I have been testing an Acme juicerator, an old juicer that I bought on ebay for $15. They come up there often, I bought 4 for testing different mods (possibly destructive.) You get the 3600 rpm motor, a balanced stainless steel rotor, and a housing included. It requires a few easy mods to make it work. It has removed a 1/4" thick layer of black goo from my first 3 - 5 gallon test batches. I am still in early testing so haven't done any suspended water tests, but it should remove it similar to any CF with the same size rotor and speed. Here is the full rig:



The top blue barrel gravity feeds through a faucet that I use to control the flow rate. The pipe and hose are wrapped with heat tape cable which provides a little heat to make it seperate better. This goes into the red plastic plunger which I drilled out to thread the garden hose in. I painted the rotor with rustoleum enamel paint inside and out. This is bubbling a little already due to the force, and I will probably do it with epoxy resin now that I have proven it works (edit-the epoxy resin is working good.) Here is the rotor before paint:


My first tests were with it ratchet strapped down on top of a barrel, and it vibrated too much after it got a good layer of goo. So much vibrating that it made my feed hose come loose and spilled some VO, lucky I was outside. It did remove a large amount of black goo. So then I bolted it down to the top of a barrel using the 4 existing bolt holes and 3" pieces of all-thread into the metal bottom of the juicer: (edit- I learned after more experimenting- don't strap it or bolt it, leave it loose, the magic red foam feet stop vibrating best. When its not attached, you may need to hold it while speeding up and slowing down to prevent it walking away. You need to get it very level to prevent vibration.)


This still vibrated too much when full sometimes, it felt like it would tip the empty barrel or break itself. So I drilled 2 equally spaced small holes in the top of the rotor so it holds less VO when full:


This did the trick, it runs smooth, and appears to be working great. More testing to come, I will run it on the same VO as my Dieselcraft to compare speed and water and particle removal. I think I made the holes in the rotor too low, so it doesn't hold enough VO now, so my next tests I will start with the holes right near the center, then test and if it still vibrates, try new holes slightly lower, etc.

You have to run the VO very slowly through it for the best goo removal. I am starting with is a 5gph rate since the rotor is about the same size as the Bud and simplecentrifuge designs, and the motor speed is the same. Thats much slower than my Dieselcraft CF, but it was cheap and I can run it (or even 2 of them) at the same time to get even more processed.

The water and goo stays in the rotor when you are done. You unscrew the knurled nut in the center to remove the rotor if you want, but thats not needed for cleaning. I just remove the top, take the whole juicer and flip it over into my "old wet and goopy" barrel. Then wipe with a plastic spatula, then a rag.

It has an interesting (patented) feature, the metal disk shredder part in the center is about 1/8" thick and floats up and down, spring loaded, to provide better balance. The rotor is 7" in diameter, 3600rpm, producing a g force of 1289g. Many of the 5001 and 6001 model# parts are interchangeable, the difference is the top part is stainless on the 6001 models instead of very hard plastic on the 5001.

One warning to all you mad scientists out there, be ready for some vibration! I wouldn't just set this on my kitchen counter and test it unless you want what im6under called an "oil van gogh". A rotor of this diameter when it starts to vibrate seems dangerous. The rotor mass is a lot less than a CF made from a solid block of aluminum, or a propane tank, or a pressure cooker, but beware! I would not leave this thing unattended for very long until after much more testing. The Dieselcraft CF seems much safer, I leave it unattended all the time and I have never had it start to vibrate much, no matter how much goo builds up, and I have run it at least 100 hours so far.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: SunWizard,

Sunwizard- It is great to see these experiments. Excuse my ingnorance - I presume that the paint was to seal the perforations in the basket Y/N ?

Correct, that was just the quickest, cheapest thing I had around to seal the rotor perforations.

Looks great. Thanks for doing all the dirty work and sharing your results. I am looking at garage sales for a jucier to experiment with.

Thanks

Peter

There is one on ebay right now with a $35 buy it now, which may be as cheap as you can find them there now that I posted this

Other brands of juicers don't come close to the size and quality of these old acme juicers. New they are $175- $200 on ebay, but the new ones don't look as good quality as the old ones.

I have one of these juicers. They actually sell paper inserts for the mesh bowls to make cleaning of veg/fruit rinds much easier. They may work well with veg crud as well.

Those inserts might work for particles, but one of the big advantages of a centrifuge that you would lose is dewatering.

quote:

Originally posted by SunWizard:
Those inserts might work for particles, but one of the big advantages of a centrifuge that you would lose is dewatering.

for ease of covering the holes you could take one of those filters and spray paint it or something like that.

Sun,

You never cease to amaze me.

It sounded like you had a lot of goop removed...I hate to ask this, but did you get more goop out of 5 gallons of oil than you would expect to find after running 5 gallons through the DieselCraft?

Sam

What a great experiment!

It will be interesting to see how much settled oil you can process

I just scored one off of Ebay for 48.50 with shipping and all. It's an omega, which looks just like the acme, and I suspect is a knockoff-but apparently people think highly of them also. It's higher than I expected to pay, but I think it is still a good deal. I think that I might try an idea that combines two mentioned ideas from here. I'll put a strip of paper around the outside being careful not to overlap it and cause a heavy spot. Then I'll paint it from the inside. The paper will solely function to ensure that the paint doesn't just drip through the holes, and form littler holes.

SunWizard-Did you use spray paint or did you brush on a thicker paint? I'm sure I could just get some epoxy, but I've got loads of paint already.

I used a brush with thick enamel paint, inside and out. It is already failing due to the extreme pressure of the VO, so I recommend the fiberglass resin with hardener, that is what I am going to try today.

Its hard to judge the amount of goo to compare since I have never run as little as 5 gallons through the Dieselcraft. It is removing a lot of goo, but at a very slow rate, so that is what I would like to compare is the overall rate. I will do this soon as I get the rotor sealed up good, since I want to test water removal as well. It looks promising, but slow, which is OK if its cheap and easy.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: SunWizard,

oh great! now the juicer market on e-bay is going to suffer from huge inflated prices!

good testing, great idea, I love it!

Thanks for your research. I was [planning on purchasing a "simplecentrifuge"(www.simplecentrifuge.com) until I read your post.One concern would be the longetivity of the motor, as I don't think it was designed for continuous running.I'm planning a yearlong trip and want to process oil enroute. Mike

Motor longevity is probably a valid concern. I wonder if drilling extra vent holes in the casing would be a good idea.

I have run it continously for 3 hours in the sun and it didn't get too hot. Mildly hot to the touch, it has a large airflow through it. These things are very well built. The bearings may wear out eventually but these are so cheap, thats no big deal.

I don't think it would be very good for use in a moving vehicle just because of the large rotor and the gyroscopic forces created by that. The Dieselcraft is best for that, it has huge bearing surfaces designed for moving use, and a small rotor.

SW, I don't plan to process WVO while moving. I have an 87 Ford f250 with an 8'cabover camper. I plan to use the toilet blackwater holding tank for storing collected WVO. I'll probably run a coolant heater through it and weld a bracket onto the back bumper for attaching the centrifuge. I'm attracted to the juicer centrifuge because of its price and compactness. I just hope it will last for a yearlong 20,000mi journey.I thought the dieselcraft might be too big.
Thanks, mike

I just used the fiberglass epoxy resin with hardener from an auto parts store on another rotor, and it worked great. I didn't use the fiberglass mat which is another option. Painted it on the inside and out, and it hardens in about an hour ready to use. It made a better seal than paint (which took 2 coats and still failed) and this stuff is tough. I think this will be able to take the 1300g of force, as well as the repeated scraping of the goo off the inside. More testing to come...

wondering how the epoxy is holding up and if any other test results with the juicer.

hopefully its proving to be an effective filter option.

mark