Mk3 burner prototype running clean and pretty well

[mikenash]

I don’t know that anyone cares about this – but anyway

This is prototype Mk3.  Its burner is effectively the same as previous ones I have built/modified/improved outside.  But for this one I cut out the piece of steel on the door of my woodstove which houses the rotary damper, made an adaptor to attach the burner to it, and linked the two units with a swept 100mm stainless steel bend

The unit has three primary air holes: two at 12mm diameter and one at 15mm – so you can fine-tune the air supply – 12mm/15mm/24mm/27mm/39mm cross section – just by closing them off.  Perhaps in the future I will siamese them and put a valve?  Or perhaps one big hole with a valve will do – we’ll see

It fires up instantly and burns clean and crisp.  If I let it get the stainless steel section glowing it does some exponential burn thing like a diesel runaway – so ideal is with the bottom of the stainless just glowing

Now that I know it is controllable & consistent, I’m building Mk4 with a slightly different curved intake pipe to direct the flow of hot gas a little differently to heat the top of the woodstove better if it will

Progress, I guess

See images?

And a couple of vids:

https://studio.youtube.com/video/2eEL7Wv2tb0/edit/basic
and
https://studio.youtube.com/video/COoCdSRyby0/edit/basic

[BruceM]

I'm getting an error message from youtube on your video links.  I'd love to see them.
Congrats on your burner progress.
BruceM

[mike90045]

take out studio and /edit/basic   and it works for me

[BruceM]

Thanks, Mike.  These edited url's work:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eEL7Wv2tb0
https://youtube.com/video/COoCdSRyby0

[mikenash]

I've just knocked off after a couple hours in the workshop making Mk4

See pic - this is it at the welded-up-in-a-hell-of-a-hurry stage.  I'll clean it up a bit - but no sense making things pretty until they are "final" or possibly so

The objective is simply to have something that produces plenty of heat, runs a blast of hot burning oil/air across the underside of my cooktop, is safe and controllable-ish , and doesn't smell

I'm sort of 80% of the way there on some fronts and less on others

But the bottom line is that results are replicate-able and the thing seems to be tuneable . . .

So fingers crossed

Yesterday I delivered about 700 litres of the fuel oil to site.  It's in 200L (55-gallon) drums.  I'm hoping that if I let them sit for a year or so - then 99% of the contaminants/water will make its way down to the bottom, and if i just use the top 3/4 then it might be sufficiently clean.  I figure I'll just put a tapping band around the drum about 6" from the bottom, smack a hole through and screw a valve into the band

I'm back up at my shed in a couple weeks so hope to have a trial burn then

Good to see you in action here, Bruce.  Hope you are doing OK

Cheers

[BruceM]

Thanks, MikeN. Not dong well but life goes on.
Good luck with your MK4 burner!

[38ac]

I  built several back before there was internet and that information, none of them came close to what you have achieved.

[mikenash]

Fwiw I reckon they are effectively just a wide-open chimney/draft with a burner stuck on the bottom; and getting the burner to run OK is maybe about air flow & a way to instantly turn a drip of oil to flammable vapour?  Because Mk3, with that 4” stainless steel bend, once that stainless started to glow red it just roared & ran away like an old diesel burning its sump oil - scary & not good inside a building

I’m not blind to their shortcomings though. It’s like cooking sausages in a pan - you have to be there and be ready to tweak & tinker or you’ll have them charred on the outside & pink in the middle. The best analogy might be a petrol engine with a wide-open throttle & no carb & trying to keep it running by dripping gas into the intake tract lol

[38ac]

Troubles I had with my various efforts were fuel control. They all suffered same fault and ultimately failure. I would prime burner with K1,, and turn on the waste oil. As things warmed up the oil drip would increase, Id turn it down and then as things cool that would then also slow the flow. Thus to keep them going required constant fiddling with the fuel valve. This was all an attempt to heat my workshop on the cheap.  I finally gave in and purchased a Lannair waste oil burner that was modified by a Mennonite that realy  knows his stuff. His modifications are many but the primary one is a positive displacement pump that gives same delivery to burner and also a thermostatically controlled heater after the pump just in front the orifice. Everything is controlled via wall in thermostat. In 4 years and close to 3000 gallons of waste motor oil I have done nothing to it other than remove ash 2-3 times over the winter.  It uses some electricity to power it and also needs air provided by my shop compressor but usage is minimal.

I do keep on watching you smart people and your DIY projects as I have an almost endless supply of oil and a couple places to use it for heat IF I could do it on the cheap.

[mikenash]

Yep. Dead right on both counts - fuel control & temp change. They are certainly the two bugbears. I will just keep tinkering & see if I can minimise the downsides of these enough that it’s not a biggie. We’ll see I guess. Appreciate the input. Cheers

[38ac]

The waste oil furnace manufacturers use many types of gadgets to compensate for variances in the viscosity of the fuel oils, they work pretty good as long as the fuel has some consistency. But just like a home made drip feed if the fuel went from say 10W hydraulic oil to 15W 40 diesel oil with some 80W 140 mixed in the result is under fire or over fire. The Mennonite fixed this issue via a positive displacement pump that is driven by a slow speed gear motor. I can burn anything for. #2 diesel to 50/50 gear oil and motor oil with no adjustments. Thinking that a draft tube design would reap same benefit?
You can check out the metering pump here
http://www.centralohioheaters.com/Parts.html

[mikenash]

Hi yes. Thanks for the link

We’re on the same page with that stuff really. I had thought of a heavy bronze block with a drilling & an element to control temp and a “Dositron” type peristaltic pump . . .

Where I’m at at the moment is the burner is in my shed at a site some 400Ks from home & I’m only there occasional weekends & holidays, and the homebuilt solar is erratic - so I don’t want to build anything needing external electrical input at the moment - perhaps later

But what I also have is several tonnes of a completely consistent oil product of identical viscosity & makeup - a by-product of my work - so that may give me a head-start on metering?  With luck

It also seemed to me that if I could run a burner as an add-on to the door of my wood-stove - then if there’s s carbon accumulation in the firebox & flue - a good firewood burn might clean it out?  Although that might be wishful thinking

I guess what it boils down to is that I’m 63 and relatively broke - so I’m looking for a solution to keep my shed warm in coming winters using the resources I have such as that waste oil & my current access to a basic workshop and my own very basic engineering skills

I guess we’ll see

Thanks for the advice - appreciated