Author Topic: The Listeroid Chronicles-WMO and Other Listeroid Modifications  (Read 289454 times)

dieselspanner

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Re: The Listeroid Chronicles-WMO and Other Listeroid Modifications
« Reply #585 on: May 10, 2018, 10:00:54 PM »
Sat here listing to the Toy Dolls and reading stuff like this, whilst putting away the last of the Captain Morgans makes me wish the fingernails I'm chewing had more of a diesel flavour................

Cheers Ed

Stef
Tighten 'til it strips, weld nut to chassis, peen stud, adjust with angle grinder.

EdDee

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Re: The Listeroid Chronicles-WMO and Other Listeroid Modifications
« Reply #586 on: May 16, 2018, 12:58:05 PM »
Hey Guys....

Some more musings and ramblings from "Darkest Afrique".....

Anybody not interested in non-Lister, choose another channel.... Well maybe not, I might be able to squeeze in the "L-Word" somewhere I suppose....

Parts ordered (Sleeve/Piston/Rings/Head Gasket), exhaust valve seat cut out and new fitted, I now sit back, licking my wallet-wounds and when my strength returns, I will assemble the head and wait for the rest of the parts....but.......meantime.......In a land far, far away, not as far as "Down Under" I'll admit, but far, far away (Compared to the rest of the civilized world anyway), there once was an old chap, young at heart, who decided to put waste crud to good use.... (Old engine oil, specifically...).... He has had a reasonable amount of success, some interesting things, and, to boot, a lot of fun doing it, but I digress...

Ultimately, I have found out that having a fuel filter fail on a waste oil powered engine, leads to interesting and very speedy wear on any part that is in contact with said waste fuel, whether it be sliding or slipping or rotating in a coating of this unholy gunk! What I initially thought was residual damage from an earlier seize (Lets not get too deep into this again!) seems to be of a somewhat different nature. There is no galling or scraping or metal deposit type damage evident, but what is evident, is wear.... Lots of it!! All of this excessive wear seems to be located in the upper regions of the old chap - Valve stems, particularly exhaust valve, cylinder - particularly the upper section in the combustion area, injector - tip mainly, polished/recalibrated and salvaged, injector pump - element quite badly worn, particularly the lower section of stroke, IP non-return valve - seat and plunger showing abrasive wear, injector pipe - fine solids, black/brown/dark and of almost "talcum powder" grain size found while rinsing out, fuel line 1(Diesel reserve tank) - nice and clean, little, if any nasties found, Fuel line 2(Day tank, recycled goop) .... well, lets just say that I will toss it away, too much crap in tow.... Everything is pointing at my super duper disposable element, bought off the "specialists", 1 micron filter having failed and let through some good old sandy shite.....

Time to change the plan of attack, and go back to a way earlier idea for the beast involved.... (that's besides tossing out the POS filter system and going back to a regular diesel filter)

Some long while back, in the internet time scale of things (Pre dinosaur relatively speaking.), I endeavored to still some oil using the exhaust gas energy  - not really successful, because while there was enough "energy" to get the whole thing almost working, the energy was too widely dispersed by the exhaust gas and not concentrated enough to be of worthwhile use for the task... I subsequently, after a bit of dallying about, made up an independent "oil still" and very successfully stilled off a good bit of fuel... About 100L or thereabouts if I remember correctly, but don't quote me on this...  It was a fair return too... about 75 to 85% recovery, sometimes a bit less, sometimes a bit more depending on what goop got fed into the reactor/boiler chamber... the 15 to 25% or so overhead was from running the burner, as the burner was fueled from the same waste stock as the boiler feed...

While dallying about over the past recent while, I have slowly been collecting bitso shitso to put together a more reliable, easier to operate, and hopefully safer method of stilling the fuel from the gunk... A good few "improvements" have been made to the mechanism - The only original parts of the old still that have been retained are the boiler/reactor tank, heat shroud and burner - I will "upgrade" the burner a little to give a bit better consumption and operation, heat from it is way more than enough, even as it now stands....

One of the most "concerning" features of the original still was an open to air "float" bowl to maintain a constant level... This was prone to flash combustion as the feed stock warmed up, and, depending on the volatility of the stock (lighter petroleum concentration) there was a risk of the bowl flaming and requiring extinguishing... not difficult, not particularly dangerous either if caught soon enough, but far from ideal, as it could possibly develop quite a blaze and most definitely would be able to burn off fuel feed hoses et al, leading to a way more serious situation than I would want....

I hopefully, have now (still to test), managed to make up an enclosed float bowl capable of ingesting and metering pretty much any liquid that I feed it. It is made from an old self emptying water trap that was used on a steam line, with inverting it and changing the flow direction, adding a few pipes and a bit of "dark art" engineering (The blood sacrifice to the gods of levers, cogs and pipes when I nicked the side of my hand on a #36 belt on the belt grinder...), I think I might be on the way to a semi unattended type of processor...

If it pans out, I think there will be the small addition of a belted compressor and tank added to TM1(to run the burner).... So TM1 will be consuming sump gunk(main task), making hot water(main product), making electricity(secondary product), making compressed air(Burner running), generating distillate fuel oil(always handy to have a bit extra around as well as running himself on it)....and....above all... Having fun!!

Keep it Spinning/Cooking/Pumping/Heating....

Cheers
Ed
12/1 750RPM/9HP Roid 5kVA- WMO Disposal/Electricity & Hot Water Gen
12/1 650RPM/8HP Roid 4.5kVa - Demon Dino
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EdDee

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Re: The Listeroid Chronicles-WMO and Other Listeroid Modifications
« Reply #587 on: May 22, 2018, 12:00:07 PM »
Hey Glort...

Sorry it took so long to reply...been busy playing....

The filter failure was on the engine side, its a last ditch guard for particle contamination that could make its way through the fuel processing bits... I think there were actually a combination of errors, and the last trap failed as well...no matter, all fun!

I have a sneaking suspicion that some of the WMO that I had included in the process line was actually WICOFBSG (Waste Industrial Coolant Oil From a Bloody Surface Grinder) - Laden with what appears to be Aluminium oxide and Silicon Carbide grinding wheel residue.... then again, maybe some lazy SOB just took the shop floor sweepings and dropped them into the waste oil collection drum... Who knows! (School fees - A more thorough method of processing will be required!!)

I have almost completed my small scale oil stilling plant, man oh man, it is made up of some really "diverse" bits of plumbing and junk - not a pretty toy, but quite effective to say the least! There is one last bit of plumbing to install, and that is to drain the main hot tank to flush out the solids during operation.... I have worked out a way to do it, now just to implement and install it...

Running the creature seems, at this stage, pretty unspectacular, which is a good thing, I DONT like surprises when handling 3 to 500C oil... The duller life is, the better!

I have found that the only "interesting times" are during initial startup, thick, fresh, mildly water contaminated oil - As the first bit of product warms up, water starts to condense on the inside of the cold chamber and pools in small quantities causing small pockets of flash steam - the chip fryer effect - and that causes a bit of the "pucker factor" to develop - once it has come up to temp though, the bulk of the water is dropped in the line and can be drained during operation - I also suspect, that with the piping layout as I am scheming (and muddling) it through, is that once the feed line is near fully filled with water, due to the higher SG of water vs Oil, the feed bowl will shut off and prevent further ingress of mixed goop to the reactor chamber....

In a nutshell, the basic description of the machine is as follows:

1 - Feedstock Inlet control (via a float level to maintain a constant head of goop to supply the heated chamber) - This has a valve to cut off supply, a drain valve to drain any sedimentary moisture, an overflow vent for if the level of the float becomes erratic, a breather vent to atmosphere on the top of the level control chamber to prevent any siphoning effect and a "mid level" outfeed that is above the bottom of the float chamber to avoid settled water..

2 - Long U-Shaped feed pipe that drops out of the feed bowl and slopes upward towards the boiler, the final climb to the boiler is a steep one, this allows for settling water, as the feedstock warms up, to drop away from the boiler inlet. This also has a drain cock on its lowest point, this allows for periodic checking and draining of any water during operation. One "feature" of this pipe is that it has 3 couplings on it, this allows for the seemingly "random" slopes to be set, as well as easier, more compact, storage when stripped down.

3 - The boiler+burner/reactor/pucker factor creator - this is a simple babbington type burner, operating between 1 and 6 Bar, fueled by raw waste goop - Heats a heavy wall pipe type chamber, bottom sealed with removable flange type top - The inlet to the boiler is at the bottom on the side, a 3/4" pipe, near horizontal. The exit is also 3/4", at the top, sloping slightly upward to allow boiled splash to run back into the chamber. This is elbowed vertically, reduced to 1/2" and rises about 200?mm to exit, via an elbow to the condenser. The overall height of the boiler is about 300mm and around 3"diameter. Around this gubbins is a light walled pipe to act as a flame guide and the burner fired into a small flame space below it. The clearance for the flame guide is about 10mm all the way round the boiler, the cavity below it is about 40mm..

4 - Condenser - this is a straight run of copper pipe, 1/2" dia about 4' to 5' long - it is jacketed by a 1"galv pipe filled with water - the jacket has a open reservoir tank at top and a cold water feed at the bottom, water thermo syphons in this little little loop, able to be topped up as needed... Exit temp of the condensate are around 5 degrees warmer than the coolant - so plenty of cooling capacity for what energy I am putting in to it.....

Operation - The feedstock and the fuel for the burner are from the same supply - They can be separated, easily and quickly, this is done by quick coupler.

Once oil is flowing to the works, open the air to the burner and light it up - A stable flame is attained within a minute or two, once the burner warms up.

Listen for flash steam from moisture in the boiler, if there are "chips starting to fry" - wear your brown pants, shut off the heat, wait for the popping to stop, warm it up slowly to cook of the moisture....

Once it is up to temperature, the distilled product starts flowing and it is pretty much a spectator sport thereafter. If you reach saturation point for the boiler contents and output product flow diminishes, either, (a) Step up the heat a bit to fracture the remaining product, or (b) dump the saturated product to waste for flame disposal or painting fence posts or tarring your road. Either way, but the (b) option particularly, is of high pucker factor - this is because of the possibility of introducing high moisture content oil into a reactor chamber of around 300C - BAD THINGS WILL HAPPEN!!

This brings me to the next little bit of plumbing I am wanting to implement - the hot residue drain, dumping directly from the chamber to a waste reciever..... (Pucker factor is a way of life I reckon).... My idea: a co-axial drain pipe down the center of the last section of pipe that feeds the boiler....I wonder if it will work....?

Oh, you might ask...Why go to all this puckering trouble....Simple - I am LAZY! If I can distill fuel easily and effectively, no filtering or other treatment is needed, except as a cautionary procedure, a' la' the standard inline filters as are normally found...

Yes, Glort, a 'fuge would be a lovely to to have - it is on my wish-I-had-time-and-materials-to-build-it-list, I am almost there in that respect - only a few more things to get........but - distilling is so much fun, I just cant help myself!!

On another note, I picked up a lovely little v-twin compressor last Sunday, with, happily, 2x unloader poppets on the heads and an unloader regulator on the tank... This is an IDEAL candidate to add to TM1 (there is a bit of space left on his chassis)....

Ah, another thing - the replacement gaskets, cylinder, rings and piston have arrived!!

Ok, enough of my BS rambling....

Keep it Cooking!!

Cheers
Ed

PS - The usual disclaimer - don't try this at home kids!! Hot oil and the like kinda acts like a great solvent for dissolving skin, paint and life!!
12/1 750RPM/9HP Roid 5kVA- WMO Disposal/Electricity & Hot Water Gen
12/1 650RPM/8HP Roid 4.5kVa - Demon Dino
Chinese Yanmar - Silent Runner with AutoStart
Classic Komatsu 1963 Dozer/Fergusson 35 Gold Belly ...
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EdDee

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Re: The Listeroid Chronicles-WMO and Other Listeroid Modifications
« Reply #588 on: May 24, 2018, 10:24:35 AM »
Fun times....

Fitted the co-axial drain to the boiler and it works a treat....

Here is a really crappy quality video I took on my old clapped out cellphone to show a bit of its operation... Really bad quality, late evening, crappy lighting, bad operator.... etc etc etc...

http://www.warriorpaintball.co.za/private/Oil Fractioning and Distilling

I have found that with the heat turned up high, a fairly good fracture occurs and the blend I am getting is akin in visco to power paraffin and the combustibility of it is quite a bit better than paraffin as well.... I rate this as a fair success, considering the feedstock is waste sump oil and tailings from various industrial applications. In appearance, the input product is thick waste "slime" akin to 80W goop, the output is a brown-hued liquid around 5W, with the residual tailings amounting to less than 5% (Guestimated, based on flow rates) being a very thick, black liquid, full of solids (Carbon, and god knows what) that is probably just slightly thinner than grease.....

If anybody is interested, I will make a daylight video of the operation and add it to the URL...

On plan is to make a small vapour trap to condense and capture some of the light ends rather than waste vent to atmosphere...

Enough rambling....

Time to do some work to pay for the toys!!

Keep it cooking...

Cheers
Ed

12/1 750RPM/9HP Roid 5kVA- WMO Disposal/Electricity & Hot Water Gen
12/1 650RPM/8HP Roid 4.5kVa - Demon Dino
Chinese Yanmar - Silent Runner with AutoStart
Classic Komatsu 1963 Dozer/Fergusson 35 Gold Belly ...
Bikes,Cars,Gunsmithing & Paintball...Oh yes, a 5Ha open air Workshop to play in!

EdDee

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Re: The Listeroid Chronicles-WMO and Other Listeroid Modifications
« Reply #589 on: June 04, 2018, 11:46:27 PM »
Hey guys...

First off.... is anybody still reading my nonsensical ramblings or do I post to "lost sectors and bad clusters"?   :o

Its been an interesting week of "raw material" processing... I have burnt/cracked/distilled my way through about 300+L of various grades of gunk, all successful, without incinerating myself or any of the household pets... A win in my books!

All in all, I currently have on hand as of this evening, 125L of cracked/distillate fuel that I need to test in TM1 when he is up and running again, as well as about 100L of distilled mineral turpentine that has come out beautifully, if I might boast a bit...(as well as about 20L of high carbon fencepole preservative)

I have found that I am getting around 25L distillate out of 35L contaminated in, with a residue of about 3L... the 7L difference being consumed by the burner to generate the required heat.

It is a tedious, boring, but somewhat rewarding process... it needs a lot of kiss and cuddle to keep running smoothly, but left to its own devices for an hour or two, all that happens is that output drops a bit, nothing spectacular, which is good!

Output volume is low, around 3 to 4L per hour when fracturing and up to 5L per hour for distilling.... I have been keeping the volumes quite low due to the small cooking chamber I am using, push it too heavily and the crud gets carried up into the condenser causing a bit of contamination, something to be avoided...

One good thing that has come of this - I have managed to knock together an interesting little burner to retrofit onto TM1's exhaust inlet... this will allow me to burn off the really bad shite and use the heat via the exchangers ... Barring a bit of carbon to be cleaned out afterwards (get the washing off the lines, ladies), it should be an interesting excercise... I am guestimating a usage of about 1 to 2L of gunk burnt a day to heat up a few hundred litres of bathing water....

On another note, we managed to get the mast up for a small wind turbine yesterday... Got a bit of wiring done on it too... Now "just" the matter of sorting out the guy wires and fitting the head and we will be in business.... We have sited it adjacent to the workshops for testing and evaluation, not the best area for wind harvesting, but by far the most convenient for testing and monitoring. If it passes the tests and come reasonably close to what I am hoping, the actual site for placement has way better aero properties and wind velocities are something to the tune of 30% better than the test location... But, no ways am I going to plough in around 50m of cabling until I am damn sure its going to be worth it!

Oooh..... Just realised it.... I don't think I mentioned the turbine before... Blasphemous I know, but hey.... Its a smallish 1/2kw unit, 3ph gen, self feathering, 24VDcBus with charge and dump controller, has facilities for 200w of solar assist built in, 600W pure sine wave inverter, came with all nuts bolts clamps, guys and poles, base included too.... just add 24v of lead acid and wires from the head to the controller and away you go... I picked it up, unused, from a mate who bought 2 and only installed one... Pulled the bubble wrap off 3 days ago and started getting it up and running... Its a 3 blader, with about 2.3m diameter.... I am keen to get it flying! Unfortunately the inverter is not a grid tie unit, nor intelligent either, for that matter, but I am busy working on a !different! method of tying it in to the household... If it works out, I shall share, if it doesn't I shall caution...

Right, enough of my inane B.S....

Keep it cooking...

Cheers
Ed
12/1 750RPM/9HP Roid 5kVA- WMO Disposal/Electricity & Hot Water Gen
12/1 650RPM/8HP Roid 4.5kVa - Demon Dino
Chinese Yanmar - Silent Runner with AutoStart
Classic Komatsu 1963 Dozer/Fergusson 35 Gold Belly ...
Bikes,Cars,Gunsmithing & Paintball...Oh yes, a 5Ha open air Workshop to play in!

BruceM

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Re: The Listeroid Chronicles-WMO and Other Listeroid Modifications
« Reply #590 on: June 05, 2018, 03:19:00 AM »
Bravo on the distillation, Ed. No small bit of engineering there!

I'll be interested to read of your wind turbine assessment.  I have a fantastic location for it, right next to my battery bank on top of the highest hill for miles around...and no trees.  Alas, no standard units for a 120VDC system, and in truth I've now got more PV power than I need. Very dark days in Arizona are rare.  I'd originally planned for rewinding a big truck alternator based unit built by a local wind outfit. Worst case was I'd need to cobble a 3 phase variac to adjust voltage dynamically before rectifying.



EdDee

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Re: The Listeroid Chronicles-WMO and Other Listeroid Modifications
« Reply #591 on: June 05, 2018, 09:59:02 AM »
@Bruce:

Hi Bruce,

Will do re the blow gennie.... 120VDc is an uncommon one indeed, but I wonder if it would be possible to stick a 3Ph txformer on and step up the voltage to 120VAc or thereabouts before rectifying and doing it that way?

Dunno how the transformer would handle the varying frequency though...interesting problem, but not insurmountable I dont think....

Thanks for the compliment too!

@Glort:

Thanks mate! A pat on the head always appreciated!!

The process is slow - Going big is easy, same in burner terms - little processes need very fine adjustments and are quite unforgiving due to the lack of "buffer" capacity that causes things to change, usually suddenly, and also generally not for the better either...

I am producing, or capable of producing, cracked and stilled fuel at a rate of roughly double that I would normally consume it (Average consumption of fuel is around 1L/Hr when running the household on TM1) - this is a "self sufficiency" type of experiment more than anything else I suppose, but it has raised the eyebrows of a few of the visitors and they have tentatively inquired as to how much I am selling the stuff for.... Lol... If I was gonna sell it, I would have gone way bigger from the start and not pissed around with this piddly little thing!

Turps distillation is "just because I have it" type scenario... Its damn expensive to buy here, ZAR40 or thereabouts per Litre... and it seems a waste to just burn it off for heat, so I will use it as a cutter as well as cleaning those special bits that come up from time to time...

...
..
.
..
...

Hmm.... A thought just surfaced from this addled cesspit of a mind that I reside in.... If I take the tailings from the cracking pot, at about 250C, feed them into the fuel line just before the burner.... No waste pot to keep checking on, a preheated fuel source for the burner, burning the junk residual for energy to keep the process going....

Damn, I thought I was finished with this thing..... It never ends, does it!!

Right, lemme go test the theory.....

Keep on Cooking....

Cheers
Ed

Edit: Just finished a mini "fuel mixing manifold" for the burner... I am now taking the tailings and mixing them into the fuel stream on a variable ratio basis... I can start from cold, using the fresh fuel from the fuel tank, then, when warmed up, start feeding in the drain from the cracking pot/boiler to sustain the combustion... I did a "hot swap" of the fuel manifold, the boiler was up to temperature and the machine was running while I made it. It is now running solely on the tailings coming into the burner at, I guess, around 150 to 200C - Man this stuff lights up nicely when warmed up!! Its burning better, or seems to be better, than when I am running fresh and cold contaminant down the gullet!!

Time will tell, as the return to the fuel tank contains some of the liquid tailings from the boiler (Babbington Burner, sorry Glort!!) - I have put a small "solids" trap in the boiler return line, hopefully this will prevent most of the concentrated yuckkk from going back to the fuel tank.... Lets see what happens!!
« Last Edit: June 05, 2018, 12:23:31 PM by EdDee »
12/1 750RPM/9HP Roid 5kVA- WMO Disposal/Electricity & Hot Water Gen
12/1 650RPM/8HP Roid 4.5kVa - Demon Dino
Chinese Yanmar - Silent Runner with AutoStart
Classic Komatsu 1963 Dozer/Fergusson 35 Gold Belly ...
Bikes,Cars,Gunsmithing & Paintball...Oh yes, a 5Ha open air Workshop to play in!

EdDee

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Re: The Listeroid Chronicles-WMO and Other Listeroid Modifications
« Reply #592 on: June 07, 2018, 09:21:02 AM »
Hi Guys...

Right, a little feedback on the burner fuel mixer.... I should have done this from the start!!

The "infernal machine" as it has been now nicknamed, has run, virtually unattended, for about 9 hours the first day, and a further 12hours the second day... Chalk and cheese.... No more cuddling, no more sacrifices to the gods of fracturing, nothing.... it just runs.... The only reason I shut it down overnight was that I was not prepared to throw more gunk into the feed tank and empty the output tank in the wee hours of the morning.... It would have run itself to starvation and overflow without my intervention....

To recap, the last 2 days were distilling and separating mineral turpentine from the gunk it contained, there was a small amount of fracturing going on (you pick it up by the smell produced), but by and large, the process was fairly low temperature, estimated at around 200C - The burner was running flat out, the product dribbling out nicely, 750ml per 8 to 12 min approximately, I averaged out at about 4 to 5L per hour, sometimes a bit more, sometimes a bit less - over the 12hour run I got out around 60 or so liters of distillate...

As to the amount of fuel consumed during the 12hrs, I really would be guessing, but I ran the 75L feed tank to empty, with a small amount residual that the pump couldn't pick up, I guess about 3 to 4 L remaining... I did add a little stock during the run, not much and that was all the little dregs out of various containers that I had been settling for the last while... at a guess, less than 10L, so at worst guestimations, going from memory, with about 60L out, and 75 to lets say 80L in, that makes about a 75% recovery rate with 25% fuel overhead... I am satisfied with that!

The efficiency can be improved, currently the burner inlet and the outer flame shield are not insulated and the "infernal machine" is in a pretty drafty location - I think I will lag those bits and call it quits!

Until.... Of course.... I get another hare-brained idea.... such as....

Well, the "lift" pip for the boiler is a vertical section of 3/4" copper pipe about 2 to 300mm long - this forces the vapors upward after the boiler before they hit the condensing unit.... Raise or lengthen this pipe, and you get more fracturing and a more volatile/thinner/lower viscosity output product - I surmise this iis due to the heavier vapous with longer chains settling back into the crackpot during the process.... Shorten it and the opposite happens... And we are not talking about a length difference in feet, it is somewhat more sensitive, inches and centimeter differences make marked difference to the result.... I think I will make up and play with a "telescoping tube" type thingy that I can set on the fly and see what happens....

Well.... let me put some metal to the lathe and see what spins out.....

Reports later....

Keep it cooking..

Cheers
Ed
12/1 750RPM/9HP Roid 5kVA- WMO Disposal/Electricity & Hot Water Gen
12/1 650RPM/8HP Roid 4.5kVa - Demon Dino
Chinese Yanmar - Silent Runner with AutoStart
Classic Komatsu 1963 Dozer/Fergusson 35 Gold Belly ...
Bikes,Cars,Gunsmithing & Paintball...Oh yes, a 5Ha open air Workshop to play in!

EdDee

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Re: The Listeroid Chronicles-WMO and Other Listeroid Modifications
« Reply #593 on: June 07, 2018, 10:06:32 PM »
Hey Glort,

All good fun has to start somewhere! At least, if nothing else, I am keeping your mind engrossed with new ideas, or otherwise a new look at old ideas!

I think you are right, no I am certain that you are right regarding the temp of my boiler system.... It is kinda "designed" to allow for heating along its whole height, being fairly slender, it will allow for superheating of the vapors above the boil area... I too, am not so concerned about temperature as I am about vapor volume, the creature must only operate at slightly above atmospheric pressure rather than have a high velocity jet of high pressure vapor entering the condenser stage...

I have found a few bits to start making the variable height output column, but today was an exercise in futility trying to get into some workshop work...9am-client, 10am visitor,  10h30-client... and so it went on until 16h30... I eventually got 1/2 an hour too knock up a little 2 wheel trolley base for the burner fuel tank to make it easier to drag around (75L of oil with 3mm thick steel tank and lid, 3 phase coolant pump and vfd, pipes and mains cable....a bit "unwieldy" and not designed to be portable) ... then filled it with what I thought was my Super-Duper burner fuel, only to find out otherwise....

At the risk of being long winded and repetitive, here is a copy/paste  from another thread I replied to a little while back.......

!snip!
In fact, I got caught out this evening by becoming a  little too assuming with my waste oil processing... What happened was the fueling of the burner from a 'rogue' 25L drum that somehow got mixed up in a batch of 'good' burner fuel... The 'rogue' was almost identical in smell, viscosity and appearance when i stocked the fuel tank. The burner started carboning up, running rough, and dripping oil as soon as I started introducing heated oil to the cold oil feed line... It turned out that the moisture content of the fuel was causing the water portion to boil in the line from the heat of the return oil from the other part of the process I was testing... Net result: Either run on cold fuel, or hot fuel, but don't blend... Oh, and, most importantly, up the air pressure to the burner from about 3 bar to 6 bar or more to get a clean burn.... Note: A Clean Burn!
!unsnip!

The feedback information regarding the oil return at high temperature from the boiler tailings is effectively this: As soon as you think you have found the answer to all the little irritations, some bastard thing comes along and changes all the questions!

This does prove, conclusively, that the "infernal machine" can handle water saturated oil without going supernova/icbm ... Which is a good thing! On that note, I did a quick and dirty heat of some cold gunk over the flames to boil the water off and get a rough indicator, by volume, of water content.... I almost shat myself! ... between 15 and 20% of this crap is water..... I tried it a few times, smaller and larger quantities, all scooped from the TOP of the fuel tank.... all gave roughly similar results... I didn't sample from the lower depths of the tank and I assume they would be worse still....

This was all in preparation to test the add on burner  on TM1's exhaust heat exchanger... I wanted to be reasonably sure that things were, fuel wise anyways, in good order and reasonably predictable as well... Needless to say, TM1 has his burner installed, still as yet unfired, due to the delays caused in discovering this water problem with the fuel... As a viability test, I ran off some sample batches through the cracker, 750ml at a time, individually bottled and left to settle in the order they were sampled to ensure that things will be happening in an "expected manner" when I do the heatex test tomorrow... Also, by running the tank for an hour or two with the centrifugal pump whipping everything up, I can be more certain of a decent blend and mixing of the fuel as it was poured in from separate 25L and 5L containers....

Right, enough rambling and BS from my side (A good friend of mine had an excellent saying when someone got long winded in an explanation... Either sh!t, or get off the pot!)

I now climb off the pot and go read a book!

Keep it cooking...

Cheers
Ed

Glort: "Mans a fking genius, lets face it." ....... Uh no... if you were referring to me.... I'm an asshole.... Ask my ex wife, she will confirm it!
12/1 750RPM/9HP Roid 5kVA- WMO Disposal/Electricity & Hot Water Gen
12/1 650RPM/8HP Roid 4.5kVa - Demon Dino
Chinese Yanmar - Silent Runner with AutoStart
Classic Komatsu 1963 Dozer/Fergusson 35 Gold Belly ...
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EdDee

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Re: The Listeroid Chronicles-WMO and Other Listeroid Modifications
« Reply #594 on: June 08, 2018, 11:29:22 PM »
Hey guys,

A quick report back.... I have installed the WMO burner onto TM1's exhaust heat  exchangers and run it up for a few hours on the most awful gunk imaginable... the 20% water contaminated crap... by an large, the results were highly satisfactory considering the fuel involved.

Smoke was almost non-existent, the exhaust was giving off plenty of steam from the burning, little to no smell at all and that was in the immediate vicinity, 3m frm outlet... The piping just after the burner was running almost yellow hot, fading to slightly red as it hit the exchanger. the temperature at that point was a nice 550C... After the heat exchanger and just outside the shed, the exhaust was about 60 - 70C... Hot to the touch but not lethal!

I brought 300 or so L of water up to 65C from a start of around 8C over the course of the evening, starting in earnest at about 5pm till about 8pm... there were quite a few stop and starts as I tweaked and adjusted things... The burner was running at 6bar air pressure, way more than I am going to settle on ultimately, this was due  to the high water content and should improve as I get deeper into this tank of fuel. I am preheating the fuel line on the burner pipe in an effort to dry the fuel and boil off some moisture while it is in operation as most of the fuel returns to tank and circulates...

Keep it warming...

Cheers
Ed

ps... another crappy video here: http://www.warriorpaintball.co.za/private/TM1 Afterburner/
12/1 750RPM/9HP Roid 5kVA- WMO Disposal/Electricity & Hot Water Gen
12/1 650RPM/8HP Roid 4.5kVa - Demon Dino
Chinese Yanmar - Silent Runner with AutoStart
Classic Komatsu 1963 Dozer/Fergusson 35 Gold Belly ...
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EdDee

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Re: The Listeroid Chronicles-WMO and Other Listeroid Modifications
« Reply #595 on: June 09, 2018, 10:28:03 PM »
Hey guys...

I did the almost final mods to the burner today,namely...

Opened up the air jet from .5mm to 1mm, an area change of 4x bigger...
Air  Line pressure is now  running at 2bar, the 250L air reservoir holds for 30 min, dropping from 150psi to 100 psi over this time.
I have lagged the pipe between burner and exchanger, pipe temp now entering the exchanger is around 500 to 600C.
After the exchangers, the exhaust expansion chamber/pre silencer is running about 80C.
Just after the burner flame front, the burner pipe is 900C or so, difficult to shoot the temp because of the lagging, but yellow hot to the eye..


Some actual data from this eve's run....
Compressor startup at 100psi, start measurement, 18h07, heat reservoir temp was 48,3C
Compressor cutout at 150psi, 18h12...
18h17 heat reservoir temp 51,9C
18h36 compressor tank at 100psi, started... Heat reservoir at 55.5C

I would have expected a more linear temp increase, but this is what I got...

Extrapolating, this would give us roughly 7C increase per 1/2hr ..... A nominal 20 to 55C trip would take around 2,5hrs... Well within parameters.

Oh yes, the heat reservoir is around 280L or so...

Another point of interest was that after shutdown of the burner, we had a nice little carbon fire going on in the exhaust stack, cross the decarboning job off the list for when TM1 is up and running again... This also leads me to surmise that there is little to no residual carbon in the burnt gasses being deposited, even with the waterlogged fuel that I am running...

Almost last job on the to do list for this project: support brackets for the burner... it appears that 2" pipes at 900C don't have much value in being self supporting.... I wonder why?

Reminds me... I must go fire up the forge and beat the snot out of some white hot steel to while away the frustrations of the day.... Nothing quite matches it!

Comments appreciated...

Keep it cooking...

Cheers
Ed
12/1 750RPM/9HP Roid 5kVA- WMO Disposal/Electricity & Hot Water Gen
12/1 650RPM/8HP Roid 4.5kVa - Demon Dino
Chinese Yanmar - Silent Runner with AutoStart
Classic Komatsu 1963 Dozer/Fergusson 35 Gold Belly ...
Bikes,Cars,Gunsmithing & Paintball...Oh yes, a 5Ha open air Workshop to play in!

EdDee

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Re: The Listeroid Chronicles-WMO and Other Listeroid Modifications
« Reply #596 on: June 15, 2018, 09:40:05 AM »
Hey Guys....

After a LOT of testing, a new circulation pump installed, and, above all, a good look at the layout....

I have changed my mind!!

It all works, it all hangs together, it all functions.... It looks like crap!

To swop from Lister to burner to go from CHP to H only, takes about 2 minutes... Quick and easy, twiddle this, fit that, close that.... Light her up and go...

Changing back is just as easy, untwiddle this, take off that, open that... Start her up and go...

But, as I have said before, I am a lazy SOB, I don't even want to open the doors on the "shed" to light the burner, so what I am going to do is mount the burner outside of the shed T-ing ont the last wall mounted silencer of the Lister, open to the elements but under basic cover... Leave it connected and at worst, plug the burner inlet when I run the Lister... The burner is of such simple design, there is virtually nothing to it.... If it rusts away in a couple of years, I will simply make another...

This does of course, mean that another heat exchanger will be needed, we are picking up the bits today... I am looking at about 750mm of piping and a few fittings to put it together... It will run on all of the existing infrastructure and simply be added to it.

The disadvantage of doing it this way means that the burner exchanger will be piped in series with the Lister exchangers, heating them up unnecessarily when the Lister is not in use and vice versa, but, it will be a much easier way to do things.... If I find that it causes too many losses, I can always bridge out one set of exchangers and run the other....

But really though... Lazy SOB I might very well be, but there were also one or two "technical reasons" to an additional bit of the infrastructure...

The Lister exchangers are Long, very Long.... About 3 to 3.5m or so... They are designed with pumped hot gas in mind, high volume, medium Low temperature(200 to 400C)... The burner is "blown" low volume, high temperature output(600 to 1800C).. Therein lies a problem, due to the low volume of heated air that is introduced, only about the first 1M of exchanger really does something, the rest acts as a glorified condenser, condensing water vapour to water and running out the bottom exhaust drain. When you wind the burner up a bit, temperatures are great, volumes are enough to prevent condensing, all is good - Except that the feed pipes to the exchangers tend to get a bit "toasty" .... hitting the 1200C mark easily and up to 1500C if not watched, causing a bit of a "meltdown".... Not very good for longevity of fittings....(Or additional fuel consumption with a lot of wasted heat)...

Not easy problems to overcome, not insurmountable, but can get twitchy! (More twiddly bits to adjust for air flow regulation etc)....

So, with just the above in mind, I think it will be easier and more reliable in the long term to add the additional exchanger!!

Comments welcome!!

Keep it cooking....

Cheers
Ed
12/1 750RPM/9HP Roid 5kVA- WMO Disposal/Electricity & Hot Water Gen
12/1 650RPM/8HP Roid 4.5kVa - Demon Dino
Chinese Yanmar - Silent Runner with AutoStart
Classic Komatsu 1963 Dozer/Fergusson 35 Gold Belly ...
Bikes,Cars,Gunsmithing & Paintball...Oh yes, a 5Ha open air Workshop to play in!

EdDee

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Re: The Listeroid Chronicles-WMO and Other Listeroid Modifications
« Reply #597 on: June 18, 2018, 10:36:04 AM »
Hey Glort/Guys...

The burner I am putting onto TM1's exhaust is for dull, dreary, oldschool water heating only... I have considered using residual heat from the still to heat household water, I may indeed eventually, but in the interim, this little baby is to use to just get cheap hot water....

Right, Tech info regarding the burner and exchanger, vague as it may be...but it was made using "This looks like it will work ok" reasoning and parts selection from the scrap pile (and, believe it or not, a few new bits too)!

Burner: 3" pipe cap, 3"M-M nipple, F-F 3" to 1.5" reducer, this screws onto the 1.5" heat exchanger fire tube.

The burner is a Babbington style with a ?30mm? or so round brass ball, .5mm dia air jet. the back end of the ball is fed by a 15mm piece of hydraulic pipe, sliding through the 3" pipe cap with a securing nut system made from a brass water fitting, so the ball position can be changed in relation to the fuel inlet pipe (1/4" dia copper), to allow for varying viscosity fuels as is found with WMO.

Air feed to the burner is a nominal 3 bar, operable from .5bar to 15bar...

The Heat exchanger consists of a 1.5" fire tube, about 3ft long. Around it, it has a water jacket of about 4"dia with weld on reducer fittings to suit (the reducers were machined open to a slide fit over the fire tube and welded in place to form the end caps for the jacket. The cold inlet is at the burner side, the hot outlet is at the exhaust side, both are brass compression type 1/2" fittings, in series with the pump and the existing infrastructure.

The burner and exchanger are sloped at approximately 22.5 degrees upwards to prevent unburnt fuel from entering the exhaust proper in the event of a flame-out and also to assist in the gravity return of the bypass fuel from the Babbington.

In the rear end of the burner, there are 2x ?22.5mm? or so holes to act as air inlets, they are 180 degrees apart, and left/right of the air pressure inlet/ball position adjuster.

A ball valve has been added with a quick coupler to the air inlet, allowing for fast shutdown and easy connection to the workshop air system.

On the fuel inlet, there is a "needle" type shutoff valve to regulate and shutdown fuel flow.

The fuel tank is an old hydraulic tank (about 80L I guess) with a "coolant" type centrifugal pump - this keeps the fuel well stirred and can run without overloading if the fuel outlet is closed. There is a "catch basket" in the well of the tank to allow sieving of fuel when filling.

All fuel pressures are very low, the return line is gravity, and the feed is less than a bar.

The inlet to the exchanger has 8 holes in a ring around the fire tube, 8mm/12.5mm alternating, to allow drawing of further air into the fire tube and an accessible area for lighting the burner.

Operation of the system is dead easy - connect airline, set to 3 bar or so, turn on fuel and water circulation pumps, open fuel and air valves then light. Set the flame via the fuel valve to give a light grey water vapour/smoke output at stack top when cold. As it warms up, the stack draws better and better, running leaner, after about 5 minutes, open the fuel valve slightly and get back to a grey.... Check after about 1/2hour and adjust fuel valve to a clear stack outlet.... go drink a beer... or two... or six...

After a few hours, 300L of water is at a good 50C or so, shut it all down and go soak!

Last evening I finished the burner/exchanger setup and did some pressure/heat/air consumption time trials - Here are the results and readings I took -

Temp measured at last brass fitting before burner heat exchanger in the gen shed.
.5mm Air Nozzle
Starting Water Temperature 22.6C
Air tank full, 150 PSI, 250L air receiver.
Water volume approx 300L, all exchangers filled.

Test Start -

3 Bar inlet Pressure
14h45 22.6C
15h25 28C (0.135C/Min)
15h55 Compressor on
16h00 Compressor off, 32C (0.114C/Min)
17h10 Comp On
17h15 Comp off, 40C (0.106C/Min)
4 Bar Inlet Pressure Test Start
18h09 Comp On
18h14 Comp Off, 45.5C (0.093C/Min)
2 Bar Inlet Pressure Test Start
19h00 48C (0.056C/Min)
19h45 Comp On
19h50 Comp off, 53.5C (0.11C/Min)
Test End

Conclusions: Best temperature increase in Deg/Min was attained with cold exchanger and water in the initial start of the test. This tailed off during the test as was to be expected. Taking this into account, an allowing for it, the best overall temperature increase was at 2bar inlet pressure, but a longer test at this pressure would be needed to substantiate. Best air economy was at 2 bar, correspondingly, fuel economy too. (Fuel usage testing will be done at a later stage.) At 2 bar, the compressor cycled every 95min, at 3 bar 75min, 4bar 60min - costing max approximately ZAR0.16 per cycle(This to be measured accurately later.) This means, at 2 bar, around .11C/minute, start temp 20C final temp 50C, 30C rise needed, time taken will be around 273minutes (Worst Case) or 4.5 hours.... This will result in the compressor cycling only three times during that period, a total max estimated cost of ZAR0.48, monthly cost of ZAR15.00 Approximately.

This IS a long time to heat only 300L of water - I do think the results are "worst case" and can be improved upon. There is no lagging on the piping and the weather is somewhat chilly at the mo, around 12C evening temperature. I am also being wasteful at present, the existing heat exchangers on TM1's exhaust are still in circuit and account for about 200Kg of steel piping that the burner is warming along with the water - these can be "switched out" of circuit at a later stage should I find it necessary...

A couple of pictures of the burner, feed piping and general arrangement will follow (please excuse the shoddy workmanship and layout and dirt, but [insert relevant excuse here]....

Keep it warming....

Cheers
Ed

12/1 750RPM/9HP Roid 5kVA- WMO Disposal/Electricity & Hot Water Gen
12/1 650RPM/8HP Roid 4.5kVa - Demon Dino
Chinese Yanmar - Silent Runner with AutoStart
Classic Komatsu 1963 Dozer/Fergusson 35 Gold Belly ...
Bikes,Cars,Gunsmithing & Paintball...Oh yes, a 5Ha open air Workshop to play in!

EdDee

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Re: The Listeroid Chronicles-WMO and Other Listeroid Modifications
« Reply #598 on: June 18, 2018, 11:30:31 AM »
Hey Glort,

Pleasure!

More heat isn't an issue.... with a slow heat, if I forget it on for a hour or two extra, nothing will boil, that's my concern...

As to smoke, not a worry either, but, stack cleaning, while fun, causes a whinge among the womenfolk as there is usually washing on the line, about 5m from the exhaust outlet.... oops!

My big burner is 1.2MW, don't forget - If I am in urgent need of a steam clean, I am sure I could hook it up for a few minutes!!

Thumper gets the water hot enough in about 1.5 to 3 hours depending on his electrical load, day temp and starting temp of the heat store, this burner is just about in line with him...

Its taken a bit of playing around to get a reliable and easy, low heat burner together - but well worth it - big oil heat is easy as we both agree!! This burner has primary compressed air, secondary rear inlet and tertiary front inlet air - a tricky combination that took a LOT of playing with to get it balanced out, but, again, well worth it!! The burner can be removed from the exchanger easily for cleaning and for cleaning the fire tube, also a big plus when running on WMO, that stuff is full of things that create buildup!! Another plus is that the burner can be hooked to TM1's exhaust manifold on its own, to do a decarbon burnout of the whole exhaust system... A bit smokey but only for about 15mins and then its spotless, with a little loose ash to be blown out.... Well worth doing every couple of hundred hours of Thump-spinning!!

Cheers
Ed
12/1 750RPM/9HP Roid 5kVA- WMO Disposal/Electricity & Hot Water Gen
12/1 650RPM/8HP Roid 4.5kVa - Demon Dino
Chinese Yanmar - Silent Runner with AutoStart
Classic Komatsu 1963 Dozer/Fergusson 35 Gold Belly ...
Bikes,Cars,Gunsmithing & Paintball...Oh yes, a 5Ha open air Workshop to play in!

EdDee

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Re: The Listeroid Chronicles-WMO and Other Listeroid Modifications
« Reply #599 on: June 18, 2018, 01:35:45 PM »
Hey Glort,

Instead of a 60L drum, what about an old fire extinguisher? 60L drums are rocking horse doodoo around here too... Extinguishers are dime a dozen at the scrappies...

Cya
Ed
12/1 750RPM/9HP Roid 5kVA- WMO Disposal/Electricity & Hot Water Gen
12/1 650RPM/8HP Roid 4.5kVa - Demon Dino
Chinese Yanmar - Silent Runner with AutoStart
Classic Komatsu 1963 Dozer/Fergusson 35 Gold Belly ...
Bikes,Cars,Gunsmithing & Paintball...Oh yes, a 5Ha open air Workshop to play in!