Finding the limits of my centrifuge and the sweet spot

Mt_Man

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@Daddy Tanuki Very cool! Welcome to the board, there is a lot of great info and people here. Have you checked out usfiltermaxx's making black diesel writeup? https://usfiltermaxx.com/en/content/9-make-black-diesel I found it helpful years ago. You centrifuging your wmo before you burn in a boiler/furnace will help greatly for ash build up. There are several out here in the USA that have modified the old oil burning stoves(like a wood stove just runs on diesel) to run on wmo also with good results. Let me know if you want some links for anything.

I have been thinking of getting his 10000g unit to try out. Please do a write up when you get a chance and keep us in the loop of your progress. It would be nice to just be running one machine vs. the three I have going now. I will post up a pictures of my current setup configuration to update this thread.

Here is some tips. 2 tank system for pretty much everything burning wmo is the best way to go. For example, truck and generator, start/shutdown on diesel and once warm switch to wmo. I read an USA Army study about burning wmo in generators to dispose of used engine oil in combat. They found that diesel generators need 55% load or greater to keep burning clean. Less load resulted in cylinder glazing, blow-by, and increased oil consumption. This also applies to trucks idling for long periods. If you idle for long periods, bring the idle up to 1000rpm, this increases the EGT's and decreases carbon buildup. Long trips are better then short, stop and go traffic is less ideal. I would do preheat system for the boiler system too. Unless you want to blend everything.

Blending is essentially trying to get the viscosity down to diesel and also the autoignition temperature. I look at the SDS sheets for the products and look at the burning quality. Easy way to do it in the field is to take a paper towel and put some oil on it and light oil part with a lighter. Look for how easy it lights, color of smoke, and how much smoke. If it lights easy then probably burn easy in an engine. The opposite is true; difficult to light, goes out, lots of smoke are all not good signs. Piston engines tend to be more flexible with synthetic oils then some oil furnaces or boiler. Preheating is key in both applications. Diesel engines can only heat the air so much with compression. So if the oil is thick and cold it may not be enough to burn. Preheating the fuel helps decrease the energy required to autoignition. This is very true in the furnace and boiler combustion camber. The ignitor is the only thing providing heat to light. True it is lighting and not compression ignition in nature. The oil has to be warm enough to burn, diesel burn easy compared to straight wmo. There was a guy who did a great write-up on how to convert a home oil furnace to burning straight wmo. He put it on youtube too.

Sources are key. I would check out the marina or airport and see if they have any used fuels or oils. Around here its an easy way to get old gas or fuels. Be clean when collecting and cultivate a good relationship with the shops or individuals.

Hope this helps!
 

Daddy Tanuki

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well i managed to get some totes, so I am now setting up the centrifuge and collection points for cleaned and sludge. attached are some photos of in progress. I am too old to be moving stuff this heavy by hand had to enllist the forklift's help.

I will be blending for the trucks use. for the boiler my oil burner already has a preheater, and the plan is to add heating pads to the primary tank as well so that it flows easy.

I have heard 90/10 and 80/20 mixes for vehicle fuel use, but not what engines are copacetic with using waste oil. my truck does not have a cat or DEP but it is HEUI injector. has anybody heard of any issues with this as long as the fuel is properly centrifuged first?

I honestly do not know how much oil i will use in the house burner/boiler until it is up and operating. that was primary reason for the centrifuge. Truck, genset and logsplitter will all be secondary, but obviously i do not want to damage the truck. I am willing to blend the WMO with gasoline, or even diesel in any concentrations.... i was considering a 10/40/50 mix (RUG/WMO/Diesel) initially to see how the truck ran on it and then going down as I experimented.

i was thinking with 60% by volume not being WMO that it should not have an issue at all. I jsut cannot afford to be stranded on the japanese road system. getting a wrecker that can pull an F350 dually puts me int he large truck class which means tractor trailer wreckers and they are not cheap.

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assembled and moving to final location.
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final resting spot. transformer is for the heater as its 120 and i want to keep both legs of my inverters as balanced as possible so its a 240 split phase to 120 stepdown transformer.

pictures of boiler build you can see shop in background, cabin and shop are full 100% solar powered. hopefully Truck will end up 80-90% WMO powered at my age the 7.3 will outlast me hopefully.


truck at primary house

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Mt_Man

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Looks great and clean set up. Your off to a great start with the centrifuge, especially the 10000g unit. First is filter filter filter. Are you planning to do a two(2) tank system? Start and stop on diesel and once warm switch to wmo/blend? Similar to the straight veggie oil guy are using(fuel heater, dedicated fuel filter, dedicated lift pump)? Almost everything they do can be applied to the wmo fuel. I would highly recommend it. First it would give you an ability to switch to diesel if your wmo fuel was contaminated for any reason. Second it keeps the injectors from developing known coking issues. Water methanol might be worth looking into to help with coking. This guy is in Canada and has some great videos on his veggie oil setup for his Detroit swapped super duty. He talks about his filter setup in this video.
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I do just a single tank(need to get to setting my truck up with 2 tank). I think the best is a fuel heater for wmo. I know that the truck runs really good after three hours of driving and the fuel tank is warm from all the returned fuel from the injection system. If you blend with gas definitely watch the fuel temperature, gas will boil at 80f or something. Do not want it to developed bubbles in the fuel system. I keep my idling down to a minimum. Luckily your ford will go to 1000rpm if it sits running for a while. This will get the EGT's up and give you a cleaner burn. I use a stick between the throttle and seat to get to 1000 rpm haha. Changing your oil more frequent is common practice also with alternative fuels. Bypass oil filter might be a good idea too.

https://www.oilburners.net/threads/sludge-water-and-oil-seperator-for-ibc-tote.88591/#post-1075859 this could be handy to make sure any water or easily settled sludge get removed before centrifuging.

Let me know if you want more links or videos.
 

Daddy Tanuki

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https://www.oilburners.net/threads/sludge-water-and-oil-seperator-for-ibc-tote.88591/#post-1075859 this could be handy to make sure any water or easily settled sludge get removed before centrifuging.

Let me know if you want more links or videos.
I will take as much information as you could kindly send my way. the centrifuge and the oil burning heater were about 8k shipped to me total. that was specifically for boiling water for heating house. I want to burn excess in truck if possible so any info is greatly appreciated
 

Daddy Tanuki

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Hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving! Not sure where to start. @Daddy Tanuki What do you want to start researching?
I am thinking of starting and info thread.
Merry Christmas to all, sorry work has kept me busy. just completed 1000 liters of waste oil through the centrifuge. my plan was to dilute the WMO but the questions that pop up were what ratios?

I had seen recommendations of 80% WMO 20 % gasoline but not sure that I like the idea of using gasoline. I thought of simply cutting the WMO with 30 or 40% diesel what are your thoughts on that?

does anybody have any info on "coking" of injectors or other injector issues with the HEUI styled injectors?

if going with water injection to help prevent coking, are you doing it pre turbo or post turbo?
 

bbjordan

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Merry Christmas. I used a ratio of 80% WMO, 15% RUG, and 5% biodiesel. The biodiesel was mostly as a cetane booster. It worked pretty good, but it would still coke the single shot HEUI injectors, if it was not running hot/under load. Later, I mixed the 80/15/5 cocktail 50/50 with diesel to try to limit the coking. I also tried it with split shot injectors. The split shot injectors on the T444E did not like it. The IDI loved it.

If you are using water injection, I would suggest downstream of the turbo to prevent erosion of the impeller wheel.
 

kbenz

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cutting it with rug will get you to the viscosity of diesel. Cutting with diesel you never will and is counterproductive
 

Daddy Tanuki

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cutting it with rug will get you to the viscosity of diesel. Cutting with diesel you never will and is counterproductive
i was considering 80/20 WMO/diesel and then cuting that 50/50 not for thinning purposes per se but to help limit coking on the injectors. and ideas about that? also anybody got a good way to estimate how much gasoline is mixed with oil? Let me elaborate. a local hazmat operation got in 2000 gallons of WMO mixed with gasoline it came from a tanker hauling WMO from the ships where they accidentally dumped in an unknown quantity of gasoline from a tanker, tank cleaning evolution. its pretty thin, but not as thin as gas. any body know of a viscosity gauge that might help me estimate?

they will give it to me for free, but I am afraid to accept it without a rough idea of how much gasoline is in the oil.
 

Mt_Man

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@Daddy Tanuki sorry it took me so long to response. I would snag that gas mix up in a heart beat! if it is to thin then just blend some of you wmo into it till you get what you like. You could check the specific gravity or like oil and then gas and average the sample of the blend to get an idea of how much gas it has in it. Hydrometers are what we use here.
API is another measurement we use. There is a little paper calculator that will take the reading value and temp and give you an API. Most fuels have a value, but also list the specific gravity.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/API_gravity
I have heard big ships are limited to 5% gas max so if unknow then they would have to reject. Fire hazard. No heat required for fuging when blending with gas prior to fuging. A simple paint cup or visco cup would tell you the viscosity at a temperature. But I just check it against a sample of gas and diesel. Using diesel as a base line of course.
https://www.oilburners.net/threads/why-80-wmo-and-20-gasoline.91266/#post-1102127
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I would look into fuel heater. That would help the most for coking or just run a think wmo blend. 7.3s I hear do really well on wmo.
 

Mt_Man

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Found out that my setup works way better at less than 3gph. If I am above that then I get a bunch out on the second pass. 2.5-3gph is where I am running right now and am seeing a significant difference between the first and second passes sludge removal.
 

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