new hlt build - finally completed

[lord groan]

@minesapint - I was surprised how cool the underside was, but heat rises and I have two layers of camping foam between the water\element and the electrics, in practice I don't think it goes beyond 25-30c in the base and the sight glass stays at room temp.
Hth lg

[kisslikeether]

Firstly can I say how good that looks, and thanks for taking the time to document it so thoroughly. I've got the parts on order to do the same with a spare boiler that was sitting idle, but can you help me with a couple of questions.

How did you fix the perspex tube into the compression fitting? Is it strong enough to take the pressure from the olive, or did you do in another way?

Also, I don't know much about thermowells. Once you've soldered and fitted the parts is is as simple as pushing the probe to the end of the tube, or is it fixed in there in some other way? It did occur to me that it might benefit from some heat conducting paste which I've got left over from an earlier boiler mod.

Thanks in advance...

[lord groan]

@kisslikeether - hi glad you like it, the sight glass was a 15mm external diameter so I slipped the olive on to the tube then wrapped a few turns of PTFE on top of the olive, then hand tightened the compression nut. Next I filled the boiler and waited for the joint to weep, then I tightened the nut with a spanner until it stopped leaking. It didn't take much. I was being extra careful not to over tighten because the acrylic is breakable!
For the thermowell it was all a bit vague, I bought the controller then measured the diameter of the sensor, 4mm iirc, I found a bit of scrap copper tube which was 6mm external and slightly over 4mm internal. Then for some reason I set it into a piece of 8mm tube, no idea now why I did that, then drilled the brass plug and soldered the lot in place. I pinched the end of the 6mm flat and sealed that with a bit of solder. In mine the sensor is pushed into the tube as far as it will go and a camping mat foam bung shoved in behind, if I'd had some thermal paste I'd have used some for certain but not having any doesn't seem to have affected it.
Hth

[kisslikeether]

Thanks once again for the info. I'm looking forward to this. It's been ages since I had a homebrew related project to get my teeth into..

It occurred to me this morning that a John Guest elbow may be a safer bet for the sight tube. I've got a nasty habit of over-tightening compression fittings, so I may go that way instead.

Oh, and there will be two of us with 8mm tube, as I followed the instructions to the letter

[Hogarth]

On mine, I removed the olive altogether and made a new 'olive' from PTFE tape. Never leaked, and it seems a bit kinder to the plastic tube.