Pics of evaportor that is all homemade!!

[cpmaple]

Hello fellow traders,
I finally figured out how to use photo bucket i posted some pics of the evaporator and hood i made just thought everyone would like to see. It was a 2x5 and now is a 2x6 with a hood. test boiled the other day and all worked great few things left to do but, nothing big. Just little thing to finish up to access pics it at the bottom of my signature. thanks cpmaple

[BoarsNest]

Looks great, you should have a good time with that improved setup.

[Northern Ont. Maple]

Nice looking setup, but you might want to put a drip tray under your copper perheater so the condensate does not dilute your boiling sap.

[Ausable]

Hi cpmaple -- Just checking out the pictures of Your Evaporator -- Looks good - can tell a lot of thought and hard work went into it. Have a great year boiling --- Mike

[cpmaple]

Thanks I've put alot of time into it lot of late nights out there and drip tray i have yet to do once i figure out how and where to attach it. Wont the tray not allow the copper to heat as much?

[Gary R]

That's real nice looking. Usually the preheater is all contained under a hood. When that is done, the drip pan won't effect the temperature of the copper. The temperature will be the same top and bottom because the steam will be all around the copper. Have fun boiling!

[Northern Ont. Maple]

Yes a drip tray will restrict some of the heat on your rig from getting to your per heater . I've been looking at your setup and trying to figure out the easiest way to do it. I like the series preheater over the parallel style and they work a lot better if they are mounted in the hood with drip tray under the perheater. The hood should come right down to your sap pan to trap all the heat.The one I made will preheat sap to 205f before going into the first pan. I hope this helps good luck .

[Bucket Head]

A drip tray won't hinder anything very much. The steam will still envelop the tubes and heat up. My pre-heater is like yours and my sap is plenty hot going into the float box. Any style heater, with any amount of pre-heating going on is better than nothing. Any increase over the thirty or forty-somthing degree incoming sap is beneficial. The tray will catch the condensate and then you'll have some hot water for cleaning.

Steve

[Sugarmaker]

cp,
Very nice looking arch, pans and preheater. Wood supply looks good too!
Is the pan above the preheater heating the sap before it goes into the preheater? Do you kown the sap temp's coming from the upper pan and from the preheater eblow?
Interesting set up should work fine. Yep wondered about the drip tray too. To address your concern about the drip pan we used vees under each preheater tube and then the steam can come up between them. Pan or vees would need to be slanted and the drained out.
Regards,
Chris

[cpmaple]

Thanks everyone for the comments on how nice it looks. Worked hard at it and hope it does well temp coming out of the copper tubing is 175 to 180 give or take some due to time of firing evaporator.

[farmall h]

CPMAPLE, nice rig...well done! Quite crafty you are. One thing though...you should install your dial thermometer in the draw-off side of your syrup pan..currently where it is located will be an "untrue" reading and you will have syrup in the pan before you have syrup in the draw-off pipe. Maybe instead of welding an npt fitting to your pan you could purchase one of the thermometers that lay at an angle in the pan.:cool:

[cpmaple]

thanks for all the comments,
I took some of your advise and moved one of the copper heaters to the top of the hood and left one on the bottom. the top one is hooked right into my feed line from head tank and other comes out of prewarmer pan hope it helps once i get new pics i will post them so you can all see. thanks again cpmaple

[cpmaple]

Sitting in the sugarhouse this morning looking at the evaporator next thing i know on my way to lowes i go for more copper tubing, I took the advise from several traders and removed pan from top and put the copper up in the hood. Once i get it 100% again i will get new pics up. I parralle 50feet of copper under the hood. Hope it works better will find out soon was gonna test boil tomorrow once more to check out all the fittings in the copper but phone call tonight stopped that. Maybe tomorrow evening i will get a chance to test boil let ya all know how the change works out. thanks again for the input cpmaple

[buck3m]

If I made that, I'd be mighty proud!