Bottle Sanitiser design - Your thoughts please

[Phil]

I must have misunderstood the way you're doing this. I would have thought you'd have soldered it up and laid it in the bottom of the showertray. Are you having it protruding though it?

/Phil.

 

[BrewStew]

yeah, to keep it looking neat and tidy, and to maximise the amount of sprinklers i've sent them throught he walls of the tray.

Here's a section detail:

I'll do a 3d image of it in my lunchbreak to better illustrate

 

[BrewStew]

for the people on this forum with pumps: how much pressure can you get out of your pumps at maximum? do you reckon it'd pump enough to properly soak the insides of 25 bottles?

 

[BrewStew]

ahh you know what i can work this out using a cornie filled with water to save me wasting money on a pump if this dont work

1 bar is about 15psi so i'll fill a cornie with water, presurise it to 15 psi, and stick a single sprinkler on the end to see how it performs, adding sprinklers until i think it's enough, and there's my answer

Right, off to wickes later to get a couple of bits to build a few makeshift sprinklers for testing purposes

i suppose the only slight drawback is i'll get slightly less flow because the cornie dip tubes are quite a bit thinner than the piping... with a pump i'd get more flow, so i suppose i could take this as a worst case scenario.

 

[Vossy1]

4 elbows
34 equal tees
25 stop ends
about 5 meters of 10mm piping

Another couple of thought
Use 15 mm piping and fittings, they're cheaper than 10mm.
Go to your local plumbers merchants as they're usually a lot cheaper then shops. They also sell fittings in boxes of 50 and 100 which qork out cheaper than individual units.

I missed the fact that the bottles are resting on the T, and that the copper tube doesn't touch the base of the bottle earlier

In that case there's no need for all the holes in the pipe. One single hole in the cap at the top of the bottle pipe would give you complete coverage (as in most bottle cleaner designs). It would also mean you can use less pressure to move the snaitiser about . I reckon the hole could be very small, maybe 3mm, certainly best to start of small and make bigger if needed.

If you did go the pump route I suppose you could use anything with a decent hydrostatic head...a RG550 would probably be ideal and they can be picked up for £25 on e-bay sometimes. When looking at pumps it's the hydrostatic head that's important, the greater the figure the more powerful the pump.

 

[Vossy1]

Looking forward to following this BS as I quite fancy one of these also

 

[BrewStew]

Thanks V, All good info

Question though, I haven't got a bottle to hand, and i'm heading to wickes on my lunchbreak. can someone tell me the inside diameter of a typical bottle neck? I'm thinking 15mm might be too wide as the JG stop ends go wider than the piping

 

[Vossy1]

Question though, I haven't got a bottle to hand, and i'm heading to wickes on my lunchbreak. can someone tell me the inside diameter of a typical bottle neck? I'm thinking 15mm might be too wide as the JG stop ends go wider than the piping

I was just thinking that after typing the above. A 15mm JG fitting will not fit into the average bottle neck...so 15mm is out...unless you use copper end cap, but I'm not sure how big they are ..I'll just measure the bottle for you...hold on

 

[Vossy1]

A standard bottle has a 18mm opening to the neck.

 

[BrewStew]

18mm... cool. thanks :) so yeah a 15mm JG pipe would be tight with the end stop.

10mm piping it is then. i'll take a tape measure with me to make sure a 10mm end stop isn't wider than 18mm overall as some go rather bulbose i believe. failing that it may have to be copper.

 

[BrewStew]

I just had an epiphany

I've got one of these http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/partNumber/7402027/Trail/searchtext>PRESSURE+WASHER.htm

I could hook up the "hose inlet" to the collection (after priming) of this shower tray design, and have it recirculate it does 6 litres per minute at 90 bar :shock: if it doesnt burst the pipes first... and there's no way to turn it down :S

 

[BrewStew]

ok bad idea LMAO...

http://www.johnguest.com/linkpages/TechSpec6.html

operating pressure is 10bar at 20c, the bursting pressure is three times that... so 30bar... i'm bloody glad i checked :shock:

 

[Vossy1]

Remember though that the holes will drop the pressure significantly.

There is a way round it anyway

Take a feed from the inlet pipework and fit a ball valve to it. On the other side of the ball valve take some hose direct to the shower tray.
Open this ball valve fully, start your pump and slowly shut the ball valve until you get the flow of sanitiser that you want going through the bottles.
Water will always find the path of least resistance so it will work. I know a few folk who use similar with higly rated pumps.

 

[BrewStew]

that's a good plan . i'm not sure how my pump will take it though cos it complains when there's a lack of pressure... ie the motor speeds up and slows down intermittently

right... in 9 mins i'm off to wickes

edit: are you suggesting putting a ball valve on the inlet to the sprinklers? ie, after the pump outlet effectively slowing down what comes out of the pump, or are you saying i should slow the water going into the pump?

 

[BrewStew]

actually putting it after the pump is a really good idea because the pump automatically turns off when the flow stops, ie when i let go of the trigger. awesome plan mate i'll grab a valve that will fit on my hose while i'm there

 

[Vossy1]

are you suggesting putting a ball valve on the inlet to the sprinklers? ie, after the pump outlet effectively slowing down what comes out of the pump,

Yep, but it wont restrict the flow from the pump. The sanitiser will go into the sprinkler, or into the tray, depending on how much you close the ball valve for the flow to the tray.

 

[Phil]

I'm thinking of making one of these, to clean 9 bottles at a time, at the weekend. If I get around to it I'll take a few pictures.

I have a few ideas around nozzles though that I want to try out. I'm thinking of just cutting the end of a 15mm copper to a rough point then squeezing it together rather than drilling holes everywhere. My feeling is that the majority of the crud is at the bottom of the bottle so that's where I'm going to concentrate the spray. I'll use caustic soda in the device so that should clean the whole bottle as it drips back to the collection tray.

I think I have a submersible pump somewhere that will do the job too.

/Phil

 

[BrewStew]

Right, i'm back... and considerably lighter in the wallet department.

I took a tape measure with me and found that the plastic JG end stops are too wide. so i've gone for all copper which is more expensive, but i also chose to go for compression fittings because if i'm to chop and change the design i want to be able to take it all apart easily, which added further cost and they only do microbore 10mm piping in 25m coils which was £18. the solder end stops are considerably smaller than the compression fit ones so i know there wont be a problem there. the compression fit ones are litterally about 1/4 of a mm short of 18mm :shock: so the first thing i'll check when i get home is whether or not this will go in the bottle before unwrapping the rest of the gubbins, so i can take it back if not. the compression end stops have alot on copper on the end, so i'm hoping i dont snap too many drill bits when drilling the holes hehe.

also had to get a couple of tools.

so here's what i got:
25m roll of 10mm microbore
5 tees, compression fit
6 end, stops compression fit
hacksaw as i wasn't prepared to spend £20 on a pipe cutter, i've got sandpaper to smooth the burrs
adjustable spanner

I wanted to get another screw on hose adaptor for the outlet of my pressure washer but they didn't have any, but i reckon i can wing it somehow. cant do much without a flow control tap but i think copper compression fittings can take more PSI than JG fittings, i'll read up though before i hook the badboy up though.

i can pinch a hoseclip off my chiller to jack the test system into a corny

Total cost for experimentation so far is £73.84 this better be worth it haha!

 

[Vossy1]

I have a few ideas around nozzles though that I want to try out. I'm thinking of just cutting the end of a 15mm copper to a rough point then squeezing it together rather than drilling holes everywhere.

Far easier and cheaper Phil
(I did post that before you came back BS, but the post wasn't posted...hmmm)

Come on BS we want pics pronto :lol:

 

[Vossy1]

hacksaw as i wasn't prepared to spend £20 on a pipe cutter

:shock: