diy thermometer sensitivity

[Jon Kirwan]

<snip>
I finally found some translations in plain English.

http://www.revenoor.com/pdf/catalog.pdf

"To produce alcohol fuel, the only requirement is a simple
permit issued by the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade
Bureau. It costs nothing and we know of no one ever being
turned down."

That is what I wanted to hear.

This is the site that first inspired me to proceed (they
make ethanol from prison scraps):

http://running_on_alcohol.tripod.com/id10.html

and here is the form:
http://www.ttb.gov/forms/f511074.pdf

It is rather odd that on Question 11 they would ask for the
capacity. How would I know what the capacity is unless I
build it? Oh well. I can make about 10 mL in about half an
hour. They want a 24-hour period? 0.1 gallons it is, then.
I would put 0.127 but I fear some nitwit will read that as
127 gallons.

But a FREE form? Didn't think such a thing was possible.

Thanks!

Michael

I still think there is a bond required and other
requirements. But I guess the form is free.

I remember seeing a "one gallon" capacity threshold being
mentioned somewhere in my searches. I think here, under the
heading of "Americans":

http://homedistiller.org/intro/legal

They say, "Americans can own a still, but it must be no
larger than 1 gallon, and may only be used for water
purification or the extraction of essential oils from
plants." My purpose is exactly for the extraction of
essential oils.

This legal morass is getting complicated to navigate. Cripes.

Jon

 

[Jon Kirwan]

I still think there is a bond required and other
requirements. But I guess the form is free.

I remember seeing a "one gallon" capacity threshold being
mentioned somewhere in my searches. I think here, under the
heading of "Americans":

http://homedistiller.org/intro/legal

They say, "Americans can own a still, but it must be no
larger than 1 gallon, and may only be used for water
purification or the extraction of essential oils from
plants." My purpose is exactly for the extraction of
essential oils.

This legal morass is getting complicated to navigate. Cripes.

Jon

See:

http://www.ttb.gov/spirits/faq.shtml#s3

"Small stills (with a cubic distilling capacity of a gallon
or less) that are used for laboratory purposes or for
distilling water or other non-alcoholic materials are exempt
from our rules."

Not my case since I wouldn't be distilling water and wouldn't
be distilling non-alcoholic materials."

"If you buy a small still and use it to distill water or
extract essential oils by steam or water extraction methods,
you are not subject to TTB requirements."

Not my case, as I'm not distilling water or essential oils by
steam or water extraction." I'm using ethanol for the
extraction.

"If you produce essential oils by a solvent method and you
get alcohol as a by-product of your process, we consider that
distilling. Even though you are using and recovering
purchased alcohol, you are separating the alcohol from a
mixture -distilling."

Which suggests to me that even if I go buy alcohol from a
state licensed liquor store, pay all relevant retail taxes
for it, and then use it in an extraction process that leaves
the alcohol in the byproduct (tincture), then I need a
license? Even when there is no distillation going on, at
all??? Just the cold temperature use of alcohol for
extraction?

Jon

 

[[email protected]]

See:



http://www.ttb.gov/spirits/faq.shtml#s3



"Small stills (with a cubic distilling capacity of a gallon

or less) that are used for laboratory purposes or for

distilling water or other non-alcoholic materials are exempt

from our rules."



Not my case since I wouldn't be distilling water and wouldn't

be distilling non-alcoholic materials."



"If you buy a small still and use it to distill water or

extract essential oils by steam or water extraction methods,

you are not subject to TTB requirements."



Not my case, as I'm not distilling water or essential oils by

steam or water extraction." I'm using ethanol for the

extraction.



"If you produce essential oils by a solvent method and you

get alcohol as a by-product of your process, we consider that

distilling. Even though you are using and recovering

purchased alcohol, you are separating the alcohol from a

mixture -distilling."



Which suggests to me that even if I go buy alcohol from a

state licensed liquor store, pay all relevant retail taxes

for it, and then use it in an extraction process that leaves

the alcohol in the byproduct (tincture), then I need a

license? Even when there is no distillation going on, at

all??? Just the cold temperature use of alcohol for

extraction?



Jon

I would simplify it like this:

1. Practice on a lab-scale first

2. If an Apocalypse happens, prosecuting a Mr. Kirwan for alcohol extraction will be the least of the Federal Government's problems.

M

 

[[email protected]]

On Thursday, June 13, 2013 3:10:19 PM UTC-7, Jon Kirwan wrote:

....

See:



http://www.ttb.gov/spirits/faq.shtml#s3



"Small stills (with a cubic distilling capacity of a gallon

or less) that are used for laboratory purposes or for

distilling water or other non-alcoholic materials are exempt

from our rules."



Not my case since I wouldn't be distilling water and wouldn't

be distilling non-alcoholic materials."

Well, um... "A still is defined as apparatus capable of being used to separate ethyl alcohol from a mixture that contains alcohol. Small stills (with a cubic distilling capacity of a gallon or less) that are used for laboratory purposes or for distilling water or other non-alcoholic materials are exempt from our rules."

No idea what a "cubic distilling capacity" is. Do they mean "volumetric" distilling capacity? Of one gallon per day? Per year? Or does the distiller occupy one gallon of volume?

Just from reading the above, it sounds to me like a laboratory-sized still,even if used for distilling ethanol, is exempt. That makes sense, if onlyto keep college chemistry labs from sending applications to the bATF.

 

[George Herold]

I did a little informal reading on the web about this
question (as regards the US, of course.) So take my tentative
conclusions with a huge grain of internet salt.

It appears that federal law trumps state law (from what I
gather) and rules over this issue. Because of political
pressures, beer and wine makers were able to secure
exceptions under federal law for making home brews and wines.

Taxes on beer and wine are low, compared to taxes on
distilled liquors, I gather. So it may also be that it was
less of a loss for Congress' tax collection revenue stream
allowing that, as well, and so easier to secure exceptions.
Taxes on distilled liquors produced billions of dollars more
tax revenue, I gather, and arguments about the potential harm
from methanol and amyl alcohol and lead poisoning (metal
parts welded together, etc, assuming that a moonshiner would
use cheaper, more readily available materials instead of
getting appropriate laboratory equipment and/or teflon and
food grade stainless) allowed legislators to justify keeping
a strong hold on the tax revenues for hard liquors.

I found nothing yet about port, which is a fortified type of
usually blended wines. It may have it's own exemptions (in
either direction) on this issue.

What I did find is that if you are a "moonshiner" then you
need to secure at least one federal permit and pay taxes on
what you produce, even if only for personal use. I would
assume that if you sell any of it, that would be at least one
more permit, probably more fees, and probably inspections and
fees for that and who knows what else (appropriate bribes,
etc?)

Basically, if you distill for food purposes, you need a
federal permit. I don't know about "fuel purposes," though.
Congress appears to have given away huge subsidies for
ehthanol production for fuels, while insisting on retaining
huge tax revenues for food ethanol distillation. So it's
possible the laws are quite different. Or, it is possible
that to avoid people making "fuel" which they then drink,
that they've done something to close that loop, too. I have
come up with nothing on that particular topic (mostly because
I didn't dwell on it.)

Jon

Interesting, thanks. Say there is also 'freeze distilation'
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractional_freezing#Alcoholic_beverages

Hmm a eutectic mixture is like an azeotrope. (I should go back and
learn some chemistry :^)

George H.

 

[[email protected]]

Interesting, thanks. Say there is also 'freeze distilation'

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractional_freezing#Alcoholic_beverages

Yes! I tried it and just got a slush, unable to separate out any flammableliquids. Maybe my freezer was too cold... dunno.

Hmm a eutectic mixture is like an azeotrope. (I should go back and

Ooh! Yeah, this mentions solder (tin, lead) forms a eutectic system!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eutectic_system

learn some chemistry :^)

Yes, it's fun =)

George H.

Michael

 

[Adam Funk]

Taxes on beer and wine are low, compared to taxes on
distilled liquors, I gather. So it may also be that it was
less of a loss for Congress' tax collection revenue stream
allowing that, as well, and so easier to secure exceptions.
Taxes on distilled liquors produced billions of dollars more
tax revenue, I gather, and arguments about the potential harm
from methanol and amyl alcohol and lead poisoning (metal
parts welded together, etc, assuming that a moonshiner would
use cheaper, more readily available materials instead of
getting appropriate laboratory equipment and/or teflon and
food grade stainless) allowed legislators to justify keeping
a strong hold on the tax revenues for hard liquors.

ICBW, but from what I've heard they have no problems with poisonous
legal moonshine in New Zealand. Legalizing it means people can freely
buy safe equipment with good instructions, instead of improvising.

IMO, the safety argument against letting people make it themselves is
bunk. Obviously, some people would still do stupid dangerous things,
but that's true with electricity (for example).

 

[Jon Kirwan]

ICBW, but from what I've heard they have no problems with poisonous
legal moonshine in New Zealand. Legalizing it means people can freely
buy safe equipment with good instructions, instead of improvising.

IMO, the safety argument against letting people make it themselves is
bunk. Obviously, some people would still do stupid dangerous things,
but that's true with electricity (for example).

I agree with your argument and believe that the US federal
gov't was obviously protecting a substantial revenue source
and attempting to disingenuously justify that protection
using this as an excuse.

Jon

 

[Adam Funk]

On Fri, 14 Jun 2013 18:47:57 +0100, Adam Funk


I agree with your argument and believe that the US federal
gov't was obviously protecting a substantial revenue source
and attempting to disingenuously justify that protection
using this as an excuse.

Oddly, though, the situation in New Zealand arose because (AIUI) the
customs officers asked the government to legalize private distillation
because they (in customs) thought it was a waste of their time & money
to try to enforce the ban!

 

[[email protected]]

Yep. It's a discrete-time model of an RC lowpass filter.



If K is 0.01, then the time constant is 100 times the sample interval. After the

first sample, the output jumps to 1% of the input. The second time, it jumps 1%

*of the ramaining difference*, just like a real resistor-capacitor.

--



John Larkin Highland Technology Inc

www.highlandtechnology.com jlarkin at highlandtechnology dot com

Wow.

I'm trying to remember if bit shifts work on negative numbers (for example, if IN - OUT is negative.) Should work, since the sign is the most significant bit, right? It's been too long since I took the assembly language class...

Thanks again.

Michael

 

[[email protected]]

On Friday, June 14, 2013 1:13:22 PM UTC-7, John Fields wrote:

....

I agree, but in the beginning, with George Washington's campaign

against the whiskey rebellion in Pennsylvania,



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whiskey_Rebellion

"Farmers who used their leftover grain and corn in the form of whiskey..." oh that's pretty smart!

Thanks,

Michael

 

[P E Schoen]

"John Larkin" wrote in message

An ASR is equivalent to a signed divide. You have to make sure you
have enough empty bits on the right that you don't throw away data
when you do the right-shift. That usually involves always
left-shifting the ADC data before you start, so there's room for the
right shifts.

It may be easier, faster, and more accurate to just total 64 10 bit readings
to get a 16 bit integer, and then use integer math to compare that reading
to integer high/low setpoints.

Paul

 

[[email protected]]

"John Larkin" wrote in message











It may be easier, faster, and more accurate to just total 64 10 bit readings

to get a 16 bit integer, and then use integer math to compare that reading

to integer high/low setpoints.



Paul

Yes you have a point. Probably need to use long ints (32 bits) though because worst case, 2^10 = 1024, 1024 x 64 = 65536 which is > 32737.

Eventually I'll want something more sophisticated than simple on-off.

Y'all are familiar with this kind of stuff, right? Process Control drove me nuts in college. Maybe because our professor didn't explain it very well... ("Why not simply use a thermostat?" lol)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PID_controller

Thanks,

Michael

 

[[email protected]]

On Friday, June 14, 2013 6:58:18 PM UTC-7, David Eather wrote:

....

Did you say you are using Arduino? In which case you are programing in C

and the language will take care of the division and sign for you

Yes, I am, and I know.

I just wanted to clarify if I did do a bit shift to divide by 128, would the sign be preserved if the delta happened to be negative. Apparently the answer is no...

Thanks!

Michael

 

[Jamie]

On Friday, June 14, 2013 6:58:18 PM UTC-7, David Eather wrote:

...





Yes, I am, and I know.

I just wanted to clarify if I did do a bit shift to divide by 128, would the sign be preserved if the delta happened to be negative. Apparently the answer is no...

Thanks!

Michael

Like most logical bit operations, the sign bit is just another bit..
shift that to the right, and it's gone.

Unless you use some carry operation, the upper bit should be cleared.

P.S.
if you are doing multiple machine words for large values, then you
need to use the carry flag to include that in the shift for the next
machine word.


Jamie

 

[Adam Funk]

On Friday, June 14, 2013 1:13:22 PM UTC-7, John Fields wrote:

...



"Farmers who used their leftover grain and corn in the form of whiskey..." oh that's pretty smart!

Recycling is a good thing.


--
A recent study conducted by Harvard University found that the average
American walks about 900 miles a year. Another study by the AMA found
that Americans drink, on average, 22 gallons of alcohol a year. This
means, on average, Americans get about 41 miles to the gallon.
http://www.cartalk.com/content/average-americans-mpg

 

[[email protected]]

On Friday, June 14, 2013 2:03:04 PM UTC-7, John Larkin wrote:

....

An ASR is equivalent to a signed divide. You have to make sure you

have enough empty bits on the right that you don't throw away data

when you do the right-shift. That usually involves always

left-shifting the ADC data before you start, so there's room for the

right shifts.

Ah, the subtleties of AVR arithmetic shifts are a bit beyond me, I think. Thanks though.

Partial C code snapshot:

void loop() {
f_reading = f_reading + 0.01 * ( analogRead( THERM_PIN ) - f_reading );
if( (++i % 2500 ) == 0 ){
Serial.print( "Average: " );
Serial.print( f_reading );
Serial.print( " Instantaneous: " );
Serial.print( analogRead( THERM_PIN ) );
Serial.print( "\n" );
...
}

Output:
Average: 559.29 Instantaneous: 558
Average: 561.61 Instantaneous: 564
Average: 564.04 Instantaneous: 563
Average: 567.14 Instantaneous: 569
Average: 567.03 Instantaneous: 569
Average: 570.22 Instantaneous: 571
Average: 572.63 Instantaneous: 577
Average: 574.74 Instantaneous: 576
Average: 577.94 Instantaneous: 578
Average: 580.52 Instantaneous: 576

Outputs are very nicely averaged by 2500 iterations. Arduino can do about 5000 iterations per second, and this gives me about two data points per second.

Thanks again,

Michael

 

[Jasen Betts]

On Friday, June 14, 2013 6:58:18 PM UTC-7, David Eather wrote:

...



Yes, I am, and I know.

I just wanted to clarify if I did do a bit shift to divide by 128,
would the sign be preserved if the delta happened to be negative.
Apparently the answer is no...

In assembler you use the ASR op-code *
In "C" the result is implementation defined, check your compiler
documentation.

I'd expect "avr-gcc" to get the answer right. which by reading the
assember output it appears to do (inefficiently)


(* actually in assmber for a divide by 128 you stash the low bit
(high bit of the low byte) move everything right by one byte, shift
the low bit back in and ripple up threough the intermediate bytes (if
any) and then restore the high byte using ADC and then CMP )

 

[[email protected]]

On Saturday, June 15, 2013 5:33:21 PM UTC-7, John Larkin wrote:

....

Just speculating, but if you just slowly add heat to a water-alcohol

mix, won't the alcohol boil off first? It's sort of self-regulating. I

don't know how pure the distillate would be.

After fermenting mixes of sugar, yeast and water, I noticed the liquid wouldn't start to boil until about 95 degrees C, and sometimes the collected distillate would catch fire, but not usually. If it did catch fire, there was a large puddle of water remaining in my saucer. That told me there was still a lot of water in the distillate.

In a commercial distillation column, they shove a fraction of the distillate back into the column (the fraction is called the Reflux Ratio) to get purer alcohol out. This also lowers the temperature inside the column.

 

[Daniel Pitts]

In assembler you use the ASR op-code *
In "C" the result is implementation defined, check your compiler
documentation.

I'd expect "avr-gcc" to get the answer right. which by reading the
assember output it appears to do (inefficiently)


(* actually in assmber for a divide by 128 you stash the low bit
(high bit of the low byte) move everything right by one byte, shift
the low bit back in and ripple up threough the intermediate bytes (if
any) and then restore the high byte using ADC and then CMP )

I'm an 80x86 guy (and not the OP), but I'm curious about what you're
talking about here... It seems likely you've missed negative values, but
I could me missing the full thing.

So, lets say I have a 4 bit 2's compliment number, 1101 (-3). and I want
to divide by four. normal shifting will fail entirely, resulting in
0011 (3). Sign extended shifting will be closer, but still wrong 1111 (-1).

I would either need a real "divide" instruction, or I would need to
check the sign, and then if < 0, I would negate and shift and negate
back. Unless there is some other nifty trick I'm missing. I'd love to
see it.

Either way, if the OP wants to use (x >> 7) in C, they will find
negative values of x don't result in the desired value of x/128;