Plumbers delight condenser

The 'Plumber's Delight' condenser is aptly named as it uses all commonly available plumbing pipe and fittings.

A basic Plumber's Delight or P.D. for short is a one metre length of 22mm copper pipe with a 15mm copper pipe inside it.

22 to 15 unequal 'Tee's are used at each end to seal the inner 15mm to the outer 22mm and allow water to be passed in the gap between the two pipes.

Before fitting the 'Tees' the stops need to be removed to allow the 15mm pipe to pass through the fittings, and then the fittings soldered to the two pipes.

Before assembly, the 15mm pipe is partially crimped at every inch or so, each at right-angles to the crimp before it, so as to create a turbulent vapour flow down the length of pipe and increase condensing efficiency.

One P.D. 1 metre long condenser will just about keep up with a 3kW heat source when used for Methanol recovery, providing the coolant water flow is adequate and is kept below 20 degrees Centigrade.

• Although easily made with hand tools, the photos below show a bench press modified to crimp 15mm pipe for a PD condenser.
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  General view.

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  Crimping in progress. The vertical plate on the left acts as a register to ensure the pitch and angle of the crimps is constant.

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  Close up view. The vertical plate on the right is used to position the un-crimped section, ensuring that each crimp is square to the tube.

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  Crimp in progress.

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  The rigester is adjustable to allow the pitch of the crimps to be varied.

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  Finished section of crimped tube.