Bio Pellet Reactor Build

[Peppie]

Lets start the new year off with a new workshop build.
I posted a thread a while ago on what we should build here, alot of votes were for a reactor. Since I need a couple and Mojo needs a couple, we decides to document the build.
I want to thank Frankie, and Todd for donating material for the build.
Mike brought in some 6'' x 1/4'' acrylic tube as well as some 4''. The rest of the material to build these is yet to be determined. LOL
After about an hour of , what if , or we could. We had half a plan.
We started with building a jig for the table saw to cut the tubing square on one end.

We set the tube in the jig with the blade below the tube. Turn on the saw, move the blade up into the tube. Then just spin the tube to get a clean cut.

Production at its best.
Then we used a flat piece of plywood with 120grit sandpaper glued to it to smooth out the blade marks

Things were going great until Mike realized he was almost out of smokes, and started to chew his nails!!! That brought things to a grinding stop. Until I figured out a way to prevent him from sticking his fingers in his mouth.

I had a small funnel. Cut it down to fit his finger, Bam no more chewing!!!!

Seriously.. We needed some thing to create the water flow in a way that would cause the pellets to tumble.
So we did use a funnel and cut it to fit into the tube snug.

After all of that brainstorming, we needed a break. So we made a few bases to glue the tubes to and stuck them together with some weld-on 16

Notice the high tech clamps.

We stopped for the day. We are needing to get some plumbing supplies for the next part of the build

 

[Frankie]

Looking good pep. Do you still need me to send out that tubing ? It was a crazy holiday and i did not get it out yet. Give the word and its on the way.

Sent from my GSG4 communicator using Forum Runner

 

[Maxx]

Looks good. What are you planning on feeding these with?

Nick

 

[Peppie]

Looking good pep. Do you still need me to send out that tubing ? It was a crazy holiday and i did not get it out yet. Give the word and its on the way.

Sent from my GSG4 communicator using Forum Runner

Nope, We have got it all covered. You may need it to build one of these bad boys.

Thanks for the offer Frankie.

Chime in if anything looks out of shape.

 

[Peppie]

Looks good. What are you planning on feeding these with?

Nick

That would be a good Q for Mojo to chime in on. I think he had the media at his place.
As for flow, they will be water in from the top and exit the top. You can plumb it to your return pump or a small power head.

 

[mojoreef]

Well we are doing like 3 pellet reactors, so the one for me is going to be run by a manifold I have made off the skimmer pump so thats mine. One is for peppie and I think he is going to use a small powerhead. Then the last one is for RF to give away in some kind of a contest. That one we are just going to make it an in and out, that way someone can do what ever they want to power the units. Remember these are pellet reactors so they dont need much to keep the pellets rolling.

Mojo

 

[Maxx]

What brand of biopellets are you going to use?

Nick

 

[mojoreef]

I am leaning towards the ones from Warner Marine, but might also take a peek at the ones from Dr.Tims

Mike

 

[Maxx]

Are you going to go with a GFO as well to remove inorganic phosphates as well?

Nick

 

[mojoreef]

No never like that whole concept. Inorganic P should be swallowed up by a good skimmer and my favorite....Ozone.


Mojo

 

[Maxx]

IIRC, Inorganic P is the only one that shows up in test kits right?
Organic P is immediately absorbed and used by bacteria, right?

Nick

 

[mojoreef]

here is a refresher for ya

http://www.reeffrontiers.com/forums/f14/look-dreaded-p-word-60002/

 

[Peppie]

Stopped by the hardware store today on the way home from work. I picked up a few heavier plastic funnels. Some 1/2'' PVCP fittings and a 10' piece of 1/2'' Pvcp pipe.

First I made a snug fit at the bottom of the funnel to accept the 1/2'' pipe. The pipe will go all the way through the end of the funnel and be capped with an end cap.

Next we have to get the water to squirt out into the bottom of the funnel. I reamed out a 1/2'' coupler so it could slide over the 1/2'' pipe.
Then I pressed it down into the funnel as far as it would go. Then I marked the pipe and the fitting to the correct height on the pipe. I cut slots in the coupler.

I put the coupler back on the pipe at the right height and drilled holes in the pipe directly in line with the slot that were cut in the coupler.

This is what I got

Need to clean up the clean up the edges.
Then the pipe with the coupling slid in place goes back in the funnel, and the end cap is place at the bottom to lock every thing into place

Now we have to keep the pellets in the reactor. Simple enough. I first drilled a hole to match the OD of the 1/2'' pipe in a piece of 1/4'' acrylic, then took it to the band saw and cut it up.

Sanded the edges. Then I cut a 1/2'' coupler in half and slid 1/2 on the pipe, placed the media lid on, and slid the other 1/2 of the coupler on.

I cut up a piece of gutter guard to go under the lid to keep the media in the tube.

This is a shot of the end product for the day. I will start on the flanges and lid next trip to the shop.

 

[Peppie]

Had to do some clean up in the shop, before I could get started on the flanges and lids. After every thing was put in its place I got started with a circle cutting jig for the router.

The last time Mike and I cut circles on the router it was pretty scary. And a royal PITA.
I cut a dado in a scrap piece of 1/2'' plywood. 9/16 wide x 3/8 deep

I had some shelving bracket stock that was just right for this jig

Sorry for the blurrrrrrr

I cut a small piece of wood to set inside of the shelf bracket

I drilled small holes every 1/2'' for about 5-6''

I used a nail as the pivot pin

I can just clamp the jig to the router table just shy of the diam. I want to cut. I placed a small stop block at the end of the dado to stop the sliding bracket.

Cut up 6'' x 6'' x 3/8'' acrylic and found the center, drew a circle.

Cut the mass off at the bandsaw

Now lets see how the jig works..

Much safer and easier. I will finish them up tomorrow.

 

[Hersey]

That's awesome. Very cool set-up.

 

[Peppie]

Thanks Hersey.

Mike came over today and we got some more done on the reactors. There are a couple of design changes due to his water in take needs and my limited size needs on the lid for plumbing in and out.
So after the lids and flanges were cut it was time to drill and cut for the nylon hardware to hold them together. We will use 5/16 nylon threaded bolts to keep the lid on.
I mated two of the lids together ( one is a lid,one is a flange) I taped them together and set the jig on the drill press.
I drilled a 1/4'' hole and rotated the disk 60 degrees and drilled the next hole, and so on.

Then I switched bits to a 5/8'' and drilled out for the pass thru hole for the top of the nylon bolt
Moved the jig back to the router table and mounted a 3/8'' bit to finish up the lid conection.

The flange needs a V groove cut in it to hold a rubber O ring We mounted up a pointed bit and set the proper depth to cut the groove

Then we put a roundover bit in the router and knocked off the sharp edge.
The one design change we agreed on was to have the water exit the reactor out the side of the tube, near the top. We didnt want to weld an acrylic tube to the side because it wasnt much surface area to seal and possibly get knocked off. I didnt like the idea of inserting a tube into a hole drilled in the side of the reactor.
So we came up with a compromise.
We cut up some 1'' thick acrylic into 2'' squares. The we sanded one face of the blocks to a rough diam of the reactor tube

We then fine tuned to radius to the tube , with the tube

Made a real nice fit. After it is glue to the reactor we will drill and tap the face to accept a 1/2'' fitting.
Mike likes to make things shine so I gave him the torch so he could polish them up before glueing them to the reactor

The tape will be enough to hols them in place while the 16 drys

Stay tuned the best is yet to come.

 

[Guerry]

looking really nice guys, can't wait to see a finish product

 

[Krish]

You guys almost look like you know what you are doing. . Nice work so far!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[user 2204]

Very nicely done guys. Cannot wait for the next segment to come. Keep up the great work. I'm suprised that you guys didn't use a crosscut sled on the tablesaw for cutting circles. :lol:

Cheers,
Alex

 

[Peppie]

Thanks guys,
Here is were we are so far.

Mike decided he need two carbon reactors , so we added one more to the mix.

As you can see the bottom of the small ones have a square base of clear 3/8''. Well I thought it needed some black on there some where. So I decided to change it up alittle, this is strictly cosmetic. I have this thing about projects looking good. LOL
I cut up some 1/2'' black acrylic into 5 1/2'' squares and roughed out a circle on the bandsaw. I got rid of most of the waste at the drill press with a fostener bit. The depth is set at 7/16"

I left the center in place to give support for the pin used on the circle I set the jig up on the router table and cut the hole to 1/16'' larger than the reactor tube.
So now the base of the reactor tube will fit down in the 1/2'' X 5 1/2'' circle. I rounded of the corners and put the torch to it.

Looks like a good fit. I used #16 to weld them together.