quote:

Originally posted by fabricator:

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Originally posted by jon h.:
I find bowl cleaning very simple with one of those rubber spatulas my wife uses for cake batter, etc. She doesn't even know it is missing. A cuple of swipes with that and its clean. *Note I am using the centrifuge for filtering soaps from finished biodiesel, maybe crud from WVO is different?

Would a paper insert be easier or better than that?

Jon I am going to be doing this also, what can you tell me about it? Do you use koh or lye? How long do you need to run to remove soap? Do you run cold or hot?

I've been using NaOH, but will be trying KOH soon. I spray the biodiesel onto itself for 4-5 hours just after moving it out of my apple turnover. Its still hot when this happens. It drives out any leftover methanol/water and also gets some of the soap to clump and float. I skim that off with a kitchen sieve. I then run the centrifuge for 3-4 hours and do the first cleaning. This seems to be where the bulk of the soap is removed. Then I run it for 6 hours and remove the soap. Depending on how much is in there I run it a third time for 2-6 hours. I shoot for a soap concentration below 150ppm. So the centrifuging is done cold.

I've set up the thing to run on a timer now, so I can set it up to run some of these centrifuge steps while I am sleeping, or at work.

quote:

Originally posted by jon h.:
I spray the biodiesel onto itself for 4-5 hours just after moving it out of my apple turnover. Its still hot when this happens. It drives out any leftover methanol/water and also gets some of the soap to clump and float. I skim that off with a kitchen sieve. I then run the centrifuge for 3-4 hours and do the first cleaning. This seems to be where the bulk of the soap is removed. Then I run it for 6 hours and remove the soap. Depending on how much is in there I run it a third time for 2-6 hours. I shoot for a soap concentration below 150ppm. So the centrifuging is done cold.

Hi Jon,

I was wondering since you're using a centrifuge anyway, would it be worth skipping a water wash and using magnesol and having the centrifuge take out the very fine particles?

Sam

I don't know. I don't do a water wash other than the 5% prewash. I may stop doing the prewash altogether in the near future. I am my own variation of the GL 1 day process using vacuum distillation.

I don't use the centrifuge to clean the oil before processing. I am using upflow settling for that.

That is what I intend to try next, no prewash, no water wash, just recirculate to drive off any left over methanol and centrifuge, do you collect a lot of soap in the fuge jon?

I pulled the CF apart this afternoon and cleaned out the inner bowl. I had a bad feeling that the speed was to low but thought I'd ask anyway. I'll wait till the "new" motor arrives and go from there. No use filling up the barrel with oil and no way to clean it. When I turned on the pump and had the heater on the pump ran fine but when I directed the oil to the centrifuge it SLOWED down bigtime! When I shut off the pump so the CF would stop I could hear the CF slowing down so I know that at least the CF was turning. Also the motor temprature got very warm as in 130/140 degrees after running about 3/4 hours.

I'm really starting to wonder about the quality of these things, my FF60 does a good job of cleaning and dewatering but holy crap, no matter what I do the thing sounds like a buzz saw running, a terrible rattling buzz at 90 psi and 150 degrees, is this typical for you guys with the FF60?

quote:

Originally posted by fabricator:
That is what I intend to try next, no prewash, no water wash, just recirculate to drive off any left over methanol and centrifuge, do you collect a lot of soap in the fuge jon?

I haven't quantified it by mass or volume yet, but it sure seems like a lot. Previously I was bag filtering. Its hard to tell how much soap the bag filters were absorbing into the interstitial spaces before a cake forms, but this method (centrifuge) sure packs a lot of soap into the bowl. Usually after the first four hours of running the fuge I have about 3/4" of buildup around the perimeter of the bowl.

I really like this method. This last batch that I just loaded into the boiler tank took 36 hours start to finish. That included a trip to church on Sunday, and working 8 hours today and of course a full night's sleep and watching the Red Sox game. I bet I could start a batch Saturday and be using the fuel Sunday afternoon with this method. The filter bags used to take several days.

The one thing I am wondering about is wether this method will work at all with koh, only one way to find out I guess.

quote:

Originally posted by fabricator:
I'm really starting to wonder about the quality of these things, my FF60 does a good job of cleaning and dewatering but holy crap, no matter what I do the thing sounds like a buzz saw running, a terrible rattling buzz at 90 psi and 150 degrees, is this typical for you guys with the FF60?

A properly running CF should run quiet. A terrible rattling buzz indicates out of balance. I am wondering if you may have excessive bearing clearance as I have (0.008") in mine. There was no point running it with that much slop in the bearing, I called IDP and got the OK to return it the same day I received it.

jon h, did you ever find viton o-rings for your FF60? Better yet do you have sizes or part #s please please? Tigafila

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Originally posted by canolafunola:

quote:

Originally posted by fabricator:
I'm really starting to wonder about the quality of these things, my FF60 does a good job of cleaning and dewatering but holy crap, no matter what I do the thing sounds like a buzz saw running, a terrible rattling buzz at 90 psi and 150 degrees, is this typical for you guys with the FF60?

A properly running CF should run quiet. A terrible rattling buzz indicates out of balance. I am wondering if you may have excessive bearing clearance as I have (0.008") in mine. There was no point running it with that much slop in the bearing, I called IDP and got the OK to return it the same day I received it.

Does your new one run quiet? My worry is if I send this one in t may be four to six weeks before I get a replacement, that is totally unacceptable.

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Originally posted by tigafila:
jon h, did you ever find viton o-rings for your FF60? Better yet do you have sizes or part #s please please? Tigafila

Not yet! I am currently not using the o-ring that get clamped under the housing (the larger of the 2). It gres so big, I couldn't fit it in the groove anymore. I haven't had any leaks yet, so I am not worried, and the fit of the housing lid seems tight when its cranked down. The one at the bottom of the bowl is still in there. Its getting big, and takes some effort to get all the pieces together.

quote:

Originally posted by fabricator:
I'm really starting to wonder about the quality of these things, my FF60 does a good job of cleaning and dewatering but holy crap, no matter what I do the thing sounds like a buzz saw running, a terrible rattling buzz at 90 psi and 150 degrees, is this typical for you guys with the FF60?

Mine occasionally makes a lot of noise, but in my case it is the plumbing attached and the fact it sits on a board laying across the top of a 55 gal. drum. When its noisy I stick something under the plumbing and it quiets down. The drum only amplifies any sound the CF makes. Try moving parts and see if the sound changes or quiets.

I originally had my motor an dpump mounted to a board on top of the drum with the CF. It was not that loud, but by no means quiet. Now I have the pump and motor sitting separately from the drum on the floor. Only the CF is on top of the drum, and is mounted to a short section of 2X8 that is held up by two pieces of plywood screwed to the top of it that lay over the edges of the drum. Effectively the top of the 2X8 is even with the top of the drum. So with this assembly of wood, and the fact that wood absorbs some vibration, and the fact that I use a plastic drum, my noise isn't bad. It's closer to a microwave than a vacuum cleaner.

With everyone talking about the noise the CF makes, is it worth the money? Does it do a great job or just an ok job?

How does it compare to the others on the market? I'm looking to get one, just not sure which one to get at this time.

Thoughts anyone?

--Tony

Mine was making a horrible racket too. I had my black pipe plumbing touching the 120 gallon stainless tank. When I put a rag between the black pipe and the tank it quieted down significantly. I will be cobbling a permanent solution in the near future.

I am actually surprised how much noise is coming from the Grainger close coupled gear pump now.

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Does your new one run quiet? My worry is if I send this one in t may be four to six weeks before I get a replacement, that is totally unacceptable.

As I said earlier "There was no point running it with that much slop in the bearing" so the answer is no. With it making such a racket, don't you wonder what's wrong and what the long term effect will be if you keep running it? If yours is a bearing slop problem, it can only get worse as the bearings slam against each other. For comparison, my Dieselcraft OC-20 does not have any visible slop nor does it click when the rotor is rocked back and forth and it runs quiet. I wonder if my FF 60 LE is from the same batch as yours (received mine 2 days ago)? 2 others have reported similar slop.

My FF60LE doesn't have a bearing that I can see. Its a brass bushing. I have some noticeable slop too. Are there tolerances on how much space should be between the shaft and the bushing?

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Originally posted by canolafunola:

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Does your new one run quiet? My worry is if I send this one in t may be four to six weeks before I get a replacement, that is totally unacceptable.

As I said earlier "There was no point running it with that much slop in the bearing" so the answer is no. With it making such a racket, don't you wonder what's wrong and what the long term effect will be if you keep running it? If yours is a bearing slop problem, it can only get worse as the bearings slam against each other. For comparison, my Dieselcraft OC-20 does not have any visible slop nor does it click when the rotor is rocked back and forth and it runs quiet. I wonder if my FF 60 LE is from the same batch as yours (received mine 2 days ago)? 2 others have reported similar slop.

These bushings are just simple press fit bronze bushings, I pressed the top one out already and pressed a new closer tolerance one in, it helped somewhat, so I did the same on the bottom, the clearances are critical, it has to have enough for oil to blow by to lube the bushings, but to much will cause vibration, it is a little quiter now but I just noticed if I take a light and shine it between the rotor and housing and spin the rotor, it is VERY noticably out of round when it spins, that certainly does not help matters, Paul from IDP is going to be calling me back shortly, I'll post what I find out.

I just got off the phone with Paul I'm gonna need a different unit, I believe it is not the bushings it is the excessive out of round mentioned above, the kicker is they are out of stock, 1 1/5 weeks out, I am going to try one more of these, but I dont have very high hopes for it, I think I should have spent the bucks and gone diesel craft in the first place, oh well live and learn.