A word to the wise, if you are working with 55 gallons it is critical to have a 55 gallon waste collection drum if there is the slightest flicker in your power supply with the variable frequency drive it will shut down the oil will continue to flow and you will have a huge mess to clean up. Don’t ask me how I know.
I've made some pretty substantial changes to the system plumbing.. added the p trap and I'll be running the sludge drain out side as it is now the vent for vapor. I'll likely dump it into an empty tote which will pe my overflow protection as well. Appreciate the advice!
Don't be frustrated by the low flow rate from the media filter. The slower the rate, the more time the oil spins in the centrifuge. The first pass efficiency is much better, at that ~1 Qt. per hour rate. Venting the top of the centrifuge lid is definitely the thing to do. Run the oil heater up to ~220 degrees Fahrenheit, to get it above the boiling point of water. Since centrifugal force goes up on the square of RPM, increasing the speed from ~3,450 RPM to 6,000 RPM increases the centrifugal force by almost exactly 3X. That will make a huge difference. In fact, if moisture wasn't an issue, you could save a lot of electricity by leaving the heater off, and just let the new, faster motor run, with the oil at a reduced flow rate. With as much moisture as I saw in this batch, you will definitely want to run the heater.
I've made a lot of changes since this video.... now I make multiple passes on every batch at ~5gph and ~200F on the thermostat. I've also added a moisture trap to the outlet and better ventilation to the housing. Those changes are in a later video. Thanks for watching!
I like your work. I've been adding E85 to the mix prior to spinning and heating. I noticed the ethanol absorbed the water from the oil and is easily evaporated with heating during the process.
I've come to realize that heat is very important to the process and I've only started heating in the last 2 years. Be VERY careful heating with gasoline already blended. Ethanol and gasoline will evaporate faster than water... giving you a highly flammable gas in your work space. Be safe.
You know that’s actually super smart I didn’t even think of that! But what i would do is put about 10g of it in a 250 gallon drum and then agitate it then let it sit
Thank you for sharing your setup. Couple of thoughts. Always use gloves. The concentration of "bad things" is very high in used engine oil, exponentially higher in the centrifuge. Things known to cause cancer. I know, "yeah yeah yeah", we're guys and we get oil everywhere, but the risk is real. Ever get brake cleaner on an open cut, then a sudden headache? That's how fast chemicals can move in to your body. Don't worry if you forgot where the cut is. BRAKE CLEANER REMEMBERS! lol Consider a large 5 micron filter sock from Duda Diesel to polish the WMO at the end and as a catch all for things the centrifuge may have missed.
This is really good stuff man, thanks for doin it. Besides yours, I can't find any channels that are currently doin waste oil fuel. Appreciate how you explain in comments why things do or don't work to folks with questions, like the water separators wont pull emulsified water out, heat is required to mechanically separate that moisture. Great stuff brother, can't wait for more testing and results. LOVE THIS SHIT MAN, THANK YOU.
Appreciate it bud. I've found a couple channels recently also doing some really cool stuff with waste oils. I'll link them in the description here in a bit.
15:35 Have you ever worked with a system of smaller "settling jugs"? I saw a guy who had a bunch of 10 gallon plastic jugs painted black that he left outside in the sun. What about adding a visual "waterfall drop" in open air on the input side to centrifuge (output of gate valve dripping into a funnel)? That way it is easier to see the flow rate. Me: An old fart in laz-e-boy enjoying a young man being creative.
I've thought about doing that feed setup. Would definitely make it easier but with the heater being filled at the bottom, it would take some creative plumbing since my drum isn't much higher than the centrifuge.
Have you had experience with those marine oil purifier centrifuge units? They use multiple stacked cone discs which increases the surface area for solids and water separation. A used Mitsibishi SJ-25 sells for about the same price as those moms and pops centrifuge.
I've not had any experience with them but I'll say the stacked cone style industrial centrifuges work extremely well .. they are just typically out of most people's price ranges and could require 3ph power.
Yeah i should probably vent mine also. I think they added that to the manual later cause I saw it in the downloaded version but I don't recall seeing it in the manual that came with my unit. It mentions venting but just the fitting not tube if I re call correctly
You are at 1,087.41 Gs going to 3,706.20 Gs.Yes it worth it. However at 180 to 200° at 5 gallons per hour it still takes more than one pass to get the oil clean. Even with a 10,000 GeForce unit.
The numbers say it's worth it.... I want to show why. Currently working on the 3k to 6k comparison.... then I'll be doing multiple passes... and then heated vs not all at the same flow rate and same tote of oil. Seeing the numbers on paper... most won't give it much thought. Seeing the actual batch results on video is a bit more convincing. But... you've still got guys out there pouring oil through old jeans and dumping it in their fuel tanks... and promoting that method "cause it works". I want to change that.
@@NotSoGrandGarage when you get the three phase motor hooked up and running you will find that it consumes far less electricity. The problem with the high-pressure units is that they keep pouring clean oil into the dirty oil over and over. I am working on a 10 gallon batch of oil and after 50 hours of runtime still coming up with .8 ounces of dirt. This is after it has gone through a 10,000 GeForce bole unit 11 times. The upside to a pressurized unit turn it on walk away.
@@mrfixit237 for sure. My old setup was pretty self contained. It had ashcroft pressure switches to shut everything down if pressure went out of a set range... I looped the relief/return to the pump inlet instead of the drum and it would run by itself indefinitely. I've got the 6k up and running and it is using less energy which is a nice bonus... and so far, has pulled quite a bit more out than the 3k which was expected. I'll edit that video this weekend and it'll post sometime next week. Currently pumping that same oil back to the gravity drum for some multi-pass comparisons.
Interesting, I wonder how much of the sludge/moisture came from the heating and cooling of the barrel either way it’s still a lot. Will be interesting to see what it pulls with the run directly from the tote. Enjoying the research your doing on this and passing that information on to others.
I'd say it isn't much. Working on buttoning up the 6k comparison video and the results are good. Will be testing out several other things here soon as well such as heating the oil vs not heating the oil. Should be interesting.
@@strokedmule3838 not sure. I don't think the 55gph pressure driven units from any manufacturer have enough capacity for this amount of sludge... so with that said, I'd "boil" off the moisture prior to running. You'd end up with the same amount of solids... but the finished product would be drier if that makes sense.
@@strokedmule3838 So just finished my multi-pass test and the results answer some of your questions. Heating and cooling of the drum didn't appear to play into it as I definitely got less moisture out of the 2nd pass through the 6k unit and the oil in the drum had been heated to 200F... sat overnight which it dropped down to 50F last night here... and then was reheated during the 2nd pass. MUCH less moisture in the bowl after the 2nd run. It'll be a bit before that video posts.
I wonder how it would work out if you put the filter head after the centrifuge. That way it's pre heated so it flows. As long as it flows fast enough and doesn't cause flooding of the centrifuge I just have the one filter on my finish drum where it's pumped into the vehicles
I've got a filter on the transfer pump for filling... I'm thinking I'll move it to the pressure side of the pump that fills the gravity drum. We'll see. It's out of the loop currently
Cool. I’d say that pretty much validates the purchase of that centrifuge. Would you have gotten “everything” that the biodiesel pressure driven unit AND what the direct drive unit got, just by running it through the direct drive unit once?
Moisture/water can cavitate, and that's never a good thing. I always put everything through a parker/goldenrod 20 or 50 micron waterblock filter before it goes into any settling tanks, just to ensure I don't have any moisture prior to processing it. I do like to add ethanol gas before heating it, but I ALWAYS have it properly vented, since the volatiles WILL boil off and cause serious fire hazards. I really like your setup and I think I am going to have to put something like that together. I like adding the gas/methanol fuel prior to heating and processing it so that I don't have anything left in it that can cause combustion issues with the diesel engine, gas combusting in a diesel engine can do some pretty angry things in the cylinder, but I'm just paranoid about that kind of thing. I can rebuild the engine head and injectors or injector pump much cheaper and easier than rebuilding or resleaving the engine block itself.
How much water do those filters hold and how often do they have to be replaced? As for gas in the cylinder.. its not an issue in the quantities we use. The diesel "rattle" gets quieter on blended oil. If it were preigniting or anything, it would make the rattle more aggressive kinda like spraying methanol does. Stay below 30% and it's no problem. I also prefer stale gasoline that I can find for free which is less volatile yet.
@@NotSoGrandGarage They don't hold any water, they just won't let any past, so you have to drain the bowl once it gets full. They seem to last until they get clogged. I really don't know for certain, I ended up with a huge box full of them and haven't blocked the first one yet, since I prefilter the oil through a 20 micron normal filter when I collect it, but it seems to hold up to motor oil, hydraulic, and veg oil just fine. It was originally used by the military on the turbine engines for the Huey Helicopters and the M1A1 which has the same engine. I haven't been running alternative oils for a bit since I need to get my system fully set up for it on my daily driver before I run too much more through it. The guy that had them before me swore by them, though. He had a 1981 240d and he used those filters as his only filter when running waste veg oil and the only thing that happened to the one he was using in the 2 years he used it was that the bowl filled up with mold/fungus and had to be removed and scrubbed out because the whole filter housing filled up with water/sludge and was blocking the fuel. Needless to say, I was SUPER impressed by them, and they seem to block 100% of the water from passing through them. They are just a filter element that fits into a filter/water separator housing. I can send you one of the filter elements for testing if you would like. They are around $20 online, if you just do a web search, a lot of different options and a lot of information on them will come up.
Thanks for doing the testing! I’m curious if you think the small capacity of the pressure driven unit might be playing into this? Do you think if you had a 150-300gph units it might be a little closer competition? I wish PA biodiesel would send you one of the big boys for testing…
That's in the works.... but its out of stock. I think the small size and my inability to heat the drum up hot enough plays into it. I'd suggest to anyone using this style of unit to heat the drum to 170+ for a day or so prior to running.
@@NotSoGrandGarage I heat my drum to 180-200* while running my 120gph unit. I dont get that runny sludge, it is mostly a thick rubbery tar like substance. I clean the centrifuge out every 12hrs.
Very little. The water is emulsified... not free water. I've got good water separators on all of my rigs and I never get much out of them. Heat does the work with water. Before stepping up to the heated firect drive, I'd never get this much stuff out of the batches. My results were always similar to the pressure drive results shown here and my water separators never caught much of anything. The big noticeable difference is in cold weather. Before, I couldn't run my fuel below 40°F. Now.. I've been down to 5°F and it runs like a champ... same W90 blend. With that said... if you could get your drum hot... 170+F... and keep it there for 10+ hours prior to centrifuging to drive off moisture... the final product would be better.
Hi, I'd be interested in a comparison of two small batches, one heated and one non heated pre-mixed at 20% rug, both from the same tote and the pre-mixed batch to be settled first then poured off the top for the settled sludge left behind. I'm also interested too as the matter that builds up in the fuge should be a different consistency from the heated to cold premix.
I'm working on small batch tests currently. IF I heat a pre-mix... I will be turning the heat down a good bit. I don't like the idea of venting a flammable vapor near my shed. Typically, I won't heat anything mixed with gasoline. I'll do some tinkering here soon.
@@NotSoGrandGarage thanks for your reply! Yeah sorry, my question was a bit all over the place, basically im interested in the difference between pre mixed and settled cold fuge and heated straight oil. Volume of matter and consistency of the matter. I run a closed circuit pressure drive system which does small 5 gal batches. Interestingly, just from the pumping and agitation it warms the fluid. But I pre mix and settle, so im definitely on the same page regarding heating premix. Doesn't matter how well you mix the oil and rug, you see and smell the fumes when you pour it off, so it will evaporate.
Do you have any links that heated centrifuge? I love all of your videos but I can't find a link to that product. I can't wait to get black diesel setup going.
This is the one I use. The offer several though. The heater is an add-on. www.wvodesigns.com/extreme-raw-power-centrifuge.html If you order, be sure to use discount code "NotSoGrand Garage" to get 10% off your order! Discount code good until 1-9-23
What psi did you run the 55gph unit? Thanks for all these great videos! I Recently bought the 120 gallon per Hour Centrifuge from PA bio diesel. Seems to work way better than a 55 gallon unit are used to have. I run mine at 200° for two hours. Seems like whenever I try to do a longer run it doesn’t pull any more material out.
95 psi is what I always ran them at. The 120 is a larger bowl which would mean higher g force. I'd clean the bowl put after 2 hours and put it back together... run it longer amd see if you get more that way.
I did clean it and I ran it for 3 hours and it looked like it was still new. Next to nothing was removed. After I run it for 2 hours I pump it throw a wix 1 micron filter into a bigger 1,000 gallon tank. I normally replace wix filter ever 350 gallons or so. I figured it’s a cheap insurance policy so I don’t have to replace filters in my truck as much. Do you use a measure device to check oils velocity with gas ?
@@brianconnor5213 I don't check viscosity or haven't yet anyways. Typically if I notice an issue with it being too thick causing a running issue, I'll just add a bit more gas at the pump.
It's an investment for sure. I've got them listed on my site now. It just depends on what you're doing. With fuel being 5+/gallon, it pays for itself pretty quick... but it is a big pill to swallow.
@psd28 Absolutely. It took me over 8 years to take that bite. Regret not doing it up front now because I wasted a lot of time and money trying other ways.
@@NotSoGrandGarage im considering one of the centrifugal oil filter kits that run the little thing at about 90 psi, same big initial cost. Are those as good as the big centrifuges? I plan on doing multiple passes and/or having it just loop on my holding tank so it continuously cycles when i run it.
@psd28 I ran one of those for 6 years... looped for 40 hours. The direct drive is better. I've got a couple videos on those units.. I also have a video of a back to back comparison of the two. Check those out before you decide.
I'm very anxious to see what the 6k rpm unit test shows compared to the 3400 I have the 6 k I'm working on my second 300 gallon tote now. My bowl is never very dirty or much in it. Kinda worries me but I guess maybe I've been lucky with the oil I've used and it was fairly clean
@@NotSoGrandGarage I heat with the red tempco heater to 170-200. Im always wondering if I really need to go that high cause wvo designs says 150, but in my mind higher temp means it may get rid of more water. I run it through pretty slow. I don't have an exact gallon per hour but it's just enough to be a small but steady stream. I tried to copy what I saw you have as far as the stream coming out.
@@BRWfilms My last several batches have been with the thermostat set at 200 and flowing roughly 5gpm. This oil may just be that wet as I ran a batch twice (video coming on that soon).. and the 2nd run didn't have nearly as much crap in the bowl. Actually the center of the bowl was clean... just a heavy 3/4-1" layer on the walls of the bowl when done. That was on batch 2 with the 6k.
@@NotSoGrandGarage Okay yeah. First few batches I ran the oil must of been very clean... I stopped checking my bowl cause it just wasn't very dirty. Well three batches of not checking. It was bad lets just say that. Explains how I had water in the last batch. The centrifuge probably couldn't clean very well with all the sludge in the bowl I will be checking it every run from now on..
I´ve a pressure driven unit. It operates at 4100g/9000rpm. I let it run for at least 3 passes in the same barrel and the 4th time will be centrifuged and at the same time pumped at a new barrel where I add the RUG. With that much oil slime like you got, there will be problems fast in my point of view.
The oil is all from the same tote.... has been settling for over a year. The sludge is coming from emulsified water. Running the pressure drive setup, it was looped for 20 hours... that means 20+ passes at 55gph. I used to run mine for 40 hours and would never get this much stuff out. Heat is important to drive out water. More so than I ever thought. I didn't Heat with my old pressure drive setup.... just blended with rug and ran for 40 hours. I couldn't run my fuel below 30°F. Now with the direct drive and good heat... I've had no issues running down to 5°f so far. Both units pull the solids well... its the emulsified water that the pressure drive struggles with and I think it's mainly due to heat.
That is an AMAZING improvement!!!
Indeed. I ran a pressure drive for years. Motor driven is the way to go. If you're needing anything, www.notsograndgarage.com
A word to the wise, if you are working with 55 gallons it is critical to have a 55 gallon waste collection drum if there is the slightest flicker in your power supply with the variable frequency drive it will shut down the oil will continue to flow and you will have a huge mess to clean up. Don’t ask me how I know.
Oof.. sounds like a good time. Good to know though. I'm planning on making some plumbing changes soon so may work that in too.
How's the grass under the shed 🤣
@@jeremywylie2936 all dead thanks to the ground hog that has taken up residence there. Smh. Lol
I've made some pretty substantial changes to the system plumbing.. added the p trap and I'll be running the sludge drain out side as it is now the vent for vapor. I'll likely dump it into an empty tote which will pe my overflow protection as well. Appreciate the advice!
Don't be frustrated by the low flow rate from the media filter. The slower the rate, the more time the oil spins in the centrifuge. The first pass efficiency is much better, at that ~1 Qt. per hour rate. Venting the top of the centrifuge lid is definitely the thing to do. Run the oil heater up to ~220 degrees Fahrenheit, to get it above the boiling point of water. Since centrifugal force goes up on the square of RPM, increasing the speed from ~3,450 RPM to 6,000 RPM increases the centrifugal force by almost exactly 3X. That will make a huge difference. In fact, if moisture wasn't an issue, you could save a lot of electricity by leaving the heater off, and just let the new, faster motor run, with the oil at a reduced flow rate. With as much moisture as I saw in this batch, you will definitely want to run the heater.
I've made a lot of changes since this video.... now I make multiple passes on every batch at ~5gph and ~200F on the thermostat. I've also added a moisture trap to the outlet and better ventilation to the housing. Those changes are in a later video. Thanks for watching!
I like your work. I've been adding E85 to the mix prior to spinning and heating. I noticed the ethanol absorbed the water from the oil and is easily evaporated with heating during the process.
I've come to realize that heat is very important to the process and I've only started heating in the last 2 years. Be VERY careful heating with gasoline already blended. Ethanol and gasoline will evaporate faster than water... giving you a highly flammable gas in your work space. Be safe.
You know that’s actually super smart I didn’t even think of that! But what i would do is put about 10g of it in a 250 gallon drum and then agitate it then let it sit
Thanks for sharing. I am definitely glad I just went all out and bought the wvo extreme raw power centrifuge to start with.
It's worth it. I'll be posting the basic vs extreme next week sometime.
Dude your about to change my life. I'm hoping to copy your setup soon! Thanks a ton keep it up.
Glad I can help! Good luck
Good info! Thanks for sharing! Now I know settling oil ain’t the best option.
Settling alone does next to nothing but its an important stage of the process for sure.
Thank you for sharing your setup. Couple of thoughts. Always use gloves. The concentration of "bad things" is very high in used engine oil, exponentially higher in the centrifuge. Things known to cause cancer. I know, "yeah yeah yeah", we're guys and we get oil everywhere, but the risk is real. Ever get brake cleaner on an open cut, then a sudden headache? That's how fast chemicals can move in to your body. Don't worry if you forgot where the cut is. BRAKE CLEANER REMEMBERS! lol Consider a large 5 micron filter sock from Duda Diesel to polish the WMO at the end and as a catch all for things the centrifuge may have missed.
Yeah I need to work on that. Lol
The filter sock does near nothing…… I run my oil through a one micron filter sock & the centrifuge still pulls way way way more out afterwards !!!
Love the channel and hell I dont even have a diesel that can run off of this stuff!
Appreciate it!
This is really good stuff man, thanks for doin it. Besides yours, I can't find any channels that are currently doin waste oil fuel. Appreciate how you explain in comments why things do or don't work to folks with questions, like the water separators wont pull emulsified water out, heat is required to mechanically separate that moisture. Great stuff brother, can't wait for more testing and results. LOVE THIS SHIT MAN, THANK YOU.
Appreciate it bud. I've found a couple channels recently also doing some really cool stuff with waste oils. I'll link them in the description here in a bit.
@@NotSoGrandGarage
Thank you for that, I'll check them out for sure.
@@GRAZINGARIZONA For sure do. He does some really interesting flame tests that have me rethinking my mixture.
15:35 Have you ever worked with a system of smaller "settling jugs"? I saw a guy who had a bunch of 10 gallon plastic jugs painted black that he left outside in the sun. What about adding a visual "waterfall drop" in open air on the input side to centrifuge (output of gate valve dripping into a funnel)? That way it is easier to see the flow rate. Me: An old fart in laz-e-boy enjoying a young man being creative.
I've thought about doing that feed setup. Would definitely make it easier but with the heater being filled at the bottom, it would take some creative plumbing since my drum isn't much higher than the centrifuge.
Have you had experience with those marine oil purifier centrifuge units? They use multiple stacked cone discs which increases the surface area for solids and water separation. A used Mitsibishi SJ-25 sells for about the same price as those moms and pops centrifuge.
I've not had any experience with them but I'll say the stacked cone style industrial centrifuges work extremely well .. they are just typically out of most people's price ranges and could require 3ph power.
Yeah i should probably vent mine also. I think they added that to the manual later cause I saw it in the downloaded version but I don't recall seeing it in the manual that came with my unit. It mentions venting but just the fitting not tube if I re call correctly
Mine didn't come with a vent fitting and I don't recall seeing it in the manual either but the newest manual I downloaded mentioned it.
Wow that's an impressive amount of material. Love to see how much the 6000 rpm motor removes.:)
It's more. Lol. Have to edit the video yet but that batch is done. Also doing some multi-pass testing now.
@@NotSoGrandGarage Nice.:)
You are at 1,087.41 Gs going to 3,706.20 Gs.Yes it worth it. However at 180 to 200° at 5 gallons per hour it still takes more than one pass to get the oil clean. Even with a 10,000 GeForce unit.
The numbers say it's worth it.... I want to show why. Currently working on the 3k to 6k comparison.... then I'll be doing multiple passes... and then heated vs not all at the same flow rate and same tote of oil. Seeing the numbers on paper... most won't give it much thought. Seeing the actual batch results on video is a bit more convincing. But... you've still got guys out there pouring oil through old jeans and dumping it in their fuel tanks... and promoting that method "cause it works". I want to change that.
@@NotSoGrandGarage when you get the three phase motor hooked up and running you will find that it consumes far less electricity. The problem with the high-pressure units is that they keep pouring clean oil into the dirty oil over and over. I am working on a 10 gallon batch of oil and after 50 hours of runtime still coming up with .8 ounces of dirt. This is after it has gone through a 10,000 GeForce bole unit 11 times. The upside to a pressurized unit turn it on walk away.
@@mrfixit237 for sure. My old setup was pretty self contained. It had ashcroft pressure switches to shut everything down if pressure went out of a set range... I looped the relief/return to the pump inlet instead of the drum and it would run by itself indefinitely.
I've got the 6k up and running and it is using less energy which is a nice bonus... and so far, has pulled quite a bit more out than the 3k which was expected. I'll edit that video this weekend and it'll post sometime next week. Currently pumping that same oil back to the gravity drum for some multi-pass comparisons.
Where would one get 10000 GeForce unit?
How did u calculate the GeForces?
Interesting, I wonder how much of the sludge/moisture came from the heating and cooling of the barrel either way it’s still a lot. Will be interesting to see what it pulls with the run directly from the tote.
Enjoying the research your doing on this and passing that information on to others.
I'd say it isn't much. Working on buttoning up the 6k comparison video and the results are good. Will be testing out several other things here soon as well such as heating the oil vs not heating the oil. Should be interesting.
Do you think if the oil was heated longer before the PA barrel was run would have resulted in less sludge and a cleaner result?
@@strokedmule3838 not sure. I don't think the 55gph pressure driven units from any manufacturer have enough capacity for this amount of sludge... so with that said, I'd "boil" off the moisture prior to running. You'd end up with the same amount of solids... but the finished product would be drier if that makes sense.
@@strokedmule3838 So just finished my multi-pass test and the results answer some of your questions. Heating and cooling of the drum didn't appear to play into it as I definitely got less moisture out of the 2nd pass through the 6k unit and the oil in the drum had been heated to 200F... sat overnight which it dropped down to 50F last night here... and then was reheated during the 2nd pass. MUCH less moisture in the bowl after the 2nd run. It'll be a bit before that video posts.
I wonder how it would work out if you put the filter head after the centrifuge. That way it's pre heated so it flows. As long as it flows fast enough and doesn't cause flooding of the centrifuge
I just have the one filter on my finish drum where it's pumped into the vehicles
I've got a filter on the transfer pump for filling... I'm thinking I'll move it to the pressure side of the pump that fills the gravity drum. We'll see. It's out of the loop currently
Cool. I’d say that pretty much validates the purchase of that centrifuge.
Would you have gotten “everything” that the biodiesel pressure driven unit AND what the direct drive unit got, just by running it through the direct drive unit once?
Not sure. I do multiple passes every time now. Check my lab test results video. It's pretty telling.
@@NotSoGrandGarage will do
Moisture/water can cavitate, and that's never a good thing. I always put everything through a parker/goldenrod 20 or 50 micron waterblock filter before it goes into any settling tanks, just to ensure I don't have any moisture prior to processing it. I do like to add ethanol gas before heating it, but I ALWAYS have it properly vented, since the volatiles WILL boil off and cause serious fire hazards.
I really like your setup and I think I am going to have to put something like that together.
I like adding the gas/methanol fuel prior to heating and processing it so that I don't have anything left in it that can cause combustion issues with the diesel engine, gas combusting in a diesel engine can do some pretty angry things in the cylinder, but I'm just paranoid about that kind of thing. I can rebuild the engine head and injectors or injector pump much cheaper and easier than rebuilding or resleaving the engine block itself.
How much water do those filters hold and how often do they have to be replaced?
As for gas in the cylinder.. its not an issue in the quantities we use. The diesel "rattle" gets quieter on blended oil. If it were preigniting or anything, it would make the rattle more aggressive kinda like spraying methanol does. Stay below 30% and it's no problem. I also prefer stale gasoline that I can find for free which is less volatile yet.
@@NotSoGrandGarage They don't hold any water, they just won't let any past, so you have to drain the bowl once it gets full. They seem to last until they get clogged. I really don't know for certain, I ended up with a huge box full of them and haven't blocked the first one yet, since I prefilter the oil through a 20 micron normal filter when I collect it, but it seems to hold up to motor oil, hydraulic, and veg oil just fine. It was originally used by the military on the turbine engines for the Huey Helicopters and the M1A1 which has the same engine. I haven't been running alternative oils for a bit since I need to get my system fully set up for it on my daily driver before I run too much more through it. The guy that had them before me swore by them, though. He had a 1981 240d and he used those filters as his only filter when running waste veg oil and the only thing that happened to the one he was using in the 2 years he used it was that the bowl filled up with mold/fungus and had to be removed and scrubbed out because the whole filter housing filled up with water/sludge and was blocking the fuel.
Needless to say, I was SUPER impressed by them, and they seem to block 100% of the water from passing through them. They are just a filter element that fits into a filter/water separator housing. I can send you one of the filter elements for testing if you would like.
They are around $20 online, if you just do a web search, a lot of different options and a lot of information on them will come up.
Thanks for doing the testing! I’m curious if you think the small capacity of the pressure driven unit might be playing into this? Do you think if you had a 150-300gph units it might be a little closer competition? I wish PA biodiesel would send you one of the big boys for testing…
That's in the works.... but its out of stock. I think the small size and my inability to heat the drum up hot enough plays into it. I'd suggest to anyone using this style of unit to heat the drum to 170+ for a day or so prior to running.
@@NotSoGrandGarage I heat my drum to 180-200* while running my 120gph unit. I dont get that runny sludge, it is mostly a thick rubbery tar like substance. I clean the centrifuge out every 12hrs.
So if you were filtering or using a pressure unit - how much of that water would be handled by a good water separator in the fuel system?
Very little. The water is emulsified... not free water. I've got good water separators on all of my rigs and I never get much out of them. Heat does the work with water.
Before stepping up to the heated firect drive, I'd never get this much stuff out of the batches. My results were always similar to the pressure drive results shown here and my water separators never caught much of anything.
The big noticeable difference is in cold weather. Before, I couldn't run my fuel below 40°F. Now.. I've been down to 5°F and it runs like a champ... same W90 blend.
With that said... if you could get your drum hot... 170+F... and keep it there for 10+ hours prior to centrifuging to drive off moisture... the final product would be better.
Hi, I'd be interested in a comparison of two small batches, one heated and one non heated pre-mixed at 20% rug, both from the same tote and the pre-mixed batch to be settled first then poured off the top for the settled sludge left behind.
I'm also interested too as the matter that builds up in the fuge should be a different consistency from the heated to cold premix.
I'm working on small batch tests currently. IF I heat a pre-mix... I will be turning the heat down a good bit. I don't like the idea of venting a flammable vapor near my shed. Typically, I won't heat anything mixed with gasoline. I'll do some tinkering here soon.
@@NotSoGrandGarage thanks for your reply! Yeah sorry, my question was a bit all over the place, basically im interested in the difference between pre mixed and settled cold fuge and heated straight oil. Volume of matter and consistency of the matter.
I run a closed circuit pressure drive system which does small 5 gal batches. Interestingly, just from the pumping and agitation it warms the fluid. But I pre mix and settle, so im definitely on the same page regarding heating premix. Doesn't matter how well you mix the oil and rug, you see and smell the fumes when you pour it off, so it will evaporate.
@@10GTE Gotcha. Yup that is in the plans for testing over the next few weeks!
Do you have any links that heated centrifuge? I love all of your videos but I can't find a link to that product. I can't wait to get black diesel setup going.
This is the one I use. The offer several though. The heater is an add-on. www.wvodesigns.com/extreme-raw-power-centrifuge.html If you order, be sure to use discount code "NotSoGrand Garage" to get 10% off your order! Discount code good until 1-9-23
ua-cam.com/video/JVf-w9TNI-A/v-deo.html&t
What psi did you run the 55gph unit? Thanks for all these great videos! I Recently bought the 120 gallon per Hour Centrifuge from PA bio diesel. Seems to work way better than a 55 gallon unit are used to have. I run mine at 200° for two hours. Seems like whenever I try to do a longer run it doesn’t pull any more material out.
95 psi is what I always ran them at. The 120 is a larger bowl which would mean higher g force. I'd clean the bowl put after 2 hours and put it back together... run it longer amd see if you get more that way.
I did clean it and I ran it for 3 hours and it looked like it was still new. Next to nothing was removed. After I run it for 2 hours I pump it throw a wix 1 micron filter into a bigger 1,000 gallon tank. I normally replace wix filter ever 350 gallons or so. I figured it’s a cheap insurance policy so I don’t have to replace filters in my truck as much. Do you use a measure device to check oils velocity with gas ?
@@brianconnor5213 I don't check viscosity or haven't yet anyways. Typically if I notice an issue with it being too thick causing a running issue, I'll just add a bit more gas at the pump.
I want a centrifugal setup, but even the little spinner filters are like 300 dollars. I cant imagine paying 1500 for a centrifuge
It's an investment for sure. I've got them listed on my site now. It just depends on what you're doing. With fuel being 5+/gallon, it pays for itself pretty quick... but it is a big pill to swallow.
@@NotSoGrandGarage yeah it definitely pays off easily but the startup capital is a big pill like you said
@psd28 Absolutely. It took me over 8 years to take that bite. Regret not doing it up front now because I wasted a lot of time and money trying other ways.
@@NotSoGrandGarage im considering one of the centrifugal oil filter kits that run the little thing at about 90 psi, same big initial cost. Are those as good as the big centrifuges? I plan on doing multiple passes and/or having it just loop on my holding tank so it continuously cycles when i run it.
@psd28 I ran one of those for 6 years... looped for 40 hours. The direct drive is better. I've got a couple videos on those units.. I also have a video of a back to back comparison of the two. Check those out before you decide.
Why do you filter it before your centrifuge? Seems like an unnecessary step and adds consumable waste?
Old video. That filter setup has been gone for a good while now as it was a waste.
@@NotSoGrandGarage thanks for responding. I'm just getting into it and going through the vids in chronological order
@@The33DegreeVegan gotcha. Yeah it ended up being more of a headache than it was worth and really isn't necessary.
I'm very anxious to see what the 6k rpm unit test shows compared to the 3400
I have the 6 k I'm working on my second 300 gallon tote now. My bowl is never very dirty or much in it. Kinda worries me but I guess maybe I've been lucky with the oil I've used and it was fairly clean
Are you heating as well? What temp and how fast are you running the oil through? I'll say this now... the 6k pulls more out than the basic.
@@NotSoGrandGarage I heat with the red tempco heater to 170-200. Im always wondering if I really need to go that high cause wvo designs says 150, but in my mind higher temp means it may get rid of more water. I run it through pretty slow. I don't have an exact gallon per hour but it's just enough to be a small but steady stream. I tried to copy what I saw you have as far as the stream coming out.
@@NotSoGrandGarage glad to hear that the 6k pulls more out and that i didn't spend more for no reason lol
@@BRWfilms My last several batches have been with the thermostat set at 200 and flowing roughly 5gpm. This oil may just be that wet as I ran a batch twice (video coming on that soon).. and the 2nd run didn't have nearly as much crap in the bowl. Actually the center of the bowl was clean... just a heavy 3/4-1" layer on the walls of the bowl when done. That was on batch 2 with the 6k.
@@NotSoGrandGarage Okay yeah. First few batches I ran the oil must of been very clean... I stopped checking my bowl cause it just wasn't very dirty. Well three batches of not checking. It was bad lets just say that. Explains how I had water in the last batch. The centrifuge probably couldn't clean very well with all the sludge in the bowl
I will be checking it every run from now on..
why not oil distillation?
Mainly energy use and time. It may be something I look into further down the road... but not right now.
@@NotSoGrandGarage you could run a generator for electricity to heat the oil or burn the oil directly for heating
@@antoniosestar3671 could yes. Its just not something I've messed with. Maybe down the road.
I´ve a pressure driven unit. It operates at 4100g/9000rpm. I let it run for at least 3 passes in the same barrel and the 4th time will be centrifuged and at the same time pumped at a new barrel where I add the RUG. With that much oil slime like you got, there will be problems fast in my point of view.
The oil is all from the same tote.... has been settling for over a year. The sludge is coming from emulsified water. Running the pressure drive setup, it was looped for 20 hours... that means 20+ passes at 55gph. I used to run mine for 40 hours and would never get this much stuff out.
Heat is important to drive out water. More so than I ever thought. I didn't Heat with my old pressure drive setup.... just blended with rug and ran for 40 hours. I couldn't run my fuel below 30°F.
Now with the direct drive and good heat... I've had no issues running down to 5°f so far. Both units pull the solids well... its the emulsified water that the pressure drive struggles with and I think it's mainly due to heat.