quote:

Originally posted by glassice:
I hooked up my dc-CF after a year .Using 1/4 HP 1750 motor.power steering pump black drum ,1 ea. 110 hot water heater element ,thermostat set at 190 on the side of drum ,ball vale after relief vale before CF so can stop CF and catch the oil ( did that 3 times evey 2 HR.) ran for 6 hr all i got was a few black spots and about a dime sides of clear snot ,no steam what am i doing wrong i have over 2000 GA of oil to do and use 75Ga of diesel a week . Oil was 190+ 35ga of oil in drum

It sounds like your VO may already be very clean since you have settled it. And it may have no water, have you done a hot pan test on it?

If its a small amount of water, it all stays in the rotor and there will be no steam at all. If there is any steam its very hard to see, and if its hot outside you can't see it. The hot pan test is the only way to tell if you have water, and then after the CF, do it again to see if its removed.

One good way to tell how fast the CF is spinning, how long does it take after you shut off the pump until it stops spinning? Mine takes 2 minutes.

Exactly. What Sun said - sounds like you have some clean oil. If it is see through in the tubes and just a golden brown, then it's probably clean. To be 100% sure, I run my oil through a 2um CAT filter into my storage barrel.

Definately do the Hot Pan Test (HPT). Basically, you put a thin layer of oil in a pan and heat it up at a moderate rate. If it pops, it has lots of water, if it forms bubbles on the pan, it has some water. If it just heats up without bubbling or popping until it starts smoking, then you have no real water present. (at least that is my understanding of the HPT)

quote:

Originally posted by Paul Drayton:
Definately do the Hot Pan Test (HPT). Basically, you put a thin layer of oil in a pan and heat it up at a moderate rate. If it pops, it has lots of water, if it forms bubbles on the pan, it has some water. If it just heats up without bubbling or popping until it starts smoking, then you have no real water present. (at least that is my understanding of the HPT)

No thats not the correct test. The pan has to be the proper heat before you pour the VO in. And you see the results in a few seconds. Do a search on it, I explain the proper method in this thread and its described in many other places too.

Update:

Well, I ran my first partial tests today. Here is a video of my first run this morning.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-p70rSiEaHw

I apologize for the low-res video. I can have a better one up later. The one thing you can tell right away though is how quiet it is! You can hear the oil dripping louder than either the CF or the pump! This was my first run. After I stopped and cleaned out the rotor a couple of times it seemed to get louder, but still pretty quiet.

I bring this up because many of you have said how loud your setup was.

The other information I have is that I figured out what kind of pump I have. It's details can be seen here.

http://www.grainger.com/Grainger/wwg/productIndex.shtml

As you can see it has a high gpm flow, but I have it geared way down to 1.5:5. This turns really slow but I have no problem getting 90psi. I keep it at about 86-88 just to be on the safe side.

The question I have is that I wonder if I don't have it geared down too far? It's nice to have the pump turning so slowly, because noise is not an issue, but am I losing any efficacy because of it? I have the proper pressure, do I need more flow?

I have cleaned off a fine silt of black off of the rotor every 2-3 hours today. Initial pan tests prove promising. I tested a few samples that came directly off of the CF - not out of the barrel. The concern I have is that it seems like oil is little more than trickling out of the CF. Is that normal? How much flow out of the CF should I expect? I feel like it would take me forever to clean a whole 20-30 gal at this rate... but that's only based on feel. I haven't yet tested how much flow is coming out of the CF yet. I also haven't tested oil out of the barrell yet.

Here are some pics:

I have a 4500 w 220 v hot water element, I start the pump up then plug in the heater to 220. I haven't seen any poly. on the element. My pump puts out about 2.5 gpm, so I think that the flow keeps me from having trouble.

Nice looking rig you built, thats quite a structure. The only problem I see is you will get water trapped in the bottom of the barrel which can keep you from ever getting all the water out. This is why its important to have the CF suck from the very lowest point in a tilted barrel, or use a cone bottom tank.

quote:

Originally posted by veggiecar300:
The question I have is that I wonder if I don't have it geared down too far? It's nice to have the pump turning so slowly, because noise is not an issue, but am I losing any efficacy because of it? I have the proper pressure, do I need more flow?

It should be more than dripping. Catch the output in a gallon jug and time it, you should have 1gpm. If not, your jets are probably clogged, see if VO is dripping from them at shutdown.

Thanks for that info Diesel Steve.

I dont suppose you know what the Watt density is.

Probably something like 150W per square inch or 75W per square inch.

I have just been given a tip by Rick at http://b100supply.com/

Rick mentioned the recomended Watt density for Vegeoil heating elements is about 20W per square inch.

Rick suggested I bolt a metal plate to the element (like cooling fins) to increase the total surface area and hence lower the total Watt per square inch.

Seems like a great idea! Any thoughts?

Regards,
Hamish

quote:

Originally posted by Diesel Steve:
I have a 4500 w 220 v hot water element, I start the pump up then plug in the heater to 220. I haven't seen any poly. on the element. My pump puts out about 2.5 gpm, so I think that the flow keeps me from having trouble.

Thats good info to know, since it means if you have good flow across it you can use almost any element you can find with no problem. Thats 4x the watt density of my elements.

quote:

Originally posted by Hamish Gale:
Rick mentioned the recomended Watt density for Vegeoil heating elements is about 20W per square inch.

Rick suggested I bolt a metal plate to the element (like cooling fins) to increase the total surface area and hence lower the total Watt per square inch.

Seems like a great idea! Any thoughts?

The 20w figure he is giving is for no flow across it. Not needed as long as you have flow across the element. Put any bypass and pressure relief after the element, as on my rig. Steve's results show this. His is a 15" element with 4500watts.

It must be good oil did before and after pan test a few small bubbles. the coating on the rotor flack off now cant see the Mark to line up

quote:

Originally posted by glassice:
It must be good oil did before and after pan test a few small bubbles. the coating on the rotor flack off now cant see the Mark to line up

The marks to line mine up are etched into the metal, so they are easy to see even with no coating. Have they changed how they mark it?

on the bottom it is quite deep the top look like it was just scratch . will move tell it run with the lease noses

Hamish,

SunWizard is right, If you have a good flow past the element the typical water heater element with 200 watts per square in is usable. Just make sure you wire it such that if you pump stops pumping, the element stops heating.

Does anyone have pictures of their mobile CF rigs? We want to set one up on the outside of our bus (covered of course) so we can collect and filter while driving.

I'm currently on the road making a trek from New York City to Los Angeles. I have a mobile centrifuge rig setup in my trailer and have the Vegistroke system installed in my shuttle bus. I just bought a box of ten Donaldson filters (same as the original) and I've gone through three of them already and have only gone 550 miles. I've put about 8,000 miles on the bus already and have got anywhere from 500 - 2000 miles to a filter. I'm at a total loss as to why I'm averaging 180 miles to a filter. Does anyone have any suggestions? I'm sucking the oil out of my barrel into the tank with a 100 micron filter. Should I be using a finer filter to transfer? I don't know when I'll have internet again, but any input would be much appreciated. Thanks!

quote:

Originally posted by doawaywithme:
I'm currently on the road making a trek from New York City to Los Angeles. I have a mobile centrifuge rig setup in my trailer and have the Vegistroke system installed in my shuttle bus. Should I be using a finer filter to transfer? I don't know when I'll have internet again, but any input would be much appreciated. Thanks!

Doaway,

I might have an idea. First, I assume you are putting clean centrifuged oil in your fuel tank, and you don't have any polymerization issues...

Vegistroke uses a heated wrap on the filter, if that is plugged in, it gets way too hot this time of year and will cook the oil in the filter, forming carbon deposits. Just unplug it when you change your filter.

Sam

quote:

Vegistroke uses a heated wrap on the filter, if that is plugged in, it gets way too hot this time of year and will cook the oil in the filter, forming carbon deposits. Just unplug it when you change your filter.

I do not think that the Vegistroke filter heater can get the oil anywhere near that hot. I do not advise unhooking it. I suspect that you are simply not getting sufficient particulate or water removal using the dieselcraft. Are you certain that you are getting the pressure and flow required and making enough passes with the wvo to thoroughly clean the wvo?

I agree with Dana. We need more details about how you run your CF to help decide what the problem might be. What micron rating are your donaldson filters?

I have 6000 miles on my current truck filter with no signs of plugging yet. I run the CF at 90psi, 160F for 4 passes, and do a hot pan test on each batch even though I get no bubbles each time.

quote:

Originally posted by danalinscott:
I do not think that the Vegistroke filter heater can get the oil anywhere near that hot. I do not advise unhooking it.

I guess I was a bit coy. I arrived at my suggestion out of experience. My engine is hot enough this time of year without the wrap. Since I don't know what engine/VO heat Doaway has I'd recommend he call Jason.

I went to a reunion in New Mexico when my filter plugged, I was surprised, the insulation around my filter/wrap was cooked.

Sam

I run the vegistroke system and I don't have any problems with plugging up filters (I drive 60 miles round trip to work and back). I keep the heat strap on, and 100% sure Jason from Vegistroke does too. I was with him one time collecting oil; Jason is so confident about that Donaldson on the vegistroke system that when we came across an oil vat it had such clean oil we put it directly into his tank.

For one I don't use crappy "milk shake" oil to start with. I have learned that the CF is pretty forgiving of fairly good size particles; I have used a window screen in the past to put oil into the CF oil batch for cleaning, now I use a T-shirt. This isn't rocket science. All I do is what Sun recommended. Run for 1 hour clean run for a few hours clean then I have the oil go through a Donaldson filter to my truck. I use 2 heating elements, once the entire batch is warm from the first pass I go to one. My current motor and pump is producing between 60 and 70psi. Eventually I'll try to get this higher.