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Messages - blhfla

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1
Red Stone Engines / Re: The Redstone Diesel project
« on: October 12, 2009, 07:44:40 PM »

   The cylinder head removal and replace would be about the same amount of time as a Listeroid.


Thanks for the assessment, it's good to know from someone with one of these, as (IMO anyway) it is imperative to adhere to consistent maintenance (piston/ring/head/injector cleaning) when running WVO/UMO. For me, two hours or so of deposit/buildup removal and decoking every few weeks (based on contiguous service) is justifiable for free electrical power.

I plan to run Listeroid/Redstone engines on a WVO/UMO mix using a two tank fuel system, similar to the two tank WVO system I successfully run on my 97 VW Passat TDI. Switching fuel source should be very simple with a small D2/bioD (stock) fuel tank and elevated 55 gal drum WVO/UMO fuel tank feeding a manually operated valve. I would plumb a coolant fed FPHE similar to the one I use on my car to get the fuel up to operating temp (180-190F on my car), and/or possibly an exhaust cooler fed FPHE. 

My TDI is a modern DI design and runs fine on WVO (if done properly), but a WVO/UMO mix is potentially more complicated and IDI is generally more tolerant of such fuel sources, which is why (again, IMO) it will probably be even more important to observe diligent "WVO/UMO maintenance/cleaning" with the DI Redstones than the IDI Listeroids.

2
Red Stone Engines / Re: The Redstone Diesel project
« on: October 01, 2009, 09:40:19 PM »
I have 2 questions. One was already asked by Jens a while back, IIRC, which is how long does it take to remove/replace the head (and perhaps block) for cleaning and decoking purposes (as compared to a Listeroid)?

Another is perhaps more opinion/speculation based and I bet Jens is also interested in this, but what are the prospects for running WVO/UMO in these engines (with consistent and proper maintenance for running WVO/UMO, re: the first question), with the understanding that these are DI?

3
Waste Vegetable Oil / Re: Looking for a centrifuge
« on: November 03, 2008, 11:29:37 PM »
I read through the entire thread and the concept of a plastic bowl is really scary to me. I think at this stage it is an accident waiting to happen but of course I have not seen the actual product. There are a number of comments about filtering cold oil - according to what I have seen with my filtering setup (flow powered centrifuge) this will not happen. Before somebody says 'yeah but it's a completely different concept' ... that is true but the centrifugal separation action is similar.

A few answers to your questions:

Throughput on a centrifuge type cleaner is related to viscosity of the product to be filtered, the difference in mass between the 'clean stuff' and 'dirt' among other things. As such, if you heat the oil you will increase throughput and if you want to only filter out large chunks you can increase your throughput. A figure of 1 gph is meaningless without specifying viscosity and filtering level.
When filtering WMO, keep in mind that you will not filter out carbon. The oil will look just as black coming out as going in but you will have removed larger particles.

BTW, although a centrifuge will get out water that is separated in the oil, it will not (IMHO) get out water that is somehow bound to the oil.




Jens


The rotor is nylon - easily capable of withstanding up to 150F and higher, although I tested the device for 10 days straight at ambient air temps (90F - what I would call cold filtering - no heat added) and I obtained the results I mentioned: 0% water present, none, nada, zilch, verified by Blackstone Labs. That was from a 1.8% water saturated oil source. Your results with your centrifuge may vary, but this is what I obtained with my centrifuge - it works and is so simple to use. We ran it at 1 gph, but faster processing is certainly possible, we just decided to test for 1 gph. Of course as you said adding heat may aid in more efficient higher speed processing. We figured 1 gph would be sufficient for the typical user; I can process a month's worth of fuel for my VW over a weekend - that is with minimal attention - just set it and forget it. However, Budd's design (which my CF is based on) should effectively process WVO at 2 gph (according to Budd's extensive experience) and I wouldn't hesitate to do so unless the oil was known to be of poor quality, in which case I might try .5 gph or something else - it depends on the oil. I suggest you get to know your oil source and use Blackstone Labs to verify your efforts.


A working link for the photos is:
  http://s279.photobucket.com/albums/kk138/blhfla/

Looks interesting and very cost-effective, but still appears to be in "design" phase, and has the hallmarks of an "eternal engineering" project.  I'm sure it works, but it's a long road between prototype and saleable product (I know this all too well - I'm not trying to burst the balloon, but I've got some experience being on the engineering side of such projects.)   I'm probably going to put myself in line for one, but I'll not hold my breath for delivery in a timely fashion.  :-)  I was really interested in the simplecentrifuge.com unit, but I just can't pay that much right now.

Apologies if some of these questions were answered in the other forum, but the sheer volume of posts is a bit overwhelming:
  - how many watts does it draw during operation?
  - what are you planning to ship?  turn-key, or just the rotor, or parts kit or...?
  - is 1gph the best it can do? 
  - can you get better than 10 microns with <1gph flow?
  - have you tried it with WMO?  (not that it should make a big difference...)

My Lister (16/2) will consume about .38 US gallons per hour at ~75% load..  This means that there is slightly more than a 1:3 ratio of runtime for this system for the hours that I'm running my engine.  This seems a bit slow to me (1 gph, that is) but for the price I'll just get two since I can therefore have a "spare" in case one melts down.  I'd probably be processing around 100 gallons at a time, since it makes more sense to buy/obtain used oils in larger quantities.

JT

I don't know the total electrical draw off hand, but it is a 110VAC motor and runs on a 15AMP circuit without tripping the breaker.

The system will be sold as a turnkey unit, complete with a rotor removal tool.

The CF can filter down to 1/10 micron, but remember "filtering" is relative. In general, a filter meets a specific rating if it traps a certain percentage of particles matching that rating, ie., 97% of 1 micron particles trapped may qualify the filter for a 1 micron rating. In order to determine the percentage trapped, the amount of particulate present in the original sample must be known. Blackstone Labs was unable to determine my source oil sample's original particulate count because it was "too dirty". However, I ran the same sample through a 10 micron rated whole house water filter under the same conditions and the CF removed over 50% more particulate.

I haven't tried WMO yet, but I plan to. I expect to be using a dozen or so eventually to process both WVO and WMO.

The CF is through with the design phase, excepting the lid/integrated brake, which actually has been designed also, just not yet implemented. It will be on this next and last prototype, essentially the production prototype.

4
Waste Vegetable Oil / Re: Looking for a centrifuge
« on: October 25, 2008, 05:37:50 AM »
Hi all,

I am looking for a centrifuge for WVO & WMO cleaning & processing. The one I would like is the one where a 'bowl' spins via an electric motor, nothing else. The oil can be gravity fed into the centrifuge, and drain out by gravity. I have only been able to locate large and expensive ones.

I know that Dieselcraft makes rather inexpensive centrifuges, but they are the ones that need rather high pressures at specific volumes. I don't really want to mess with pumps of that nature so that's why I want the one with the spinning 'bowl' because "simplicity is golden".

So my question is this: Does anyone know of a place that sells the centrifuges I'm after for a reasonable price?

Fret no more, I have the solution to your problem. I am building (well, having one built) a true "spinning bowl" centrifuge that will sell for AROUND $550, complete. I started this project because, like you, I couldn't source a reasonably priced, simple (no high pressure pumps and plumbing) centrifuge for processing my WVO for my 97 VW Passat TDI, so I'm producing my own (professionally) affordable centrifuge and making it available to anyone else interested. I partnered with a local machinist, and he is the BEST, and we are probably one month away from production. Our prototype was already tested and Blackstone Labs has verified that our centrifuge removed ALL TRACES of water from a 1.8% H20 saturated oil sample, and cleaned 50% better than a 10 micron nominal filter, at a rate of 1 gallon/hour. It works fantastic, and it is simple to use (set it and forget it). We already have 75 people on the waiting list for the initial production run.

You can see the historical thread of development here:
http://www.greasecar.com/forum_topicview.cfm?frmtopicID=16874

You can also see photos here:
http://s279.photobucket.com/albums/kk138/blhfla/?previewTheme=79&previewCancelUrl=http%3A%2F%2Fs279.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fkk138%2Fblhfla%2F&offer=y

If you and/or anyone else is interested, please post. I don't mean to hijack this thread and will start a new one if appropriate, but would like to see initial responses here if that is OK with you. Actually I plan to hit all the diesel alternative fuel forums eventually so that everyone who wants to benefit from an affordable, reliable, simple and effective centrifuge has an opportunity to obtain one.

5
Waste Vegetable Oil / Re: NEWBE WVO/ATF/ PROCESSING AND FILTERING
« on: April 18, 2008, 06:08:57 AM »
blhfla,

Not sure what you mean by "the $2200 price tag".


That is the price for a COMPLETE centrifuge system from simplecentrifuge.com.


I a using a dieselcraft 3 gallon per minute (model FF25LE) unit for which I paid around $225 from Industrial diesel Products.

Is that a COMPLETE system, or did you have to add a pump (an extra $549 according to www.dieselcraft.com)? Our $400 system is C O M P L E T E. And no pump failure issues or plumbing messes to deal with.

www.dieselproducts.com

Also, for anyone interested in building (or buying) a bigger unit take a look at Simple Centrifuge.com.
They sell plans and complete units for veggie oil cleaning.

http://www.simplecentrifuge.com

Yes, they do! That's the $2200 I was referring to. Just their $500 rotor alone is $100 more than our complete system.

They also have demo videos on YouTube.
Just go to www.YouTube.com and type "simple centrifuge" in the search bar.

Once our prototype is complete, we will be publishing assembly and use videos as well as Blackstone Labs performance analysis.

Cheers,
Veggie



6
Waste Vegetable Oil / Re: NEWBE WVO/ATF/ PROCESSING AND FILTERING
« on: April 16, 2008, 05:18:59 AM »
Gentlemen, I am currently working with a machinist here in Tampa to produce a centrifuge capable of completely dewatering and filtering WVO to 1/10 micron. There is a long thread on a WVO automobile conversion forum where I am posting the progress:  http://www.greasecar.com/forum_topicview.cfm?frmtopicID=16874

I have been running my MB and VW diesels on WVO for a couple of years and after the hassles and expense of filtering through a whole house water filter I wanted something better, but didn't care for the pump/plumbing (and cost) involved in DieselCraft's system and liked the www.simplecentrifuge.com system but not the $2200 price tag. So we are developing our own 1300G centrifuge for around $400 - COMPLETE! We already have almost 50 requests from greasecar forum members alone even though we aren't even finished with the prototype yet. This system will process WVO, WMO, hydraulic oil, etc. We expect to be ready for production by May, so if you're seeking a simple, effective, inexpensive UNATTENDED filtering system, hang in there, help is on the way! Once the prototype is complete and test samples have been processed and analyzed (Blackstone Labs), I will start a new thread with info for anyone interested in resolving their filtering requirements once and for all. In the meantime, you may PM me if interested in more info.

7
Waste Motor Oil / Re: Waste Motor Oil Refining
« on: January 16, 2008, 07:07:09 AM »
has any one built a centerfuse for cleaning oil? i'd like to build one. pictures speak a thousand words. every one has some used crankcase oil to get rid of. i'd like to run it in my 6/1 lister for power. can any one help us with this? do we need to mix it with bio, veggy oil? i figure that we would have to heat the injecter line. i'd like to see some pictures of how you all are heating injecter lines . i know you can heat them by electric, or by heat from the cooling system. i've ordered an electric element but have'nt got it yet.  thank's to you all that respond.


I am working with a resourceful local machinist to construct a prototype 1300G centrifuge that is compact, efficient, durable and inexpensive (under $200) to process WVO for my VW TDI. It should do WMO just fine. Would anybody be interested in purchasing if it can be made for less than $200? If there is enough interest he will do a limited production run.

8
Waste Motor Oil / Re: Anyone blend WVO/UMO?
« on: October 19, 2007, 11:20:55 PM »
Oil/fuel has to be clean and heated or thinned to flow or you will damage things.

Doug - I run a two tank VO system in my VW TDI with coolant and electric heating, but that is straight (cleaned) WVO, not a mix. I was supposing the (cleaned) UMO would thin the WVO sufficiently for the Listeroid's more tolerant IDI and lower pressure injection system. But I haven't ever used UMO as a fuel so I was doing just that.....supposing. So you believe  even a mix (of whatever proportion) of WVO/UMO will still need heating? If so, perhaps a FPHE would suffice?

You may be able to take out the large chunks and water with a centrifuge but it will not appear to be noticeably cleaner to the eye. Carbon is colloidal in the oil and you will not spin it out.

Ian - Are you sure the carbon (soot) will not spin out? At 3450 RPM an 8" rotor centrifuge produces about 1300Gs. I thought that would be sufficient, but I have never tried it (I haven't even built the centrifuge yet) and of course I was hopeful. What results have you seen with the centrifuge?

Internally, the coke is just scraped off with whatever can be used to scrape it from where it has deposited itself. Mostly, I use a wallpaper scraper or pallet knife.

So you basically "abrase" the deposits away? No solvents used, just elbow "grease"?

to feed heated chip fat (lard) through to the engine. The solid chip fat is heated in a 110 L day tank with 2 x 3 kW electric heaters which takes the fat to 80 C and then it is passed through a heated filter (150 C, 300 F) to the T.

How does it perform on the lard? Do you notice any more coking from using lard (as far as you can determine?

So, if my engine wears out the fuel pump, or injector because there was too much colloidal water or acid in the fuel, then it is only a few pounds (dollars) to replace the necessary bits and everything is good for another season.

Exactly my philosophy. Parts are cheap and easy to replace and the fuel cost savings WAY more than make up for money, time and effort spent.

Please keep us posted on how well the centrifuge works for cleaning - I am especially interested to hear if there is any significant colour change between input and output.

I doubt I will see any color changes but who knows? I plan to pump through a washable 10 micron steel mesh filter into black 55 gallon drums and use heat and gravity settling for a week in the Caribbean sun, then pumping through a sub 1micron Frantz type TP filter, and then slowly gravity feed (for max cleaning exposure) a centrifuge spinning 3450 RPM which should also filter to less than 1 micron. If the centriguge will not remove carbon soot as Ian suggests, hopefully the TP filter will. If it doesn't then so be it. I expect to be "servicing" the Listeroid every fuel fillup (55 gallon drums) anyway so hopefully it will not suffer excessive wear/damage and if so, as Ian said, it's cheap and easy to fix. Once I have everything in place (I don't even have my Listeroid yet) I will post how the cleaning/filtering does. I will be interested to see the results myself.

9
Waste Motor Oil / Re: Anyone blend WVO/UMO?
« on: October 18, 2007, 03:46:55 PM »
Hey Ian -

What mix do you suspect you are using, ie, 50/50, etc? Performance wise how does it run on the blend? How often do you decoke/overhaul (how many hours runtime)? How do you clean the Listeroid during overhaul/decoking? How do you mix the oils, just dump the processed UMO into the VWO tank or premix (if so how do you do that)? How do you process your oils? Do you add heat to your fuel (like with a flat plate heat exchanger) to thin it before the IP?

Sorry for the barrage but I am very curious to know your methods and results. I expect to have abundant UMO resources and somewhat less so WVO resources so I expect I will be using a blend of 75/25 UMO/WVO or perhaps greater (or less, I'll see). I will be cleaning the oils with a centrifuge to get them as clean and dewatered as feasible (I know the UMO can be very dirty).

TIA for your response and letting me pick your brain.

10
Waste Motor Oil / Anyone blend WVO/UMO?
« on: October 17, 2007, 08:59:29 PM »
Has anyone run a blend of good, clean waste veg oil and used motor oil?

Also posted in WVO forum.........just in case

11
Waste Vegetable Oil / Anyone blend WVO/UMO?
« on: October 17, 2007, 08:58:13 PM »
Has anyone run a blend of good, clean waste veg oil and used motor oil?

12
Lister Based Generators / Re: Protection and control revissited
« on: February 15, 2007, 11:27:57 PM »
Quote
I think the RS-232 to TCP/IP converter would work fine as the method to use, at least with the Crompton system I have.  However, I don't think any "actions" can be taken by the control panel - it can only observe, and set basic configurations.  Things like "manual start" and other control-panel events have to be activated on the panel itself.  (Note: there are 'test runs' that can be scheduled from the software, so maybe that will do the trick for remote starting.) 

Their website info (pdf) indicates:
"View and edit controller settings" as well as "Load and save parameter settings" via the GEN-SOFT software. I wonder if that includes setting the controller to Automatic mode? Would be nice, but it could always be set (and remain) to Auto mode from the panel anyway. Please let us know what you discover; I am very interested in their offerings.

13
Lister Based Generators / Re: Protection and control revissited
« on: February 15, 2007, 10:14:41 PM »
Perhaps I should explain my situation. I need to monitor the genset controller status from potentially hundreds of mile away. The only ways I can think of is to either run the controller software on a laptop (or PC) directly connected through the serial interface to the controller and access the laptop (and its display) through something like PCAnywhere (24 hours/day - not very practical) via a wifi modem to a cell phone (or an embedded wireless WAN device) connected to the internet , OR send the serial signals (events) to a laptop serial port that can be forwarded via an RS232 to TCP/IP convertor (such as Taltech's TCP-Com) over the laptop's wireless internet connection to the remote computer's IP address with the RS232 to TCP/IP convertor on the remote computer converting the signal back to a Virtual COM port (serial) which the genset controller software (on the same remote computer) can then monitor.

There will be no power (except for that being supplied by the genset) nor landlines available. I don't know if there is another way to do it.

14
Lister Based Generators / Re: Protection and control revissited
« on: February 15, 2007, 04:42:14 PM »
I guess if one couldn't trap events directly from the software, it might still be possible to remotely capture the display of a laptop connected to the RS232 port running the software displaying the status, through a remote access utility such as PCAnywhere, etc. Not very efficient nor even practical perhaps, but maybe possible. Too bad they don't have a Linux compatible version, but I guess it could be run in a WINE instance.

15
Lister Based Generators / Re: Protection and control revissited
« on: February 14, 2007, 10:05:32 PM »
Quote
I found a line of Crompton computerized systems that were specifically designed for generator operation.  They seem too good to be true, and pretty much measure/manage everything under the sun.  I think that they're shiny and neat, but perhaps overkill for a Listeroid and also possibly too complex for the application for most Lister-based gensets... but we'll see what the price is.

Go to this URL:  http://www.crompton-instruments.com/genset.html  and then on the right hand side of the screen select "Gen-Set controllers" from the pull-down menu.  (Terrible design.)  That will get you a big PDF file of all their generator control sets, which are VERY comprehensive and full-featured.  I have asked for pricing on the "top of the line" unit (GEN-TRANS-EN/L) which seems to bundle all the possible components into a single panel, and I'm preparing the defibrilator for when I receive the quote.   There is also a software package (GEN-SOFT) which allows monitoring of all the measurements over time, which is really interesting to me.  If I can reverse-engineer the RS-232 protocol on the serial port, I could possibly write my own shims to turn output from the GEN-TRANS into SNMP-compliant values for monitoring via other systems that I already have in place.

This control computer from Crompton arrived in the mail late last week.  I'm pretty much stunned.   This has every feature I had thought of, and a few more.  For $375 USD for the unit, plus $41 USD for the PC-based software (not needed, but handy) the GEN-TRANS-EN/L by Crompton is a dream for generator control.  Transfer switch control, starters, pre-heaters, various sensors, gauges, and level indicators, display on a bitmapped LCD backlit panel with lots of shiny buttons.  Very, very fancy.   Built in Turkey, designed by people who probably speak German as a first language, by a company based in England, who is owned by Tyco, resold through a distributor in Illinois.  Three continents, four or so nations.  Whew.

So, JT, I suppose you could use the RS232 port to connect to a PC (or laptop) with wireless internet and "call home" when an alert trips, like the way EMC does for its multimillion dollar disk storage arrays? That way unattended operation could be monitored at least via event notifications, if not via realtime monitoring as well. Do you know if they have realtime monitoring capability in their software, like for a NOC application?


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