The vibration is caused by the top bushings top surface being dented. If you bang the rotor on a table to open it sometime the busing is damaged.

Send the rotor to Dieselcraft and we will re mark it and fix the vibration issue.

Send to Attn John
Dieselcraft/ Magnum Group
4041 Grass Valley Hwy
Auburn CA 95602

Make sure you have a return address in the package plus $10 to help cover the return postage.

Thank you Mr. Dieselcraft. I am amazed at the prompt customer service that you provide. I will send it to you within the next couple of days.

Am I risking any further damage to the unit if I find that I need to run it for a couple of more hours before sending it to you?


Thanks,

David

No problem in running a few more hours.

Thanks

Johb

quote:

Originally posted by veggiecar300:
I definitely only turn it on when oil is running. My heater is horizontal.

So far so good, I am only heating for a half hour or so to bring temp up. It's hot out anyway, so there isn't a lot of heat lost for now.

BUT, I will put in the long heaters that Sun recommends. I'll have to do some redesigning though. I'm not sure how I can do it without totally starting over. Maybe I'll try using the heater I have with a blanket heater and turning off sooner... it seems like some of you are successful with that setup (?)

I'd like to check out a strainer too.

UPDATE: So far so good. I've gotten two batches of VO through since taking it apart - but still one time I had to run oil through without the rotor to unclog some more black bits.

I have a working theory, maybe you guys with more gearhead experience can help me with it.

Burning requires oxygen or air right? So there really shouldn't be any burned flakes if the heating element is always completely submerged - right? Even though I'm pretty careful about turning off the heater before I turn off the pump, it still has to be very hot and capable of burning things.

So, now I've taken to turning off the heater about a half hour before turning off the pump - giving the element a chance to cool down.

This theory doesn't explain why VeggieGuy says he's had burnt flakes on his element submerged at the bottom of his barrel. Maybe theres a little air bubbles in his oil?

This also makes me wonder about the car. Of course my engine and IP have to be hotter than the heating element in my CF setup right? So why isn't that black stuff clogging up my IP and engine and everything??

quote:

Originally posted by veggiecar300:
Burning requires oxygen or air right?

Wrong, thermal poly is the term for what causes deposits on the elements. This requires no air and isn't burning.

quote:

So, now I've taken to turning off the heater about a half hour before turning off the pump - giving the element a chance to cool down.

Not needed with the proper elements, I have turned my pump and elements off many thousands of times at the same time, with no deposit troubles.

quote:

This also makes me wonder about the car. Of course my engine and IP have to be hotter than the heating element in my CF setup right? So why isn't that black stuff clogging up my IP and engine and everything??

No, the short (wrong) elements get up to >500F on the surface, far hotter than your IP or other parts with fuel in them.

quote:

Originally posted by veggiecar300:
This theory doesn't explain why VeggieGuy says he's had burnt flakes on his element submerged at the bottom of his barrel.

This is probably due to no flow across the element. A big advantage of inline heaters is constant high flow across the element.

Hi guys,

Originally posted by veggiecar300:

"This theory doesn't explain why VeggieGuy says he's had burnt flakes on his element submerged at the bottom of his barrel"

Sun's response:

"This is probably due to no flow across the element. A big advantage of inline heaters is constant high flow across the element."

Sun and Veggiecar, I don't believe that you are clear on what we did. I want to respond to your understanding of our experiment. Flakes grew on a piece of 4' black iron pipe that we simply placed in the CF barrel. There was no heating device in the vicinity and the oil flowed slowly across the pipe

Here is the explanation of the experiment that I gave previously:

"The experiment was to put a length of black iron in hot circulating oil with no light and no air. I still have the pipe whose exterior looks "bearded" with a thorough covering of these black flakes. Our thought is that each material which we have had in contact in some way or another with veggie oil - bronze, galvanized, and black iron create different types of agglomerations in the CF environment. And that these are unavoidable. We just try to be sure that they get contained and do not end up in the final product."

Let me know and I can take a picture of the pipe so you can see the flakes. Also, we do get a minimal amount of agglomerations on the elements themselves. These seem to separate from the elements which do not gloop up at all. I am guessing that the elements clean themselves by shedding and the flakes, or agglomerations, are cleaned through the CF. Hope that this helps at least a bit.

Michael

here is a link to my mobile CF design. im in the planning stages and looking for comments or concerns.

Mobile CF Setup

Based on many reviews on this thread, I am currently using the Spinner II centrifuges. Great quality, and they are working brilliantly. I use the fuges in parallel for filtering and dewatering before high temp acid esterification. Eaton gear pump, plenty of flow (15.9 gpm) to add on more fuges in the future.

Centrifuge Setup

Those gearpumps are always noisy! I have a couple like that and they make the exact same sound yours does. At least I know know it's not that mine are just shot.
I think it's a great idea to use the one pump for the 2 CF's as you have done.

You have given me a truly frightening idea with the IBC your using. I have one that has no valve on the bottom and I was wondering what to do with it. If I cut the top off I could easy block the bottom drain and then I could use it for a filtering/ drying tank instead of the 205L drum I have now.

Hmmm, that would be serious production!

caseyboy I really like your set up, the idea you came up with for allowing the oil to come out of both sides of the metal sheet was great. I can see that it increases the surface area of the oil allowing it to air dry more.
Just wanted to so thank you for everyone that has posted great information about their systems. I just ordered my Dieselcraft and pump so I’ll let you know how it works out.

I concur, this thread should be nominated for thread of the year

Once you get your fuge process setup, it's really an easy and low maintenance operation. I'm still hesistant to leave it run unattended (overnight), for fear that I could lose alot of oil from one loose connection or some kind of problem with the fuge. So far, no incidents, but I'm still cautious with the process.

anyone have any experience letting this process run unattended?

quote:

Originally posted by caseyboy:
anyone have any experience letting this process run unattended?

Hi Caseyboy,

I run mine unattended for as much as 24 hours, and then the attendance is for cleaning the rotors.

My whole idea was to build a "set it and forget it" system, I have steel braided hose between the pump and the centrifuges, and temp controller keeping adding heat when needed.

Sam

quote:

Originally posted by caseyboy:
anyone have any experience letting this process run unattended?

Mine always runs unattended for >3 years without a single problem.

has anyone used paper lining inside the rotor to ease in cleanup? I stumbled on this method on a website of tips, and have been using it ever since. works great, no more scraping gunk.

quote:

Originally posted by Road Runner:
has anyone used paper lining inside the rotor to ease in cleanup? I stumbled on this method on a website of tips, and have been using it ever since. works great, no more scraping gunk.

We have used the filter liners that are used in Acme juicers. They are just the right size to go inside the rotor. It did make cleaning easier. However, Sun (or someone) suggested soaking in hot water with a bit of detergent after scraping and that works very well. So we do not use the liners any more as they are not necessary. It takes us about 10 minutes to clean a rotor including disassembly, scraping, cleaning after soaking, and reassembling. (This 10 – 15 minutes does not include the soaking time.)

A related tip: We found it best not to soak the gasket with the other parts of the rotor as the gasket can expand a bit and make it harder to reassemble.

P.S. For the first time since we started years ago, Tuesday of this week we left the system unattended for the day based on some recent posts that gave us the courage. No issues at all.

Again thanks to all

Just wanted to say thank you again for everyones help with the Dieselcraft system. I finally have mine set up and it’s working great.
I also wanted to tell everyone about the pressure relief valve that I found at grainger. Item # 1X624 cost $22.20. It is very small and adjustable with a ½ in opening and exit. You can place a nipple on it, and plumb it back it the drum or pump.
The only downside is that the temperature rating is 0-180 degrees.

Using paper lining inside the rotor.

Hello from Sweden.
I have used papaer lining in two different models of CF's for several months. I cut ordinarie copypaper with lenght exactly the circumstance of the rotor inside, and put a small piece of tape to hold it steady until rotor starts rotating.
Works fine for me, without vibration or any other problems. Makes cleaning much easier.

All the best!

My first post on the epic thread.

After 3 years and 55k miles of filtering the old school way (Mostly Dana heat and settle, then recently John Galt cold upflow) I decided to join the ranks of a centrifuge user. I bought a 1/2 HP motor coupled to an oberdorfer N993R pump (ALOT of flow) off of ebay and just bought a OC-20 off of ebay as well. So far I only have a bit over $300 into it all.

I have the pump and motor and am awaiting the OC20. I know I will have to bypass alot as the flow is going to be somewhere in the range of 4-8 GPM with the N993R, but I got it cheap and figured I could always upgrade to a bigger or more centrifuges in the future.

I haven't started assembling yet, but am going to try and get it up and running by this weekend (assuming the fuge gets here in the next 3 days). I'm copying Sun's setup almost exclusively. About the only change is I'm going to have 1 inline heater and 1 barrel heater (as I already have it on hand for my old school filtering). I'm having trouble finding a closed-top steel barrel to turn upside down and use the bungs, so I may just have to bang down the bottom of an open top one (have on hand) and weld in a fitting.

I've kept up with this thread (and believe it or not read through the whole thing a COUPLE times over the years) so I feel pretty confident in setting it up. About the only thing I'm concerned about is making sure the bung on the barrel is sealed and that the inline heater is sealed. I'll look at the hardware stores for the washers Sun recommends.

I'm hoping to only spend about another $100 in parts...we'll see.

I'll keep you updated on the progress.

I plan on draining from the lowest point in the barrel with a slope down to the pump and using iron pipe for everything. I am also thinking of having a return/bypass both to the barrel and back inline before the pump, but we will see how it goes as I have a lot of oil to bypass with only 1 OC20 hooked up to the N993R.

My Oberdorfer is a N993R. The R indicates that it has its own internal relief valve. I am planning on having a bypass for the extra oil, but do I still need to add a relief valve since the pump has its own?

I'm thinking yes, but I wanted to check.