Not to nit pick, and I know this isn't a genius revelation, but 4L of 50/50 mix is 2 litres of waste oil. Results will vary, but I think you will find that failure is directly related to the amount of waste oil that is consumed. I don't want to discourage testing, as I love watching the experiments and always learn something, but I have tried this with hundreds of different mixtures, and hundreds of different air fuel ratios. In talking to a lot of boiler techs, heavy oil and commercial waste oil heater techs, the consensus seems to be that there regardless of how clean you get heavy oil to burn, there will always be lots of ash, soot, coke etc.... and it is a full time job to keep large units clean, even though they are designed to run on these oils. The limited size of the chamber, and the fact that it is basically a glorified candle (fuel is not atomized by spray it flashes off due to the heat of the chamber) the garbage left behind will always accumulate quickly, in one spot. This did not stop my testing, and I will continue to test, but I believe this to be accurate.
Stating the obvious here but they're clearly not designed for such sooty fuels. It is easier to drip waste oil into a log burning stove, hardly any visible smoke from chimney when it's hot and smells a bit like an old car. Nice test as always. 👍😁😎
Perfect timing, ive recently set up two tanks, each with a fuel tap. I start up on kerosene for 5 mins, then switch over to 50/50 used motor oil/diesel for 3-4 hours operation, then the last 10 mins operation on kerosene again. Touch wood, no starting problems after about a dozen cycles now. Also based in Mexico 😂
Would be interesting to see if, after your 4l, while still running you switch over to diesel on full power for say 10mins to see whether this would clean up the burn chamber…
Thanks for running these test it some good info. It seems like base on O2 % and CO ppm that your not getting a full burn, and this seems to be back by build up of junk in the burn chamber, and it does not seem it can fixed by only adjusting the fuel fix only. Now see your running at fixed 4000 rpm on your fan, I wonder if running the fan speed higher or slower could help, more RPM would me more air in to help the burn but is also more air over the body cooling it, but maybe there sweet spot in there somewhere. Other thought is maybe restrict the flow over the body some this should let body heat up more and burn chamber too, the heat output shouldn't be hurt to much you have hotter air coming out at slower rate so over all heat should close to the same, maybe this better for other group of tests. I thinking for next test dong something like 20% oil mix.
Definitely seems to be more effort than it's worth to try burning it that way, very messy, needs frequent internal cleaning after not a lot of runtime, and will piss the gretas off and have them send in the people with orange paint after you probably... :P
@Only-Memories-In-The-End Yes, that's the waste oil recycling. Granted some does get cleaned and used for other things but most is just burned. I wonder though if waste oil is still a cleaner burn than heavy ship oil?
@@DavidMcLuckie Heavy fuel oil is THE WORST sludge to burn on the planet... It is so bad, that the engine need to be shut down often and manually scraped of deposits and sludge... the exhaust is almost constantly black... It is literally all the crap left over after refining and extracting everything useful, then sold to shipping companies because their colossally huge engines, and the only things that can swallow the swill. Burning diarrhea would be cleaner... Heavy fuel oil is so thick, so contaminated, it looks like bunt molasses...
Ran the garage heater off of filtered WMO, the ash buildup was awful, ran like crap but did run. Waiting on a new impeller motor at the moment, think I'll just stick with the woodstove for now lol
I suspect that it will be difficult / impossible to get the same numbers / readings as with a proper waste oil furnace, as they atomize the fuel. This means much more of the oxygen will be used up... I know I'm not telling you anything you don't know ... but perhaps something that is easily overlooked. I feel like these heaters struggle with a few things when trying to burn waste oils. The fuel needs heat to flash off, as the burn chamber is basically a wick that conveniently gets resupplied via the pump. To get a hot chamber, you need a decent AFR, but trying to achieve that AFR means feeding in a substantial amount of air. The air has a cooling effect and cools off the chamber. Also, these heaters are extremely sensitive to air / exhaust flow.... As soon as you get any build up in the chamber, while the heater may still start and run, the flow is altered... as you have already seen, you set the AFR and 3 minutes later everything is out of whack again.... a few minutes later it may be back to "normal". A huge part of this is also because of unburnt fuel. This will build up for a while and then burn off aggressively... it's impossible to get any sort of consistency, when the fuel you are pumping in isn't burning off at the same rate you are pumping it in. I installed thermocouples on my chamber and did a bunch of tests. My best results were achieved when I was able to get the temperature of the chamber up, but this was never sustainable. Sorry for the huge rant...
Yes. I agree with everything. The difference between 1000ppm of CO and 100ppm was 0.2hz of fuel adjustment. It's almost like these heaters are designed for diesel and not heavy waste oil. :) The main reason for these test is so people stop asking.
@@DavidMcLuckie Haha... I have done a lot of testing for this exact same reason... in fact, I almost built my channel off of it. Keep up the great videos. You are an inspiration.
Both of you guys have done some kind of modifications to the heaters. With the same results. Massive amounts of build-up. There is no way around this result while burning WMO. Yet people still claim they do it without issues....😂. Thanks for another great video.
@@cliffelmore5834 Yeah... What Dave is aiming at here, that makes sense, is an easy way to maintain the heater and keep it burning longer between servicing / cleaning.
A lot of comments just prove that there is a big misunderstanding on the role the vortex chamber gauze has in combusting the fuel and the way the fuel burns.
It would be fun to see what the exhaust is doing during these experiments. Furthermore, is it possible to clean these burn chambers? For example in a chemical bath to dissolve the carbon. Or by running a partially clogged chamber on pure diesel to burn the residues off.
Nice one sir 👌 So can we agree, if you want to burn used motor oil, get a dam oil burner, they do actually make them 😵 As for emissions, well now we see why oil burners are regulated by law and frowned appon from a legislative POV, it's no wonder the air quality is shite with that crap being pumped into the atmosphere, forget dieselgate, twas nothing compared to oilburnergate 😂
@Only-Memories-In-The-End yep and those crude oil burning ships have to change fuel if they come close to shore, by law People also kill other people, by that way of thinking murder is fine " cos other people do it" 🤔 All industrial plants are monitored and have strict emission regulations and use many filters and traps in the exhaust systems to mitigate the pollution pumped into the atmosphere, never seen ANY youtuber do anything other than shrug thier shoulders whilst poisoning the neighbours. This isn't a dig at you David, I already know your views on the subject of burning waste oil in a diesel heater 👍
@Only-Memories-In-The-End vegan environmentalist 🤣🤣🤣 oh lord you couldn't be further from thr truth 🤣🤣🤣 The comparison may have been extreme but it was intended to, we will never advance as a species if we continue to listen to BS spread by half wits on YT, David is no halfwit and no bullshitter, neither does he Bury his head in the sand and just say "I'm ok jack" he trys to educate by showing the outcome of tests rather than the usual YT way of making a statement then disappearing or avoiding a follow up because the follow up doesn't suit thier agenda, which in the case of 90% of youtubers is income 👍
i wonder if you had a 2 tank setup and started on diesel switched to oil, then back to diesel before shutdown to try and do a clean burn to burn off some of the crud?
These commenters who think that extra heat will burn off deposits are not educated in chemistry. The only way to burn carbon is with oxygen and a sufficient temperature to create the reaction (think here of a charcoal BBQ). There is no heat at the swirl chamber unless the oil is burning at that point. There is no glow plug heat after start-up. That means if the oil is not hot enough to burn any deposits, those deposits will just increase. Add in all the solids in the oil (additives) and the burner will soon be in trouble. The only way to burn waste oil, for long, is to ensure any deposits are completely carried away from the combustion area. That is clearly not happening!
Another guy who was burning waste oil has a mixture of 70/30 waste oil/kerosene. And he had a fuel switch where he would always start the heater running pure kerosene until up to temp and then switch to waste oil. He said if he started up with waste oil mixture it would get clogged and have a lot more residue.
It works fine but there is a temp sensor in the heat exchanger which shuts the machine down before being able to get hot enough to turn the unburned hydrocarbons to ash. Some ash but enough hydrocarbons to restrict airflow. It does work for about 24 hours
@@jaysonhoulihan9808 There is no ash, if hydrocarbons are burned in air. The products of combustion are dihydogen oxide (water) and carbon dioxide. There are no other elements in this group of chemicals. It is why they are called hydro carbons. The ‘ash’ is either from the waste oil (additives, etc) or unburned carbon (or even hydrocarbons, if not hot enough to volatilise them). If the flame temperature was hot enough, with excess air, there may be gaseous pollutants such as nitrogen oxides, of course (like from internal combustion engines) - but fairly unlikely on any large scale, what with loads of carbon monoxide and little spare air in the mix. Obviously plenty of ‘diesel particulates’ if the fuel is not completely combusted.🙂
Don't do it! We used to have a big oil burning heater in the workshop. I used to have to clean it once or twice a week depending how fast the crud built up in the catch pan. We are talking about a pan two inch deep by two feet around. The tools for the job where a hammer and big straight hammer through screwdriver, that shit is called the black death in the motor trade. A texture of black goo, concrete but chips off like glass. Waste engine oil heaters need to have easy access to the burn tray inside the burn chamber
I'm thinking a tighter mesh may help . I need to order a second heater to play around too . Would it be possible you run 2 fuel pumps with half the hertz ?
Could you try this out on the 2KW heater that has the end cut off with the glass window? that way we could see the what the flame looks like while it burns the oil, and also how the ash is forming inside the burn chamber.
@@DavidMcLuckie Oh wow a window into the combustion chamber. I'm currently playing with a twin pump system and some custom electronics to digitally mix the fuel going into the burner as pulses of fuel A or B in any one of five switch-selectable sequences: AAAA, AAAB, ABAB, ABBB or BBBB. Would sure be nice to look and see what happens when a pulse of the "bad" fuel gets injected.
I know this is a bone question, but do we know if the engine oil is synthetic or mineral? I have no idea if synthetic will crud up more than mineral, but seeing that diesel is mineral... I am a seasoned veteran of running vehicles on waste veg oil I filtered myself. I used to add misfuel (you can get this from most garages as unless they have an oil burner, they have to pay to get rid of it) to the veg oil before filtering . Of course you have no idea of the ratio of deisel petrol mix thats in the barrel, so adding 10% is usually OK. Perhaps you might get better results warm filtering with the diesel added first?
excellent info. When people run their Diesel engines on waste oil, they recommend running the oil through a large centrifugal unit to clean the oil before use. I think 'cleaned' waste oil would probably run fantastically . Perhaps you could source some 'cleaned' oil from someone local with a centrifuge to test ? Some trucks (and a few cars) have smaller centrifuge units permanently plumbed to the engine that keep their engine oil clean. Perhaps you could use one of these types to clean your oil before burning. It makes a HUGE difference on internal combustion engines if the oil is centrifuged first.
I have run an older (1997) Direct injection turbo diesel engine in my rover, on fresh engine oil and diesel. Usually about a 5 litres of oil to almost a full tank of diesel, and I end up with the same carbon build up and deposits as the heater in my piston bowls and around the injectors. After a bit it makes the engine start to haze light smoke and have a lumpy idle due to the crap swirl and incomplete combustion. You have to physically scrape off the deposits which means cylinder head and injectors need to come off. I had to RnR the head recently due to HGF and after cleaning everything the engine ran the best it ever had. Of course couple months later I decided to try it again with the oil... by the end of the tank the engine is back to running like crap.. even after several tank fulls of plain diesel. I think the only way to run engine oil as fuel is to distill it to a lighter fraction first, I would assume that this would then remove a lot of the unwanted stuff out of the oil and make it far more like diesel. Setting up a fraction distilary and getting it to work though is more than average Joe would care to mess with.
You're exactly right your typical centrifuge will bring it down to less than 2 microns significantly decreases carbon buildup I built one out of a brake drum you need about 2,000 G's of centrifugal forced to get about 2 microns
@@DavidMcLuckiehi,old Scania 10/11/12 litre six pot engines use a centrifugal filter driven by the camshaft, I'll be in my friend's yard next week and see if he's got any spare ones lying around. Keep up the good work you're doing.
Sorry, I'm getting old and had a slight? Brain fart😂 The Scania filter is driven by engine oil pressure and mounted on the engine block in the area of the camshaft.
Hi David. Sorry to post on this video, couldn’t see one on the new controllers. I ordered a new board, controller and wires. The controller comes on but don’t show any voltage but everything else lights up, I have two different new type ones that do the same. If I switch to an old clock it shows the voltage and fires no bother. Any ideas? Thank you.
Would it be possible to re-run a test with the same mix using clean or re refined (recycled) oil. If it was significantly better using cleaned oil over carbonated oil it may work out easier just to setup a better filtering system. I live close to an oil re refining facility and was lucky enough to be round it with my job so was able to see the process on an industrial scale of taking black carbonated oil and cleaning it to what looks like brand new oil. Also pre heat might help some with engine oil, fuel pump output into copper brake line, coiled up heater output before being fed into burn chamber...can't hurt.
I think the problem is the oil wasnt fully clean. You would have had sediment circulating as it wasn't transferred to a clean container. Also try 1 micron filter.
Yeah...looks like the crap just builds up...I wonder if instead of that cap right up against the fins inside the burn chamber looks riveted in] (where the crap builds up) if it's further out...letting the oil kind of slide along the bottom of the hot metal tube if it would work better [better atomization of the oil/fuel mix] or cause a flamout or even worse an uncontrolled burn... Thing is those static waste oil burners usually have a big ol' cast iron chunk or pot that glows red hot, which vaporizes the fuel...but come to think of it...the pot the oil drips into still needs cleaning out due to the crap from the oil not burning and becoming that white rock hard clinker sludge. If there was a way to allow the oil to travel further down before clinker sludging if it would work, still need cleaning, but much less often Seems it needs VERY clean oil to run without issues...so waste oil is a no go This is why I am going to build a waste oil burner for my metal melting kiln...I have 33+ gallons I need to burn off. Keep em coming!!!!
David adjust the fan to a lower speed to lower the air flow output. It will also increase the body temperature and allow the oxygen more time to burn with the fuel. You need the internal temperature to upwards of a 540 degrees C to get full combustion of the oil. If the air flow is going to fast it will cause the buildup you are seeing because the fuel isn't getting a full burn. Your units body temp should be between 204 degrees C to 210 degrees C which is at the upper limits of the units heat threshold. Unit overheat threshold is 260 degrees C. You have room to increase the internal heat capacity. Adjusting the fan speed should also get you to the 5.5% oxygen reading you are looking for. Doing so however will increase the cardon monoxide output on the flip side due to the oxygen and fuel is burning more completely. It's a tradeoff. If you are trying to lower the CO1 out put then push more oxygen/airflow. If you want a more complete burn then back the oxygen off some so that the oxygen and fuel have more time to mix and burn. Also, it may also help to point the unit downward to prevent the oil from pooling behind the flange.
The fans are connected by a shaft the only way to up air either way would be with compressed air. At that point using the heater wouldn't be cost effective
@jaysonhoulihan9808 I am aware, I run two in my RV using two Afterburners and two silent pumps. At max out put, I have my pumps set at 5.7 hz and max fan speed at 3800 rpm with a body temp reading between 380° F to 400° F with no smoke output or massive soot build up. Due to the full burn of the fuel, I do indeed have high CO1 and NOx output as well. To resolve that, I would need a catalytic converter and SCR system to conteract the emissions. But we are talking about complete combustion and not emissions. Unlike an engine, these units don't compress the air fuel mixture. They are an open flow micro furnace. It's finding the sweet spot of the perfect air flow to fuel ratio to get the maximum heat out put. Pushing more air into a system that doesn't have much air flow restriction isn't going to work. All you would be doing is pushing air faster through the burn chamber, cooling it down. Doing that and adding more fuel just means you're increasing the speed of fuel usage to maintain the same heat output. If you want less soot build up, you need higher heat output. Diesel completely burns at 1200° F. If you go and watch David's video were he pushes a heater to thermal shut down, you will see that around 210 degrees c on the body temp sensor, that the internal sensor is reading close to 537 degrees c. Which is 410° F externally and 1000° F internally. The safety cut off for these heaters is between 500° F to 550° F because the internal temperature is reaching critical melting point of the aluminum housing.
David, I could've sworn I already made the comment but couldnt find it, but have a look at my latest vid on my channel, I was wondering if you could put catalytic wool in the burn chamber, instead of the fiberglass. Its what I want to do at some point (instead of just bunging it at the end of the burn chamber, I need my heater right now, no time for modding it). That way it might glow red hot and burn off carbon, and also improve your CO readings. Also watch the big clive video on the hand warmers about how they work etc.
I use the same heater as a base with waste oil. Light oil is used only for ignition, and then waste oil is used. If you modify the combustion chamber pipe and maintenance hole It only needs to be disassembled once a year.
Hyd oil burns clean with low ash build up so will run longer before needs cleaning. Maybe flush through with kerosene after each tank see how that goes👍🔥
I think it's pretty obvious by now that waste oil just isn't worth it. Somehow though I always see the odd person claiming to be running it perfectly fine but I'm not convinced it's ever true.
Too much forign matter in fuel will give soot and ash in any case the atomiser will glaze over. Dirty fuel simply doesn't work on these heaters I burn kero for years and never look in the burn chamber at 67 pence a litre it's great. 😊
You have to shut the heater down to help burn that crud out with the glow plug. Running it dry doesn't allow the heater to extinguish properly leaving extra carbon in the burn chamber
That will not clean the burn chamber... You haven't burned motor oil before if you think you can just "clean it out" somehow... It turns to concrete... Even on a red hot surface, there is no burning it away... Hard ash will collect.
The heater still goes through a full shutdown on flame out. Hence the glowplug mesh is always clean. The secondary wicking mesh inside the burner, not so much.
@@volvo09 don't know why you put "clean it out" in quotations like it was a statement I made... maybe quit having conversations with yourself before commenting 🍻
@@DavidMcLuckie just wondering if you have any testing on whether it actually goes through a proper shut down upon flame outs. I use cooking oil and kerosene in mine and don't have any issues running 50/50 with a start up and shut down on 80/20 kerosene and diesel. Cooking oil does burn a lot cleaner then motor oil. Great vid, hopefully someone cracks the code lol would be nice to burn off some oil I got lying around rather than gathering it
Not to nit pick, and I know this isn't a genius revelation, but 4L of 50/50 mix is 2 litres of waste oil. Results will vary, but I think you will find that failure is directly related to the amount of waste oil that is consumed. I don't want to discourage testing, as I love watching the experiments and always learn something, but I have tried this with hundreds of different mixtures, and hundreds of different air fuel ratios.
In talking to a lot of boiler techs, heavy oil and commercial waste oil heater techs, the consensus seems to be that there regardless of how clean you get heavy oil to burn, there will always be lots of ash, soot, coke etc.... and it is a full time job to keep large units clean, even though they are designed to run on these oils.
The limited size of the chamber, and the fact that it is basically a glorified candle (fuel is not atomized by spray it flashes off due to the heat of the chamber) the garbage left behind will always accumulate quickly, in one spot. This did not stop my testing, and I will continue to test, but I believe this to be accurate.
Thank you for sharing. Everyone stay safe, warm, happy and healthy. From Henrico County Virginia
Another great video. I really love that you tuned it to run optimally when testing it too.
Stating the obvious here but they're clearly not designed for such sooty fuels. It is easier to drip waste oil into a log burning stove, hardly any visible smoke from chimney when it's hot and smells a bit like an old car. Nice test as always. 👍😁😎
Perfect timing, ive recently set up two tanks, each with a fuel tap.
I start up on kerosene for 5 mins, then switch over to 50/50 used motor oil/diesel for 3-4 hours operation, then the last 10 mins operation on kerosene again.
Touch wood, no starting problems after about a dozen cycles now.
Also based in Mexico 😂
This seems to be the way to go, a lot of the car guys use twin tanks
Hi! I also run my new diesel heater with 60/40 mix with used coocking oil filtered! Works excelent no smoke no nothing!
I love that mexican accent of yours.
That Glas-Mexican accent LOL 😂🤣😂🤣
Would be interesting to see if, after your 4l, while still running you switch over to diesel on full power for say 10mins to see whether this would clean up the burn chamber…
I wonder if you used water to clean the combustion chamber when using waste oil if it could keep the inside cleaner? Awesome videos. Thanks
Thanks for running these test it some good info. It seems like base on O2 % and CO ppm that your not getting a full burn, and this seems to be back by build up of junk in the burn chamber, and it does not seem it can fixed by only adjusting the fuel fix only. Now see your running at fixed 4000 rpm on your fan, I wonder if running the fan speed higher or slower could help, more RPM would me more air in to help the burn but is also more air over the body cooling it, but maybe there sweet spot in there somewhere. Other thought is maybe restrict the flow over the body some this should let body heat up more and burn chamber too, the heat output shouldn't be hurt to much you have hotter air coming out at slower rate so over all heat should close to the same, maybe this better for other group of tests. I thinking for next test dong something like 20% oil mix.
Definitely seems to be more effort than it's worth to try burning it that way, very messy, needs frequent internal cleaning after not a lot of runtime, and will piss the gretas off and have them send in the people with orange paint after you probably... :P
@Only-Memories-In-The-End Yes, that's the waste oil recycling. Granted some does get cleaned and used for other things but most is just burned.
I wonder though if waste oil is still a cleaner burn than heavy ship oil?
@@DavidMcLuckie Heavy fuel oil is THE WORST sludge to burn on the planet... It is so bad, that the engine need to be shut down often and manually scraped of deposits and sludge... the exhaust is almost constantly black... It is literally all the crap left over after refining and extracting everything useful, then sold to shipping companies because their colossally huge engines, and the only things that can swallow the swill. Burning diarrhea would be cleaner... Heavy fuel oil is so thick, so contaminated, it looks like bunt molasses...
Ran the garage heater off of filtered WMO, the ash buildup was awful, ran like crap but did run. Waiting on a new impeller motor at the moment, think I'll just stick with the woodstove for now lol
I suspect that it will be difficult / impossible to get the same numbers / readings as with a proper waste oil furnace, as they atomize the fuel. This means much more of the oxygen will be used up... I know I'm not telling you anything you don't know ... but perhaps something that is easily overlooked.
I feel like these heaters struggle with a few things when trying to burn waste oils. The fuel needs heat to flash off, as the burn chamber is basically a wick that conveniently gets resupplied via the pump. To get a hot chamber, you need a decent AFR, but trying to achieve that AFR means feeding in a substantial amount of air. The air has a cooling effect and cools off the chamber.
Also, these heaters are extremely sensitive to air / exhaust flow.... As soon as you get any build up in the chamber, while the heater may still start and run, the flow is altered... as you have already seen, you set the AFR and 3 minutes later everything is out of whack again.... a few minutes later it may be back to "normal". A huge part of this is also because of unburnt fuel. This will build up for a while and then burn off aggressively... it's impossible to get any sort of consistency, when the fuel you are pumping in isn't burning off at the same rate you are pumping it in.
I installed thermocouples on my chamber and did a bunch of tests. My best results were achieved when I was able to get the temperature of the chamber up, but this was never sustainable. Sorry for the huge rant...
Yes. I agree with everything. The difference between 1000ppm of CO and 100ppm was 0.2hz of fuel adjustment.
It's almost like these heaters are designed for diesel and not heavy waste oil. :)
The main reason for these test is so people stop asking.
@@DavidMcLuckie Haha... I have done a lot of testing for this exact same reason... in fact, I almost built my channel off of it. Keep up the great videos. You are an inspiration.
Both of you guys have done some kind of modifications to the heaters. With the same results. Massive amounts of build-up. There is no way around this result while burning WMO.
Yet people still claim they do it without issues....😂.
Thanks for another great video.
@@cliffelmore5834 Yeah... What Dave is aiming at here, that makes sense, is an easy way to maintain the heater and keep it burning longer between servicing / cleaning.
A lot of comments just prove that there is a big misunderstanding on the role the vortex chamber gauze has in combusting the fuel and the way the fuel burns.
It would be fun to see what the exhaust is doing during these experiments. Furthermore, is it possible to clean these burn chambers?
For example in a chemical bath to dissolve the carbon. Or by running a partially clogged chamber on pure diesel to burn the residues off.
I use a blow torch, cook it off then some mechanical cleaning
Nice one sir 👌
So can we agree, if you want to burn used motor oil, get a dam oil burner, they do actually make them 😵
As for emissions, well now we see why oil burners are regulated by law and frowned appon from a legislative POV, it's no wonder the air quality is shite with that crap being pumped into the atmosphere, forget dieselgate, twas nothing compared to oilburnergate 😂
@Only-Memories-In-The-End yep and those crude oil burning ships have to change fuel if they come close to shore, by law
People also kill other people, by that way of thinking murder is fine " cos other people do it" 🤔
All industrial plants are monitored and have strict emission regulations and use many filters and traps in the exhaust systems to mitigate the pollution pumped into the atmosphere, never seen ANY youtuber do anything other than shrug thier shoulders whilst poisoning the neighbours.
This isn't a dig at you David, I already know your views on the subject of burning waste oil in a diesel heater 👍
@Only-Memories-In-The-End vegan environmentalist 🤣🤣🤣 oh lord you couldn't be further from thr truth 🤣🤣🤣
The comparison may have been extreme but it was intended to, we will never advance as a species if we continue to listen to BS spread by half wits on YT, David is no halfwit and no bullshitter, neither does he Bury his head in the sand and just say "I'm ok jack" he trys to educate by showing the outcome of tests rather than the usual YT way of making a statement then disappearing or avoiding a follow up because the follow up doesn't suit thier agenda, which in the case of 90% of youtubers is income 👍
i wonder if you had a 2 tank setup and started on diesel switched to oil, then back to diesel before shutdown to try and do a clean burn to burn off some of the crud?
These commenters who think that extra heat will burn off deposits are not educated in chemistry. The only way to burn carbon is with oxygen and a sufficient temperature to create the reaction (think here of a charcoal BBQ). There is no heat at the swirl chamber unless the oil is burning at that point. There is no glow plug heat after start-up. That means if the oil is not hot enough to burn any deposits, those deposits will just increase. Add in all the solids in the oil (additives) and the burner will soon be in trouble. The only way to burn waste oil, for long, is to ensure any deposits are completely carried away from the combustion area. That is clearly not happening!
Another guy who was burning waste oil has a mixture of 70/30 waste oil/kerosene. And he had a fuel switch where he would always start the heater running pure kerosene until up to temp and then switch to waste oil. He said if he started up with waste oil mixture it would get clogged and have a lot more residue.
It works fine but there is a temp sensor in the heat exchanger which shuts the machine down before being able to get hot enough to turn the unburned hydrocarbons to ash. Some ash but enough hydrocarbons to restrict airflow. It does work for about 24 hours
So you are right and wrong.
@@jaysonhoulihan9808 There is no ash, if hydrocarbons are burned in air. The products of combustion are dihydogen oxide (water) and carbon dioxide. There are no other elements in this group of chemicals. It is why they are called hydro carbons. The ‘ash’ is either from the waste oil (additives, etc) or unburned carbon (or even hydrocarbons, if not hot enough to volatilise them). If the flame temperature was hot enough, with excess air, there may be gaseous pollutants such as nitrogen oxides, of course (like from internal combustion engines) - but fairly unlikely on any large scale, what with loads of carbon monoxide and little spare air in the mix. Obviously plenty of ‘diesel particulates’ if the fuel is not completely combusted.🙂
Don't do it!
We used to have a big oil burning heater in the workshop. I used to have to clean it once or twice a week depending how fast the crud built up in the catch pan.
We are talking about a pan two inch deep by two feet around.
The tools for the job where a hammer and big straight hammer through screwdriver, that shit is called the black death in the motor trade.
A texture of black goo, concrete but chips off like glass.
Waste engine oil heaters need to have easy access to the burn tray inside the burn chamber
I hope you enjoyed a cold cerveza while doing the tests
dos cervezas por favor
I'm thinking a tighter mesh may help . I need to order a second heater to play around too . Would it be possible you run 2 fuel pumps with half the hertz ?
Could you try this out on the 2KW heater that has the end cut off with the glass window? that way we could see the what the flame looks like while it burns the oil, and also how the ash is forming inside the burn chamber.
That's a good idea. Now all I have to do is (a) find it (b) hope I haven't made it into something else. :)
@@DavidMcLuckie Oh wow a window into the combustion chamber. I'm currently playing with a twin pump system and some custom electronics to digitally mix the fuel going into the burner as pulses of fuel A or B in any one of five switch-selectable sequences: AAAA, AAAB, ABAB, ABBB or BBBB. Would sure be nice to look and see what happens when a pulse of the "bad" fuel gets injected.
Very interesting tests.
Next: add some DPF cleaner to pure waste oil and pure vegoil?
I know this is a bone question, but do we know if the engine oil is synthetic or mineral? I have no idea if synthetic will crud up more than mineral, but seeing that diesel is mineral... I am a seasoned veteran of running vehicles on waste veg oil I filtered myself. I used to add misfuel (you can get this from most garages as unless they have an oil burner, they have to pay to get rid of it) to the veg oil before filtering . Of course you have no idea of the ratio of deisel petrol mix thats in the barrel, so adding 10% is usually OK. Perhaps you might get better results warm filtering with the diesel added first?
excellent info. When people run their Diesel engines on waste oil, they recommend running the oil through a large centrifugal unit to clean the oil before use. I think 'cleaned' waste oil would probably run fantastically . Perhaps you could source some 'cleaned' oil from someone local with a centrifuge to test ? Some trucks (and a few cars) have smaller centrifuge units permanently plumbed to the engine that keep their engine oil clean. Perhaps you could use one of these types to clean your oil before burning. It makes a HUGE difference on internal combustion engines if the oil is centrifuged first.
I'd love a centrifuge to try, but they are expensive.
I have run an older (1997) Direct injection turbo diesel engine in my rover, on fresh engine oil and diesel. Usually about a 5 litres of oil to almost a full tank of diesel, and I end up with the same carbon build up and deposits as the heater in my piston bowls and around the injectors. After a bit it makes the engine start to haze light smoke and have a lumpy idle due to the crap swirl and incomplete combustion. You have to physically scrape off the deposits which means cylinder head and injectors need to come off. I had to RnR the head recently due to HGF and after cleaning everything the engine ran the best it ever had. Of course couple months later I decided to try it again with the oil... by the end of the tank the engine is back to running like crap.. even after several tank fulls of plain diesel. I think the only way to run engine oil as fuel is to distill it to a lighter fraction first, I would assume that this would then remove a lot of the unwanted stuff out of the oil and make it far more like diesel. Setting up a fraction distilary and getting it to work though is more than average Joe would care to mess with.
You're exactly right your typical centrifuge will bring it down to less than 2 microns significantly decreases carbon buildup I built one out of a brake drum you need about 2,000 G's of centrifugal forced to get about 2 microns
@@DavidMcLuckiehi,old Scania 10/11/12 litre six pot engines use a centrifugal filter driven by the camshaft, I'll be in my friend's yard next week and see if he's got any spare ones lying around. Keep up the good work you're doing.
Sorry, I'm getting old and had a slight? Brain fart😂 The Scania filter is driven by engine oil pressure and mounted on the engine block in the area of the camshaft.
Start up on normal mix then switch to oil mix when its hot, then switch back to normal fuel on full for 10 mins to clean the chamber...
I wonder if 50/50 waste oil and kerosene would burn hotter and thus cleaner David?
Hi David. Sorry to post on this video, couldn’t see one on the new controllers. I ordered a new board, controller and wires. The controller comes on but don’t show any voltage but everything else lights up, I have two different new type ones that do the same. If I switch to an old clock it shows the voltage and fires no bother. Any ideas? Thank you.
Would it be possible to re-run a test with the same mix using clean or re refined (recycled) oil. If it was significantly better using cleaned oil over carbonated oil it may work out easier just to setup a better filtering system. I live close to an oil re refining facility and was lucky enough to be round it with my job so was able to see the process on an industrial scale of taking black carbonated oil and cleaning it to what looks like brand new oil. Also pre heat might help some with engine oil, fuel pump output into copper brake line, coiled up heater output before being fed into burn chamber...can't hurt.
So what is the temperature of the burn chamber I think when it comes to waste oil hotter is better
I think the problem is the oil wasnt fully clean. You would have had sediment circulating as it wasn't transferred to a clean container. Also try 1 micron filter.
Yeah...looks like the crap just builds up...I wonder if instead of that cap right up against the fins inside the burn chamber looks riveted in] (where the crap builds up) if it's further out...letting the oil kind of slide along the bottom of the hot metal tube if it would work better [better atomization of the oil/fuel mix] or cause a flamout or even worse an uncontrolled burn...
Thing is those static waste oil burners usually have a big ol' cast iron chunk or pot that glows red hot, which vaporizes the fuel...but come to think of it...the pot the oil drips into still needs cleaning out due to the crap from the oil not burning and becoming that white rock hard clinker sludge. If there was a way to allow the oil to travel further down before clinker sludging if it would work, still need cleaning, but much less often
Seems it needs VERY clean oil to run without issues...so waste oil is a no go
This is why I am going to build a waste oil burner for my metal melting kiln...I have 33+ gallons I need to burn off.
Keep em coming!!!!
I wonder if 60% diesel fuel to 40% waste oil would be better and add a splash of gasoline Say 5%.
David adjust the fan to a lower speed to lower the air flow output. It will also increase the body temperature and allow the oxygen more time to burn with the fuel. You need the internal temperature to upwards of a 540 degrees C to get full combustion of the oil. If the air flow is going to fast it will cause the buildup you are seeing because the fuel isn't getting a full burn. Your units body temp should be between 204 degrees C to 210 degrees C which is at the upper limits of the units heat threshold. Unit overheat threshold is 260 degrees C. You have room to increase the internal heat capacity. Adjusting the fan speed should also get you to the 5.5% oxygen reading you are looking for. Doing so however will increase the cardon monoxide output on the flip side due to the oxygen and fuel is burning more completely. It's a tradeoff. If you are trying to lower the CO1 out put then push more oxygen/airflow. If you want a more complete burn then back the oxygen off some so that the oxygen and fuel have more time to mix and burn. Also, it may also help to point the unit downward to prevent the oil from pooling behind the flange.
The fans are connected by a shaft the only way to up air either way would be with compressed air. At that point using the heater wouldn't be cost effective
@jaysonhoulihan9808 I am aware, I run two in my RV using two Afterburners and two silent pumps. At max out put, I have my pumps set at 5.7 hz and max fan speed at 3800 rpm with a body temp reading between 380° F to 400° F with no smoke output or massive soot build up. Due to the full burn of the fuel, I do indeed have high CO1 and NOx output as well. To resolve that, I would need a catalytic converter and SCR system to conteract the emissions. But we are talking about complete combustion and not emissions. Unlike an engine, these units don't compress the air fuel mixture. They are an open flow micro furnace. It's finding the sweet spot of the perfect air flow to fuel ratio to get the maximum heat out put. Pushing more air into a system that doesn't have much air flow restriction isn't going to work. All you would be doing is pushing air faster through the burn chamber, cooling it down. Doing that and adding more fuel just means you're increasing the speed of fuel usage to maintain the same heat output. If you want less soot build up, you need higher heat output. Diesel completely burns at 1200° F. If you go and watch David's video were he pushes a heater to thermal shut down, you will see that around 210 degrees c on the body temp sensor, that the internal sensor is reading close to 537 degrees c. Which is 410° F externally and 1000° F internally. The safety cut off for these heaters is between 500° F to 550° F because the internal temperature is reaching critical melting point of the aluminum housing.
Have you ever tried running these on alcohol either ethanol, methanol, or denatured?
David, I could've sworn I already made the comment but couldnt find it, but have a look at my latest vid on my channel, I was wondering if you could put catalytic wool in the burn chamber, instead of the fiberglass. Its what I want to do at some point (instead of just bunging it at the end of the burn chamber, I need my heater right now, no time for modding it). That way it might glow red hot and burn off carbon, and also improve your CO readings. Also watch the big clive video on the hand warmers about how they work etc.
I have seen clives video at the time. I shall google catalytic wool.
I’d want to drill a small hole at the bottom so the oil will drain past and hopefully burn in the tube instead of creating the blockage.
Next stop: used vegetable oil from the back of a fish & chips shop!
I use the same heater as a base with waste oil.
Light oil is used only for ignition, and then waste oil is used.
If you modify the combustion chamber pipe and maintenance hole
It only needs to be disassembled once a year.
Can you explain more your modification please
I am running 50/50 diesel used hydraulic oil. time will tell.
Hyd oil burns clean with low ash build up so will run longer before needs cleaning. Maybe flush through with kerosene after each tank see how that goes👍🔥
I think it's pretty obvious by now that waste oil just isn't worth it. Somehow though I always see the odd person claiming to be running it perfectly fine but I'm not convinced it's ever true.
Too much forign matter in fuel will give soot and ash in any case the atomiser will glaze over. Dirty fuel simply doesn't work on these heaters I burn kero for years and never look in the burn chamber at 67 pence a litre it's great. 😊
You have to shut the heater down to help burn that crud out with the glow plug. Running it dry doesn't allow the heater to extinguish properly leaving extra carbon in the burn chamber
That will not clean the burn chamber... You haven't burned motor oil before if you think you can just "clean it out" somehow...
It turns to concrete... Even on a red hot surface, there is no burning it away... Hard ash will collect.
The heater still goes through a full shutdown on flame out. Hence the glowplug mesh is always clean.
The secondary wicking mesh inside the burner, not so much.
@@volvo09 when did I say it wouldn't still gunk up? It was a suggestion on helping reduce not eliminate...
@@volvo09 don't know why you put "clean it out" in quotations like it was a statement I made... maybe quit having conversations with yourself before commenting 🍻
@@DavidMcLuckie just wondering if you have any testing on whether it actually goes through a proper shut down upon flame outs. I use cooking oil and kerosene in mine and don't have any issues running 50/50 with a start up and shut down on 80/20 kerosene and diesel. Cooking oil does burn a lot cleaner then motor oil. Great vid, hopefully someone cracks the code lol would be nice to burn off some oil I got lying around rather than gathering it
1st comment, yeeeooo merry xmas