Hi John,

That's very true, our oil is different, our water measuring may be different and my idea about a reasonable amount of time for cold settling may be much shorter than yours.

Personally for me, I want my oil ready in 7 days max (50 gallons a week). With my oil, I can easily do that at 90F degrees but still get bubbles at room temperature.

quote:

Originally posted by Ron Schroeder:
By the way, I do heat my filter housing. I heat it to over 120F and don't bother with evenness of heat in the housing since I am only trying to allow easier flow thru the filter.

How do you heat the filter housing?

I have it wraped with self regulating heat cable and insulated. The accuracy of regulation is not important. I just keep it as warm as or warmer than the settling tank.

I beg to differ I have tried many ways to filter, found the only way to go is:

boil off any water, even oil that has settled for months has water in it..

My process is no settling needed take it from the source filter through 100 mesh screen, then heat to above boiling , boil off all water, then filter through 20 and 10 micron filter, to storgae tank or vehicle..

I have even done the centrifuge's thing and found with really watery oil, I was getting water in my oil still.. and needed hours and hours of flushing the centrifuge and cleaning it and the boiling process was easier overall.

My batches are 16 gallons a pop and i use 2 water heater elements to boil it, it works quiet well. my oil is perfectly dry every time, all the time. I even did oil that had about 3 gallons of water that was accidentally put in the batch and it removes every bit of water.

Settling wont remove the suspended water.. even oil that looks perfect can have water in it.

quote:

Originally posted by john galt:
Then perhaps your eminence can explain with your infinite wisdom and unsurpassed experience, why the upflow settling system I use produces clean dry oil that tests with NO moisture.

Gawd, what an ego.

quote:

Originally posted by john galt:
I will continue to delete all my input from discussions that become personal and abusive.

Seeing you have made this thread personal and abusive John, time to start deleting.

I use the John Galt up-flow settling system and have it with three barrels. My first is a poly barrel upside down so I could put a drain in the cap. I drilled a hole in the top and connected my 5 gal pale as in the John Galt system. I then drilled an exit hole at the top and epoxied a 3/4 " tube that empties into barrel #2 that settles again and this one flows into #3 where I have my sock filters. So I go from 400 mc 200 micron to 100 micron and thne to stacked sock filters 25-10 micron. The barrels are progressively higher so gravity does the work. I also heat the barrels with ice melt roof tape to remove water and get the oil wearm enough to filter. windsolar

There's a lot I don't know, but it seems pretty hard to believe that John Galt would want to suffer all this abuse if his system didn't work at all. I'm starting to set up his system now, and I'd sure appreciate it if we didn't piss him off to the point where he gives up us due to all the abuse that some of us are giving him. I'm less concerned about him giving the abuse back. How 'bout it?

I haven't seen a safer filtering system, which is important when considering my two year-old. Assuming his system works with the oil that he collects, can we try to figure out why this is working? I think this might have already been suggested somewhere, but I am assuming that his system works because the smaller (< bug screen diameter) hydrophilic (water-loving) food particles are sinking to the bottom of the first barrel and drawing off the water from the supernatant (upper part of the first barrel). If this system doesn't work for some, perhaps there is a possibility to provide functionality with a hydrophilic material in the bottom of the first tank? Some use silica gel, but it sounds like work to recycle it. Seems like a permanent membrane in the bottom of the tank and just above a hydrophilic material could allow the water to be drained off of the bottom without having to recycle or replace the material. This might also reduce the amount of fat that has to be burned in the fireplace. Any ideas?

quote:

Originally posted by john galt:
My observations indicate that a couple of material properties make upflow separation work. ...

I really like the up flow idea too. Was thinking (I know scary thing to do )was use a small scale upflow arrangement at the collection site if its a big enough resturant.

Question / Idea john. What if you put a window screen or something across the bottom of the drum(s) just above the hight of the bottom of the drop tube. This way when oil exits the drop tube it lessens the chance of it disturbing what has settled down there creating currents that encourage settlemnent to mix around with good oil above it.

Obviously this is not a big issue or your whole system would not be working. Just wondering if it would make it even more effcient.

got everything I need to build johns upflow, maybe this weekend if the weather cooperates, can't wait

quote:

Originally posted by john galt:..
That sludge is a valuable resource for me, as useful as the clear top oil. It's pumped out and mixed with sawdust from chainsawing fuel wood and packed into 1/2 gallon milk cartons. One of those in the woodstove first thing in the morning quickly warms the house right up to comfortable temperature, especially when it's 30 below. There's a lot of BTUs in a half gallon of transfat oil/fat soaked sawdust.

Would like more information on your sludge burning setup. Don't want to take this thread off topic. So Im going to start on new thread on it. Look for it in your grocers freezer isle (HERE IT IS

This message has been edited. Last edited by: jeepin, moggin Jessup (coachgeo),

do you guys notice much emulsion if you try and load too much too fast? i realize this is an oil-quality dependent question.

quote:

Originally posted by john galt:
How does your question relate to the subject of the discussion, and the specific upflow system being discussed?

I think he means when putting new oil into the bottom how much does it stir up the settled crud that is sitting on the bottom already?

no what i mean is how clean of a line do you get between water and oil?

I dump in everything but since my tank is heated (very evenly) the water settles out but the fats don't. Using a 3/8" i.d. tube between the large funnel and the settling tank and the diffuser on the end of the dip tube prevents stirring of the crud.

quote:

Originally posted by anson:
no what i mean is how clean of a line do you get between water and oil?

The line depends on the oil and the settling temperature. Without heating, the line is very broad, with some oils, no line and probably no settling at all. At 100F with my oil, the line is very sharp, just like free water was poured in and settled. Actually two lines, a lower one for the sediment.

quote:

Originally posted by john galt:
...Maybe my theory is correct, or maybe it's because there are no snakes in this country, who knows?...

Nope it's not about snakes. It's something to do with the bananas

quote:

Originally posted by Ron Schroeder:
... the diffuser on the end of the dip tube prevents stirring of the crud.

Please describe your "diffuser"

I cap the end of the dip tube (usually 1 1/4" or 1 1/2" PVC and then make about 8 cuts 3/4 of the way thru the PVC about 1/4" apart. That way the oil comes out near the bottom of the dip tube but it goes out sideways rather than down.

you guys think maybe if you could get the wvo into smaller bubbles it would more easily give up its water? i was also thinking maybe just heat the wvo above the water line..

i'm sorry obviously your system works well and doesn't need modification for you. i'm needling you because i haven't been able to make my own yet. i want to make one for an onboard application, which means i want heat, tiny bubbles, and lots of time for bubbles to interact with water before crossing the water line. i wanna be able to do 55 gallons in 15 minutes or so.