I get about 310F on my 6/1 exhaust pipe at the outlet, I don't know if that's going to be hot enough to distill with

Are you seeing that on the outside of the exhaust pipe? Still pretty low even if it is out side pipe temp. One option could be to put the oil under a vacuum.

Hi Gadget and welcome to the forum, my first question is what country/continent do you live on?

When you say Gary, I am assuming you are referring to dieselgman. He has a lifetime of experience and my advice would be to listen to him.

A Lister/Listeroid  8/1 should provide you with many reliable years of service, provided you strip it and clean it before putting it to work, casting sand is your enemy and needs to be eradicated before it gets into your bearings and buggers them.

An ST5 head is a very reliable unit, however the build quality varies a lot between manufacturers. The first thing is to buy a unit with COPPER windings, the second is to check the quality of the bearings. The ST5 head I own, came with the worst bearings I have ever seen and the bearing housings were full of casting sand, a twenty dollar investment in decent bearings and a good clean and it will be good for ten years. The other thing is that the slip rings appear to be epoxied in place, they generally are not concentric with the shaft and need skimming on a lathe, otherwise you will get through a lot of brushes rather quickly. These units do not usually come with automatic voltage regulation, instead they have a  bridge rectifier to feed the field windings. As the current draw through the unit increases so does the current through the field windings thus regulating the generator output voltage. This is a very simple and rather antiquated system, for about $40 it is possible to buy an automatic voltage regulator that will improve the output considerably. Do not throw out the old bridge rectifier as it will get you out of the sh1t in the event of an AVR failure.

The ST heads do not produce a very clean waveform, especially when coupled to a single cylinder engine. They are very good for  standard domestic electricity supply but not so good for sensitive electronic equipment, please buy a UPS to go between your computer and your generator.

Love that you are going for a combined heat and power system, even the most modern generating systems waste an enormous amount of energy by pumping it out through the exhaust gases and cooling system.

Please keep us up to date on how your build is going, good luck.

Bob

I'm in the US and yes I am getting it from dieselgman. I am definitely going to do a full cleaning. Its delivering to work but I will take it home in pieces and assemble in place.

I remember reading about the ST bearing and something about the brushes. I will check the runout on the slip rings(good tip) Gary warned me about the waveform but I figure it would be a good start with an ST and I can find a nicer head later. Do you have any good links for getting a good regulator?

I think that going with CHP tips the scale on cost effectiveness. I will definitely post on my project(s). I am building some high temp wood burning stoves for my greenhouse and home so updates will be slow

Quote from: gadget on September 06, 2019, 01:54:48 AM

Next step is to getting it running on WVO and possibly WMO/Distilled fuel oils and recover some heat for domestic hot water. Will also add a couple of auto alternators for the 12v and 24v batteries to top off what my solar panels can't keep up with.

Sound like you have a lot of interesting projects and Ideas we share a proclivity for.

I have been Running WVO in all manner of diesel engines and vehicles for 16 years next month. If I had just 10 cents for all the times I have been told it will wreck my engine or whatever I'd be commissioning Rolls Royce to build me a stretch Limo with a Diesel engine in the thing by now.

I run a couple of 12 V alternators on my roid with a serpentine belt on the flywheel and a tensioner in the middle. Works great. You could easily run a 12 and a 24V alt at the same time if you wanted. Depending on how frequent you need to run them, external staged regulators on Leece Nevile alternators can be MILES more efficient than standard car alts. The problem is not with the alts themselves that are an efficient and very robust design, it';s the cheap arse but tough and basic control/ regulation that's built in.  Wire them up and take that control externally and you can get a LOT better efficiency... For a price which may or may not be worth it for the time you run the things.

What size solar array you have and are you completely off grid or just saving on power costs?

I have distilled WVO and WMO as has a resident Genius ( whom has been unfortunately absent here of late) Ed.

I don't think you would crack any oil too well with exhaust heat.  What I found and was confirmed by Ed is you want to get it well and truly superheated.
Initially I boiled the oil(s)  and got some product. In the case of cracking Veg I got something like a waxy material when Cooled.  I was using a keg with a
short pipe fitting and a cap welded in and a 3/8 pice of copper line for the vapour Take off. I was heating with one of my waste oil burner designs and I found by looping the outpup pipe under the keg and through the fire which made it glow red hot, the output when condensed by just bubbling through water was a cross between Diesel and petrol.

Ed made like a proper distillation column and take off  something that matches the specific gravity of Diesel and something which matches petrol.

You really do want to get those temps right up there to get the most desirable output and that's going to be way above exhaust temp.  About all exhaust heat would be good for I'd suggest would be driving off the water content.... and that's not worth the effort of a seperate process.
I just bubbled through water and any water vapor re condensed as such and any fuel sat on the top then overflowed into another vessel where it could be taken from and " Bottled".  This was a very simple system that worked very well. Didn't loose any vapor at all unlike other coiled line systems I have seen that bleed off more vapour than they condense and capture as end product.

If you want to crack WMO, make sure whatever you cook it in has a large access hole so you can clean it out. WMO will leave behind about 10% ash by liquid volume.

I did write a piece on using WVO in diesel engines about a year back here.
Might be something in it if you haven't done much of it before. There are an awful lot of Myths surrounding veg like a lot of other things championed on the net. The one thing I highly reccomend and have won over a few converts of is Water injection.  It keeps all the problems of running alternate Fuel oils at bay and cleans the engines of the ash and carbon deposits that are the big risk when using them. Written a lot about that here you can read as well.

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Eventually I want to build a 24v axial flux generator for my 24v battery bank

I built a 7 phase axialout of an old F&P motor many years back.  Just re wiring really. Depending on the model motor you start with, you can get from about 1.2 to 2 KW out of them depending on the setup.

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I want to also convert my DIY freeze dryer to belt driven vacuum and refrigerant pump and run off the flywheels directly.

Be interested to hear more about that. I'd trying to think through a Cold storage setup for using excess solar output in summer for night time Air conditioning.

If there is anything you specifically want to know with the oils, by all means ask away. I'm thick as 2 planks but I have got a lot of experience and hands on testing with that and learned what is internet hype with this ( 90% of it) and what really works.
The basic rule of it is if anyone says it won't work  or will damage your engine,  either  they aren't doing it right, OR, typically they don't know ship from clay  and are just parroting the approved sheeple  opinion as fact.

Look forward to hearing more about your projects and ideas.

I ran a diesel rabbit pickup many years ago on veggie oil. It worked really well except I don't think I was filtering it or drying it enough. I actually picked up a 12v 135a Leece neville alternator free at work a couple of days ago. Someone put the wrong pulley on and damaged the shaft but I think I can turn it down on a lathe and fit a smaller pulley on it.

I have lots of questions and may start a new thread in the WMO subform. Its all pretty much about the ASH. I'm planning on using WMO when I don't have any WVO to use. This project is centered on running "free" fuel. I can get all the WMO I want. I'm hoping to secure some WVO.

It may not be practical to try and use exhaust heat for distilling, definitely not for thermal cracking. I have learned over the years with projects to weigh the work vs rewards and keep it simple.

If you want to check out my freeze dryer I did a build thread here under the user gadget. It gets good about the second and third page;
https://www.survivalistboards.com/showthread.php?t=234062

I am liking the ideas of a belt driven freeze dryer off the lister. If I run one batch for 5 days that is $10-12 in electricity I could save. I would set up multiple batches. It would need to run 24/7 for many days.

Welcome Gadget,
There's a lot of info here on this forum so make use of it.
There is probably not much that you will run into that has not been discussed here at one time or another.

Veggie

Thanks veggie, I have been reading allot, problem is the more I find the more questions get added to the list