I had an intresting experience this past week. As many of you know, my system is closed looped invloving 2 reactors and 1 settling tank all vented together. Well, this past week I had the top to the settling tank "pop" twice while I was processing. Thisis not normal as any pressure should be relieved by venting as I keep my vent open to the settling tank at all times.

My vent goes from the main room, up through the ceiling and then out an upper wall to the out of doors. I climbed up a ladder to get a visual on the ooutside vent tube and it appeared clear, so the mystery deepened. I then removed a section of tubing from the system and attached a length of tube I could blow into. This turned out to be fruitless as I could not blow air trough what is supposed to be an open tube.

Into the attic I go to disconnect the section going outside and brought that down for inspection. I then blew in my tube attachment and everything was fine,so the trouble was something with the piece I had removed. Upon close examination I saw what looked like a small diaphragm inside the tube covering it's diameter, twice.

It turns out I had a suicidal spider; it crawled up the tube and then proceeded to close off one end of the tube with a tight web and then turned around and made another air tight web/diaphragm on the other side trapping itself between the two. These two small spider web diaphragms were enough to hold back all the escaping gases/air and causing back pressure into the system. Stong enough so that even though I had all valves closed I could not get enough pressure from blowing in it to loosen the hold. Spider's web, for it's size, is reputed to be stronger than steel. The vent had been doing just fine for several years until the desperate and despondent spider showed up ...

Just when you think you've seen it all...

If this wasnt coming from you, I'd probably sound the B.S alarms. Any nuclear power plants around you? Genetic labs maybe? LOL


I wonder how much pressure it could have taken. It doesnt take but 2 PSI to make a drum top pop in or out so I want to believe it would not have done any real damage but I could very well be way off.

Amazing!
Now there is a good reason to screen in the end of the vent! I will be doing that to mine today!
Jon

Why do you have a vent?

quote:

Originally posted by charles II:
Why do you have a vent?

Did you read the title to this thread? What would you think would be the purpose of a vent?

I just took a length of 1/4" bamboo rod I had hanging around and popped the barrier with it. There was some resistance, not not too much. It was really weird as you would not expect a spider to make a flat web that is filled in, but that is exactly what happened here, twice at that. Why, is anyone's guess; methanol poisoning drove it mad may be ? ... If it weren't tfor the fact that I had a baych in the works I would have waited and got some pics, but I really wasn't expecting this, so my account will just have to do (unless it occurs again - I've got to screen the opening).

That particular drum is my all time bestest settling drum. This thing has been dropped on it's head full of biodiesel while being moved from where I had it originally to where it now resides and didn't so much as pop a small leak in the nut and bolt closure lid. It has since served for 3 years+ as a settling drum without issue (except for getting it's lid "popped" a copuple times. This last time and another time when I was draining it with the ShurFlo pump but had left the vent closed for some reason (I never do that). It gave a good whallop when I did open it though. Still as air tight as ever, and still no sign of the liner deteriorating either. Pretty darn good drum.

When I opened the drain after the reaction to empty out the lines and pump I got a big surprise when it came out like a city water tap, fully pressurised, so I knew something was amiss, and the spider had the answer all along. I know there's a lesson in there somewhere

Probably spider eggs.

How big is your vent pipe?

Nope, not eggs.Eggs are like a pocket on a web but this web was a perfect patch covering the entire inside diameter of the 3/4" tube, twice. Now I wish I had had my camera with me to take some pics of it, most bizarre.

I wonder if we could hire that spider to build us some Sub Micron filters? Got to be a silver lining in here somewhere.

Bill