Thanks for replying, and sharing some more insight.
Oh man, that's too bad. I did read over that, I was wondering what happened to the pictures.
That is quite a beast you've got there.
I used to try and diy everything. I'm getting older, and more conscious of my time and energy. I think trying to diy one would be a waste of time and money - for me - and the availability of materials etc. where I live (canada). Though the simple drawings on this Ichiban blog make the concept *seem* somewhat straight forward.
https://extractcrafter.com/2022/04/15/diy-vacuum-still-part-1-components-and-process/, then there's a part two.
Can I ask, do you think the source turbo is a worthy purchase (at around $800-850 CAD)? Considering the best price of any type of ethanol alcohol (food grade, etc.) in canada is from $55-100 per liter (If you happen to live in one of a few provinces that has it). And considering home use case for someone who needs edibles/sublinguals on the regular (consistent home use, probably not "light" use?)
Thank you.
Edit: Spelling.
At age 79, I can relate to getting older and more conscious of time and energy, so judge the worthiness of a project by whether I am having fun.
I mostly assembled my test sled from components left over from closing WolfWurx, Inc, or it would ostensibly be less elaborate. Part of my thrill of creation is creating it from what I have on hand.
It really is as simple as Steve presents it. If you remove the same amount of heat with the condenser, that you add with the hot plate, the system maintains the vacuum, even with the pump valve closed and pump shut off.
If you overbuild the condenser and remove more, it still works and if you make your condenser coil tube large enough, or too big, you can't boil it hard enough to significantly raise boiler internal pressure and thus raise the boiling temperature.
As to your question of whether I would pay $850 CAD ($632 USD) for a Source Turbo, my answer is that it depends on how I was planning to use it.
I personally use 190 proof for extraction and a Source Turbo and most pot stills recover in the neighborhood of 130 proof the first pass, so multiple passes and or a desiccant are required to get it back to 190 proof, with some losses.
I ran a batch five times in a ETOH Pro and still had to use Mol Sieve to get the recovered alcohol back to 190 proof, which is why I made a second run using a reflux column.
Once you get a vacuum still, you will find other uses for it. I also used the Source Turbo and the ETOH Pro to make brandy out of wine, and to extract food concentrates and flavonoids for cooking. What I discovered is that the first pass 130 proof recovery still has enough terpenes and terpenoids present to still smell and taste like the concentrate.
IE: I made Jalapeno lemonade extracting the Jalapeno's with water and alcohol, then I removed the alcohol. Not only did I recover more capsicum in the concentrate syrup, but I ended up with a quite tasty 130 proof Jalapeno vodka for recovery.
