that sounds good in principle, but then you will also want your water pumps when your stack coil water is nearing 100c to prevent it from boiling. perhaps you need both, say the diff controller (using the velleman) to deal with the bulk of the time, and a mechanical pipe stat (say a siemens, @ ~ £10 on fleabay) to switch the pump on irrespective of the tank temp when the coil is near boiling.
regarding the pipe loop formed by the stack coil, the keg coil, and the pipework in between, do you have some way of releasing excess pressure in case it all boils? E.g. a vent overflow, or a pressure/temp relief valve?
regards
cye
|
|
|
Post by cye on Nov 29, 2013 17:17:38 GMT -5
New pic received from Orange, with the following description !My patch, hope it works. It's going to be a fiddle to line up the bolts!! Nice work, thanks for the pic. However I can't figure how you're going to tighten the bolts up unless you use captive nuts or captive bolts in the keg itself - How are you preventing these from slipping on the inside? Attachments:
|
|
|
Post by orange on Nov 29, 2013 18:08:11 GMT -5
sorry caveman since communication thus far has only been between Cye and myself I had kinda forgotten it is an open forum and didn't even check the margin to see who had written it Ok at this stage I am happy to let the central heating system fed by by stack coil around the flue be controlled by the simple thermo switch that I have, I have also bought a 3 position switch which I plan to use as off/on/auto,, so if I have problems with the coil pulsing initially I will use the "on" setting and then switch to auto when the system is warm. during my test burn the coil heated so quickly I don't anticipate a problem,, so that part of the system is sorted,, it will have an expansion/filling tank. now the the only evolution this system has undergone (since my first post) is that I now plan to pass it through my cylinder,,, mindfull that my fire is a bit puny and inefficient I only have a very small amount of 22mm pipe in the coil for this purpose (not wanting to rob too much from my radiators) so this part is essentially an extension of my heating and still has the safety of the expansion tank.. had I been a bit more organised I would have ordered a 12vdc 3way valve from China,, as it is delivery times prevent this.. but I would have liked the facility to stop the central heating)water going through the cylinder. I do however have some 12v solenoid valves from a previous(aborted) project and I intend fitting this in a bypass loop,,it wont give me full control,, I could fit both of them and might just do that if I am satisfied that in a fail situation I wont cause an unvented pressure situation,, I haven't fully digested that part yet. Now the bulk of my coil (6m of 22mm pipe) is given to what I hope will be solar heated.. Once out of the cylinder I am reducing the pipe to 15mm,, At this stage I plan to fit a simple radiator painted black on the roof (I cant drive past a skip these days) As I understand it I need to have my return pipe entering the bottom of the rad on one side and my flow exiting at the top on the other side.. At the top I plan on teeing in a funnel! (I have seen pictures of this on the forum, though non with a radiator) this I think will speed up the installation,, and allow for rudimentary safety in the form of expansion room. With the yet to be discovered levels of solar gain that can be achieved at this time of year with such a crude collector I think I will be safe enough.. But obviously I need to be able to control this .. From my first experiment using a steel drum I learned it heats water quick enough and if you shower when its sunny you will have a nice temp,, but an hour after the sun sets ... not so nice. To this end I am going to pack my cylinder with insulation, But if the pump is running, it will cool the water quicker than it heated it.. Coupled with some heat being added by my fire I think I need a controller which only activates the pump when the water on the roof is warmer than the water in the tank,, Regarding boiling the tank contents... in my wildest dreams I cant see it happening,,, but if it does, the cylinder will be vented so it will be safe, and my central heating will act as a heat sink.. If you have managed to read all this without falling asleep you did well.. sorry for being so long winded, did I make sense? Cheers
|
|