flobox - floatbox Question

[royalmaple]

Hello-

New to the board and pretty new to sugaring as well. I am in the process of finishing up my evaporator pans. I am setting up on a 275 gal oil tank. 24x36 drop flue pan, 24x24 finishing pan. I am trying to come up with a simple yet effective way to incorporate a float or float box into the mix. I would see it as one box controlling the entire rig, since I would have both pans connected.

Anyone have any ideas or plans they would care to share?

Also I was considering having a preheating unit over the flue pan. Has anyone had luck with copper pipe zig zagged over the pan using steam heat to preheat sap? I was not sure of any possible drawbacks of using copper? Ex. giving off harmful chemicals to sap inside from getting too hot?

I appreciate the help.

Matt.

[Russell Lampron]

With a drop flue pan you can control the sap level in both pans with 1 float. If it is possible go to a maple equipment dealer with a measuring tape and check out the float box on a flue pan. You may also want to price out the inlet valve and float assembly.

As for the preheater it will work but won't be as effective as it would be with a steam hood and drip pan. Copper pipe is what manufactures use to make preheaters so there is no problem there. Use lead free solder on all fittings and joints with food grade flux.

Russ

[royalmaple]

Russ-

Thanks. Do you have any idea on what the parts may cost? Or who is the best resource to get them from?

I was going to make a hood also, I notice you mentioned a drip pan. My first concern is what to do with the condensate the would form on the inside of the hood and drip back into the mix. Kind of defeating the process.

Do you or anyone else have a picture of the correct set up?

Also anyone tried using the brass float valve and copper ball (toilet style float) found in grainger catalog?

I was looking into using that for my float but I was nut sure about the copper ball in the boiling sap, but I guess based on the response above it would not matter.

Thanks,
Matt

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Matt,

You can check out my website as it has a lot of pics on it. As far as a drop flue box, might want to check with the manufactures as Leader or Dominion and Grimm. It may be a little late this year to try to do that as it would be a good size project as you would have to cut and solder/weld the box or fitting for it onto the pan. It would be great if you could get it done, but if not, then set up a tank with a valve on it and you can control it manually. That works great as I used that type of setup for years.

As far as a steam hood, you should be able to see pics of mine. Nearly all the larger producers use them and they work great. I have a 1 inch deep and wide channel around the outside of mine and a drip pan inside that connects to the channel on both ends and drains into the channel. The channel drains outside the hood and I have several gallon of hot distilled water to clean with and etc every hour. :D

[royalmaple]

Brandon-

Thanks for the input and pics. I get the idea with the hood now. I was thinking of doing something similar.

I see where you have a rack that holds your copper tubing for the preheater...is there another pan under that or is that the pan bottom?

I was not sure if you had the boiling sap directly under the preheater or something else going on.

I was thinking of just having the tubing suspended over the flue pan.

If I can come up with the parts for the flobox I can tig weld it on in a jiffy. Just need to finalize the plans of what will work best.

Some of what I have seen are nothing more than a stainless box-connecting rod-to some sort of cap with "teflon" or something like it capping the inlet tube. I could make this easy enough, but I was not sure what was being used as the teflon material. I didn't want to chance it with the high temp sap coming directly in contact with the valve.

[Rob Harvey]

You need a pan with a drain to catch the condensate that forms on the cold pipes. If you dont you will wind up evaporating the same water over and over. Rob

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Rob,

The brackets are mounted to the drip pan. If you look closely, you can see the drip pan directly under the preheater. It is 16" above the bottom of the flue pan.

If you can tig weld, you are in business. Float box will run you $ 250 to $ 300. :?

[Russell Lampron]

Matt

I don't see why the toilet type float valve wouldn't work as long as it will allow more than enough sap to flow into your pan than the evaporation rate of your evaporator.

I measured up the float box on the flue pan of my evaporator. Sorry I don't have any pictures, it is 20" long, 7" wide and it is 8" deep. It has a partition that is 5" tall and 5" in from the back end where the sap comes in. The float is in the 15" by 7" section that has 3/4" holes near the bottom edge of the flue pan. The holes go into the flue pan so that the sap level will be the same in that section of the float box and the flue pan. The 5" partition is there to direct the in coming sap to the pipes that feed the flue pan. There are 2 pipes that sit on top of the flues and you plug one of them off depending which side of the front pan you are drawing off of.

Russ

[royalmaple]

Russ thanks, I think I get the picture. I may try the copper float and valve from grainger.

I think it will work. I was just not sure what if any problems may be with the copper float in the boiling sap. I'll post a pic when I get it up and running.

[maple flats]

I would think a toilet type valve would not keep a constant depth. If you ever get a toilet that has a slight leak into the bowl the fill valve only runs after enough level has been lost and then it fills at close to normal full flow briefly and shuts off. The fill valve on my leader evap uses a float and this pushes up by use of an arm to tighten the seal preventing flow, as level drops the flow starts slowly and as evaporation increases the flow increases. The float is pressing a rubber gasket up against the smothe end of the fill outlet pipe. I think a system similar to this would be most constant. Design it to reverse flow too. Mine is a basic 2 x 6 and the fill valve is mounted to a preheater pan that rests over the flue pan. To reverse I remove the float, lift the preheater pan and reverse it and put the float in the opposite flue from the section being filled, then I remove passage plugs from one side to the other and flow is reversed. Better designed units use a float pan external to the flue pan to get an even better float reading that is not affected by the rolling boil in the flue pan as mine is.

[tstew]

i know people who have used ther toilet style float and it seems to work pretty good one I know attaches a piece of 2x4 to it to help it with the boyancy

[royalmaple]

Maple flats-

thanks, I'll give it a shot. Is your gasket just rubber or anything special? I was not sure how hot sap would effect the rubber or vs versa. I have seen this set up I think that use a rubber cap like end that with the action of the float will close off the inlet tube.

[maple flats]

It is just rubber, not sure what kind of rubber. I get it from Leader and it is about 1.5" diam or so and maybe 1/8" thick, i use 2 thicknesses which works better than 1 which I think the prev. owner of the evap did. I do not have a lot of feed pressure. My bulk tank is just 6" higher when empty than the fill valve and when full is 30" higher. Never tried any other feed heights, this worked so i still use it.

[markcasper]

Maple flats, Did you say that you use 2 rubbers in the float box? You claim that it works better? Why would it work better with 2 than !? I didn't think there would be enough room for 2. I have an order from Leader and I should order another one if it works better, would be interesting to see. Mark

[maple flats]

Yes I use 2, one on top of the other. My evap however is about 17-18 years old and might be that the valve is not fitting as designed. When i got it i tried one and there was too much leakage when filling was not needed so i studied the fit and tried 2 (I always buy a spare for things I think are common wear items) by inserting a second in the little cup shapped part of the valve where 1 should fit. It worked great and I now have 2 spares on hand but most likely would only remove the oldest in use if needed and add 1 new that would go directly against the seating surface. They do seem to compress in use but i used the same setup for 2 seasons so far and think it is still good to go. This I will find out later this week if the forcast holds. You should realize mine is an open valve setting just above a small preheater pan and the float sets in one of the outer flues, I do not have a seperate float box. My unit is one of the simpler 2 x 6 hobby size units made in about 1983 or 84. It has soldered lo lead solder but not lead free. I do not clean it to the point of opening up the lead, but rather leave the dullish coating on the solder. Both pans are SS ands in real good shape, they look like new but aren't. The newer units may well be entirely different. Hopefully this is my last season on this one as I need a bigger evap, something like a 2.5 x 8, 3 x 8 or even 2.5 or 3 x 10.

[royalmaple]

maple flats-

if you could...can you take a couple of pics of the valve and float? you can email me directly if you need to.

Thanks matt

[maple flats]

I will over the next couple of days and PM them to you if I can. Otherwise I will need your email and I can send them directly to you.