Messin around in the shop the other day came up with an idea for a cheap centrifuge. Took an old 1/2" router, router bit with the cutter removed this leaves just the shaft with the threaded end. Picked up a 3" pvc cap for $2.58 at lowes. Sliced a small 1/4" piece of 3" pvc pipe for the rim and cemented it inside the cap. Found the center of the cap and drilled a 5/16" hole to accept the router bit shaft. Bottom of cap must be flattened so that it sits right. J B welded fender washers inside and out on the cap. Installed it into a bucket with a drain. This has to be used with a router speed control on slow (about 5000-7000 rpm's) or will result in injury.... this router is 25,000 rpm's way to fast. Router must be mounted in some type of base that will hold it real steady. Oil is heated to 120 deg and is poured into the cup via a pipe that runs into the center of the cup. So far so good. Cleaned up some real nasty oil that was heading to the dumpster.
Jimmy

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Inside pail

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After some nasty oil

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3" pvc cap $2 and change
slice of 3" pvc pipe for lip

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flat spot on bottom of cap

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very very good job! keep us posted,

Interesting post. Pics were a bit small I thought it would have been good to get a better look. You might explain how you got the dead centre of the cap and a level flat on it? That could help people who want to try this for themselves.

Dead center was obtained with a compass, the flat bottom was made with the open end against the fence of a table saw. Only take a sliver at a time.(be careful) A better way would be if you have access to a machinist lathe. The bottom could be flattened and dead center could be found and drilled real easy. This is still a work in progress. My idea is to set up a 30 gal barrel with a heating element,(heat oil to 120 deg), a pump,(powersteering maybe with a ball valve to adjust flow?) and let it run, taking the oil from the bottom thru the centrifuge and returned to the top of the barrel. Then my normal filtering thru a jeans sock filter into the dewatering barrel,heated, settled, then to the polishing filter and storage. Like I said still a work in progress. So far it looks very promising. This is a result of my son's 2 mic filter on his suburban cloging faster than I would like. My 10 mic on the benz lasts for ever, but I change it every 2nd oil change anyway. So I still have to set it up so that I'm not doing just small batches, this takes too much time (I like easy) Any suggestions are much welcome.
Jimmy

A question, is there some reason you used a rounded pvc cap and not a flat one? Maybe the slope on inside works better than sharper bend on the flat caps. Would a bigger diameter make any difference? Sounds like something I could even build, good tinkering.

Looked at Home Cheapo and Lowes thats all they had. Thought of that also, asked a plumber friend of mine and he said maybe a plumbing supply place would have the flat ones. Don't think that the flat would be any differnt just easier to make. A 4" cap would also work and give more capacity, that you would not have to clean it as much. Did'nt want to have to buy a full 10' length of 4" pvc pipe for a 1/4" piece. (I'm real cheap) had the 3" pipe, so thats what I went with. I have about 25 gal thru it so far and its has about less than 1/16" of sludge in the bowl. The oil was right from the cubie and some was the bottom. The oil I get is pretty good soy bean. Have not had the chance to clean bowl and the run it thru again to see if it removes more particles, but what it did remove looks like very fine brown flour, its caked on the bowl pretty good. Going to work tonight for 24 hrs and have some plumbing supply places and will check. Also will hit some scrap yards for a powersteering pump. And the car wash for another 30 gal barrel. Gonna be a busy 24. Like I said this looks very promising, just need more thoughts and time.... when I get time will post some more pictures (bigger ones)
Jimmy

does the clean oil just overflow out the top of the cf? how does it exit? is this bucket just a collector?

It spins out of the cup to the sides of the bucket. Down the sides of the bucket into the drain then into the barrel. Router must be spinning before you add oil or it will just over flow and run over the top of the cup and down into the router, which would not be good. When it is spinning it going so fast no oil runs down the outside of the cup. Around the hole where the router shaft comes thru you have to put some type of ring so the oil does not flow down into the router. (like a dam). I used a ring about 1 1/2" high siliconed and screwed to the bucket. The powersteering pump did not work out, pumped with way too much preasure. Have an old little giant pool cover pump that I am gonna try, just waiting for the oil to heat up.
Will keep ya posted.
Jimmy

Tried the pool cover pump, pumped good for about 15 min then crapped out oil was about 120 deg. Gotta find a pump that will pump about 1/2 gal an minute may try gravity feed. Finding a pump is turning out to be the hardest part... Any sugestions??????
Jimmy

I think your making it more complicated with pump. Just gravity feed the heated oil tank into centrifuge and have it run into lower tank. Thats where I would have a pump to transfer it to whatever. I don't understand why you want to return it to heated tank or does the oil need mutlple runs through centrifuge?

My idea was to keep it as compact as possible. Would like to clean up my oil processing area of the shop. I was thinking of mounting the centrifuge on top of the 30 gal barrel and letting it run so that the oil would pass thru a few times. Then off to the heated dewatering barrel. Found a cirulator pump in one of my bins, figure if I put a ball valve on that it might give me the right flow. Better give the wife some attention first thou.....
Jimmy

quote:

Better give the wife some attention first thou.....

LOL It's a delicate balance between getting things done to provide your share of thing's and spending your time and attention on them directly. Easy to sway too far in either direction as they rarely seem to accept that should be a problem for you and, being far more complex than machines, there is no set maintenance routine guaranteed to keep everyone happy.

Ok, had some time to play today. Cirulator pump works great. Thru hull fitting from bottom of barrel to pump to ball valve to centrifuge. Poured 10 gal unsettled right from cubie into barrel. Heated to 120 deg. Started centrifuge, started pump, let run for 1/2 hour. Amazing how much gunk on sides of bowl, really caked on. Cleaned bowl and letting it run as I type...see how much more it removes...
Jimmy

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How does one put pictures right in the body of the post???????

Put a picture up somewhere like www.flickr.com or www.freeimagehosting.net (for quick, the latter). Then copy the url the page gives you after upload.
The url will look something like this...
blah.com/pic and watch your pic width - probably no wider than 600.
I've just uploaded this one to freeimage to try it...

Using the fullsize 'forum post' url at the bottom