Pre Filtering your WVO...

[bct]

Alright, I made up a HUGE funnel with a screen door fabric on the top and a round Fram air filter that has roughly 2.5 sf of filter surface at the bottom. The funnel will hold roughly 6-8 gallons of oil. In 55 degree weather its takeing HOURS to filter the oil after loading it up. Is this the kind of time you guys are seeing with your setups? This is terrible.... Again Im looking too pour in and walk away. I wanna work hard, but not spend my entire night doing it. How are you guys handeling this? Any ideas?

 

[MudHog]

Heat your oil up.

WVO will start to harden and cause your problems. Warm oil flows quicker than cool thick oil.

You could filter and boil your water out at the same stage, but what do I know.

 

[bct]

u *******, I bashed you in another thread

I know what your sayin mang, I just would rather explore other options before setting up a camp stove and boiling 6 gallons at a time... I know your going to say somethin about cake, BUT I am in the engineering feild and know I CAN eat a LOT of the cake if I build the right fork The budget is whats holding me up. Im starting too think that my problem is, Im filtering too fine up front (which I like the idea of. OR I need more filtering s.f. and a bigger drum. Im not against a warming source that could be built into the drum though, it needs to be cheap and something I dont have too monitor.

 

[MudHog]

Okay, your in the engineering field, but can't think of using a bigger pot than 6 gallons. Hell I got 30 and 60 gallon crawfish boiling pots sitting here. Yall northern people are weak.

Now you are starting to act like an engineer, over thinking something to the point is useless.

Warming will need either fire or electricity. You could do an indirect heating and run a piece of metal pipe though the large pot and make a firetube. This will allow you to submerge the pipe in the oil and will heat better than the fire on the outside. Just vent your firetube somewhere safe.

Why not filter in stages? First stage would be using a large hole size and get your bigger particles out and then you could move to your air filter setup or do a cheese cloth design. Again, I would heat up and then start filtering.

Remeber when I told you to fry soem french fries and let the grease sit and see how it starts to harden up? I remember you saying that thick grease won't be a problem as it don't get that colr up there.

 

[bct]

ya caught me, it gets cold enough.

I been chewin on this pretty hard.

I think the issue is volume of tank and s/f of filtering surface.

I wanna pour my stuff from the truck into the filtering stage and walk away. with enough tub space, I don't see the speed of the filtering being a huge issue. it can gravity feed at its own rate into a holding tank (I happen to have a 500+ gallon tank just layin arround). I think if the valve that releases the oil from the holding tank is big enough (4"?) heat wont be an issue either untill winter when the stuff stops flowing all together and I might use a 110 water heater element. I may still need some heat to get from the storeage tank into the pump, just for the pumps sake. then Ive used gravity for everything up too this point. and very little heat at key points.

I need to find a 100 gallon tub....

 

[hheynow]

Simplify your life...buy one of THESE.

 

[bct]

Simplify your life...buy one of THESE.

I saw that, pretty neat idea. So far we dont have $500 into the entire opperation though. and I hope we don't ever. Ima buy 2 nipples, 2 valves and some clear hose tonight, and I got $8 into the filter itself. Plus about $200 into the processor.

 

[hheynow]

I saw that, pretty neat idea. So far we dont have $500 into the entire opperation though. and I hope we don't ever. Ima buy 2 nipples, 2 valves and some clear hose tonight, and I got $8 into the filter itself. Plus about $200 into the processor.

BUT IT DOESN'T FILTER YOUR OIL!

 

[MudHog]

He'll never spend that much money on that item.. Your beating a dead horse right there. Budget and Quick are the key features on this setup.

 

[bct]

He'll never spend that much money on that item.. Your beating a dead horse right there. Budget and Quick are the key features on this setup.

Muddys right. Im usein the cash i should spend on my next fillup to make this fly

I went for a walk around the shop (I work in a sheetmetal shop) and found a 70 gallon tub. should do the trick nicely. Mount the filter in it like I did with the cone setup and punch a hole on the inside and set it on top of the big storeage tank i have. again, further down the road for a couple bux in fittings I may still have too heat the opperation arround the filter, but I dont think its gotta be boiling as I'll use the storeage tank for sitting/seperation.

 

[MudHog]

You don't have to boil the oil at any point until you want to wash it. Your only heating the oil slightly to help it flow. You could probably get away with a piece of copper tubing and make a coil inside the tub, then put a little propane fire at the end. Let that circulate heat inside the tub to heat up the dirty oil. You seem to be fighting thick oil and instead of heating it up you want to go to large nozzles. Larger nozzles won't solve your problem, your only letting out larger blobs of solidifying oil.

 

[bct]

Not really larger nozels, just larger holding tanks before and after the filter. It can take forever (day or so), but I dont wanna feed the thing every 3 hours.

 

[MudHog]

I'm sorry, but I'm still going to argue the idea of heating the oil enough to where it's flowing smoother. Even if you leave it sit, it will continue to cool and continue to solidify. So you may start the system and leave it alone, next day you may come check it and find out that nothing is coming out the nozzle and it's still 3/4 the way full in the first tank.

If you would only be working with a few gallons, it isn't a big deal as your not taking long to empty the oil out. The larger the tank, the larger the surface area is there for heat transfer and for cooling on the oil.

Another idea of heating is to circulate hot water through tubes in the first tank. You can have if fixed inside the tank to where it stays in there and lives there. Then you get home hook up a couple circutlating hoses and your done deal. Then it's a matter or maybe using a hot water heater to heat your water and a small bilge pump (preferably with metal internals to prevent meltage) to circulate the water. I wouldn't think your have to continue to supply water to the tank, just make a closed circulation loop.

Come on now Mr. Engineer Field person. Think about these things.

 

[bct]

Come on now Mr. Engineer Field person. Think about these things.

Somethin told me I'd regret that comment..........

Im not discrediting the idea of heat. I just dont want to do it if I can avoid it. The heating coil is a great idea, but if heats needed I would guess a small heat element by the filter would cut it.

 

[MudHog]

How thick is the oil when yall bring it home? Your having troubles right now, what will you do further in the year when it does get "cooler"? Worry about a heating unit then? Why not worry about it now and be finished with it and have smoother fluid oil throughout the whole time you have cool weather. You will be at your house, so no need to worry about being portable.