John David, first and foremost thank you for your service sir! I am in the terminal stages of a boiler for the Murphy heater, when it is running I will post the results here, keep your powder dry and watch your top knot John.

Awesome, can't wait to see it!

John David

Murphy,

We have an old Sunfire LT-165 waste oil burner that we've been fooling around with over the last couple of weeks trying to get it to burn WVO. It ran OK until last weekend when the supply tank ran dry, burning out the heater element. Since then, we've not had much luck in burning WVO as it will ignite and then die out after a few moments. #2 heating fuel will run all day. From reading this and other threads, I understand that WVO must be pre-heated to maintain a burn, and there seems to be a range of pre-heat temps needed for ignition that can then be reduced once the system is up to operating temp.

I've seen that your design plans are ready and have a couple of questions:

1. From reading your posts and looking at your images, your burner is designed to operate vertically. Could this thing be adapted to burn horizontally as that is the orientation of our Sunfire's heat box?

2. Given the differing parameters (pre-heat, combustion air PSI) for efficient burning of WVO vs. UMO, do your plans offer guidelines to setting up these variables when going from one fuel type to another?

Thanks in advance.
-Bill

Hey JohnD;
Canada is the US's single largest supplier of crude on the planet, up to 5 million barrels daily now.
Political rhetoric has it's own section here.

quote:

Originally posted by Bill S.:
Murphy,

We have an old Sunfire LT-165 waste oil burner that we've been fooling around with over the last couple of weeks trying to get it to burn WVO. It ran OK until last weekend when the supply tank ran dry, burning out the heater element. Since then, we've not had much luck in burning WVO as it will ignite and then die out after a few moments. #2 heating fuel will run all day. From reading this and other threads, I understand that WVO must be pre-heated to maintain a burn, and there seems to be a range of pre-heat temps needed for ignition that can then be reduced once the system is up to operating temp.

I've seen that your design plans are ready and have a couple of questions:

1. From reading your posts and looking at your images, your burner is designed to operate vertically. Could this thing be adapted to burn horizontally as that is the orientation of our Sunfire's heat box?

2. Given the differing parameters (pre-heat, combustion air PSI) for efficient burning of WVO vs. UMO, do your plans offer guidelines to setting up these variables when going from one fuel type to another?

Thanks in advance.
-Bill

Bill, unfortunately, NO. My burner will only burn vertically.

Some suggestions for your application,
1. Flameout of waste veg oil once ignited can be due to several factors,

a) Unstable fuel delivery - check pump output for stability

b) cold oil -preheat the oil (my burner likes it at about 120 degF)

c)speed of combustion air delivery -slow down the excess combustion air because WVO does not require as much extra combustion air as petroleum does. By putting to much combustion air into the flame you will cool everything off to much.

d) failure to retain heat -my system uses a piece of metal that the flame can heat up really quickly. Once its glowing red or even almost there, its nearly impossible for a flame out to happen.


When switching fuels in my heater, about the only adjustment that is required would be the combustion fan restrictor plate.. (turn down the air flow). The adjustment takes about 3 seconds to accomplish.

There is a viscosity compensation device built into my burner head that you would have to adjust if your fuel source radically changed viscosity. I have adjusted mine several times but mostly due to experimentation rather than being required to do so because I changed fuel.

Also, I burn mostly Waste motor oil (WMO) because WVO is to valuable to me for making biodiesel. I do burn WVO every now and then but mostly WMO. I'm even burning biodiesel at the moment because I ran out of the other 2 fuels.. its been to cold and i've been to lazy to go collect it.

Remember that WVO has a flash point that is something like 2 or 3 times higher than fuel oil. This means the atomized WVO has to work and wait much longer to reach ignition temperature. You have to configure your burner to allow for this extra time. By pre-heating the oil, you are short-circuiting the process and shaving off the time needed to reach ignition temperature. The hotter the oil is going in, the faster it will ignite. The problem becomes one of maintenance and energy. Running a 500 watt heater all the time kind of defeats the whole idea of burning WVO. The best way is to pre-heat electrically than use the systems own heat output to warm the incoming oil so you can shut down the 500 watt heater.

There is a yahoo forum called WasteWatts or Alt Veg Oil Heating or something like that. Most of the folks there seem to modify their fuel oil burners for this stuff but they are finicky at best. (which is why there's a big active forum about it) What they do works, but its a re-engineered gig instead of a direct design to burn veg oil.
And get ready to filter and filter and filter.

quote:

Originally posted by steved:
Also notice how much comes from SAUDI ARABI


http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/petroleum/data_publi.../current/import.html

quote:

Originally posted by Legal Eagle:
Hey JohnD;
Canada is the US's single largest supplier of crude on the planet, up to 5 million barrels daily now.
Political rhetoric has it's own section here.

After the 911 incident, we take down hi-jackers in the isles now.

Please move this to the political forum.

Hey Murphy & all,

Finally got some of my Murphy-inspired heater going. http://www.supermotors.net/vehicles/registry/552
has the full pictures under the Biodiesel section. This is the general idea I am working from;



Whaddayathink? How long until I blow myself up?

(HEY! I GOT THE PICTURE TO WORK! Only took me 3 tries!)

what was that perforated outer shell on the burn chamber originally?

be interested to see what happens when you fire it up. Think you will neeed to add prehaeat to the oil.

quote:

what was that perofrated outer pime on the burn chamber origionally?

That was actually the burn chamber cone from a small jet engine. I got that from the university engineering department before I graduated, scrapped from an old educational cut-away engine that had fallen apart.

quote:

Think you will neeed to add prehaeat to the oil.

Yeah, you're right. Of course, at the rate I'm going, I won't be firing it up until this summer, so I won't need to preheat for that!

Murphy,
Just bought your plans for the shop heater and they are awsome, will start building the unit this weekend. Very easy to read and understand with excellant pictures....if anyone has not bought them that has been thinking about it-money well spent.
thanks

quote:

Originally posted by mrfunke:
Murphy,
Just bought your plans for the shop heater and they are awsome, will start building the unit this weekend. Very easy to read and understand with excellant pictures....if anyone has not bought them that has been thinking about it-money well spent.
thanks

Sweet! I'm glad you like them. Wait until you feel the heat it produces..

Do me a favor and post your comments over here:
http://biodiesel.infopop.cc/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/959605551/m/8561080981

That's the classified ads section on this site..

Just got a qiuck question.....I know the plans for your heater from garbage says not suitiable for heating a dwelling where you live but..... is anyone using this heater to heat there house? If so how and where do you have it set up and at what temps are you running it at?

quote:

Originally posted by mrfunke:
Just got a qiuck question.....I know the plans for your heater from garbage says not suitiable for heating a dwelling where you live but..... is anyone using this heater to heat there house? If so how and where do you have it set up and at what temps are you running it at?

There are a few people doing it.. A couple have the unit set up in the garage with all combustion air coming from outside and all room air coming from the house and going back to the house.

One guy has adapted it to work outside.. A couple different people have just used the burner technology to adapt to a boiler using the same concepts.

Carbon Monoxide detectors and safety controls are a must if you insist on heating your home with the unit.

I am STRONGLY against it for safety reasons.

Murphy
Thanks for the input that will help me on my decision.

I use mine in my polebarn to heat my processor, I run it at 180 degrees, but mine is set up as a boiler to heat water.

Fabricator
Just wondering how your setup looks like could you post a picture of it for me?
Thanks

I'll se if I can dig something up.

quote:

Originally posted by mrfunke:
Fabricator
Just wondering how your setup looks like could you post a picture of it for me?
Thanks

You wont recognize it as being my heater because its not. Its just my burner design. Fabricator re-designed the heat exchanger to a boiler system instead of hot air and automated the controls.

It's impressive to say the least.

Anybody heard anything on fabricator's boiler desingn? Any pictures floating around anywhere?