I might be able to do that.
I just shot some video of mine today, but not with anything running through it yet.

I'll see if I can turn the frame rate way up on my video camera (I think it'll let it go really high) and then I'll slow it way down when I edit the video.

-Graydon

Looks like my video camera will go up to 2000 frames per second.
I'll see how the video turns out...

-Graydon

Here's the first video I shot of the Centrifuge.

I love hearing the thing whir up to 6,000 RPM!
The thing is a lot of fun to kick on...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1-9OEq6cUo

Enjoy!
-Graydon

Hi

I own a Simple Centrifuge and am very happy with the product and the company. I also like the fact that it is owned by a couple of regular “Joes” like me. The owners are ready willing and able to lend a hand whenever possible. American people making American products.

Something happens to a product that is made overseas, I have found that quality is sacrificed in the name of cost and greed. Other centrifuges claim to be faster, but at what cost. When a component goes faster don’t things wear faster? I question the integrity of other centrifuge bowls. What happens when the bowl finally goes and it is spinning at an uncontrollable rate and breaks? Won’t that bowl now become a cannon with metal flying everywhere. I don’t know about you but safety is everything to me.

You may want to think long and hard before you choice a centrifuge. Quality and safety along with a good sense of business are qualities in a product/company I look for before I make a purchase. These days choice is all we have and our choices effect a lot.

I am a happy customer of Simple Centrifuge and this regular “Joe” recommends there product to you.

quote:

Originally posted by mwgtech:
The owners are ready willing and able to lend a hand whenever possible. American people making American products.
Something happens to a product that is made overseas, I have found that quality is sacrificed in the name of cost and greed.

Clearly you have never driven a Japanese "Pickup truck" and discovered the superior Quality, economy, capacity and every other benefit they have over the non overseas made items.
But this is a really an appear to peoples sense of patriotism to push this product over competitors that you fear are in fact superior.

quote:

Other centrifuges claim to be faster, but at what cost. When a component goes faster don’t things wear faster? I question the integrity of other centrifuge bowls. What happens when the bowl finally goes and it is spinning at an uncontrollable rate and breaks? Won’t that bowl now become a cannon with metal flying everywhere. I don’t know about you but safety is everything to me.

Oh good grief! Pull at the other heartstring with some more misinformation designed to create unfounded fears while your at it and then you'll have all the worry warts so paranoid they'll never come near any centrifuge. This really is pathetic stuff.

quote:

You may want to think long and hard before you choice a centrifuge. Quality and safety along with a good sense of business are qualities in a product/company I look for before I make a purchase. These days choice is all we have and our choices effect a lot.

Honesty, Ethics and integrity are also qualities I look for in a company and I have to say I have deep reservations about SC after reading this transparent Baloney!! If I were in the market for a centrifuge, I'd immediately discount any company that stooped to this level of deceptive marketing because if they are going to try to dupe me into buying the thing with hogwash like this, what are they going to try to pull on me if I need service or warranty??

quote:

I am a happy customer of Simple Centrifuge and this regular “Joe” recommends there product to you.

Simple Centrifuge may be a good product but I believe you are an invention of the company's marketing department and they need to have a good look at what they are putting out in order not to do any more damage to their credibility than what they have done with this laughably Bogus "testimonial".

DCS,
You really have to wonder who is behind the testimonials? All these companies know this type of advertising is self destuctive. So when someone is singing the praise, are they really praising? Or trying to sabotage the competition?
Makes you wonder.

quote:

Originally posted by Graydon Blair:

Watch for updates...
-Graydon

Graydon,

I have enjoyed your many contributions on the subject of biodiesel. Getting your take on this subject will be no different.

I have a few OT questions for you and will follow up via email.

Thanks.
~Colin

Sounds great. I'll watch for it.
-Graydon

Well, I'm happy to announce that I'm a huge fan of centrifuges now.
I have to admit, I've always been a bit skeptical of them, but my gosh! This thing is cool!!!!

I've now done a bunch of tests on it and I can say that I love the thing!

Here's a few pictures of the fun I had:

So I found a local oil collector that gave me some really nasty, stinky, smelly, dirty oil from a local McDonalds (yeah, I know, I don't ever want to eat there again either).

I got it back to my place & hooked up the centrifuge, mounted the carboy above the centrifuge, turned the thing on, kicked on the heat (this one has a really cool inline heating unit), and let it rip...

Here's the setup I used:




It took about 2-3 minutes for the heater to warm up the oil, but once the inline heating manifold was warm it kept it nice & toasty as the oil ran through it (I knew it was working well because the thermostat was kicking on & off making sure it didn't overheat).

I don't know where WVO Designs found that element, but oh my gosh is it cool! It's got an integrated thermostat right in the element. Here's what it looks like:


It screws right into the manifold nice & tight and oil flows from the bottom of it up to the top and then into the top of the centrifuge.

Here's what it looks like as the oil flows through the lid:


Here's what it looks like all put together:


So, the oil started running through the centrifuge and down into my clean carboy.
After I'd filled the first carboy (I had 2 carboys of the mucky stuff from Micky D's), I decided to see how well it had worked.

I grabbed a 100 micron 5 gallon bucket strainer, threw it onto a bucket, and started straining the oil through it. I was totally amazed! It flowed like water through the thing!


I pulled the filter off the bucket & looked at it and there wasn't any sediment in it at all. Just an oily filter....

I have NEVER seen used oil go through a 100 micron filter that fast....EVER!!!
I've seen NEW oil go through it fast, but not used oil. I was really amazed!

So, I figured...OK, let's see just how clean the dirty stuff was. It LOOKED dirty, it smelled dirty, but was it really dirty or just dark looking?

So, I grabbed the other carboy of the unfiltered mucky stuff and poured some of it into the 100 micron filter. It plugged the filter almost on contact! Check it out!


Just to be sure it wasn't a fluke, I grabbed a spatula from the kitchen (yeah, I cleaned it afterwards--the wife wasn't too happy though), came back out & scraped the bottom of the filter to see if the oil would go through. As soon as I'd lift the spatula, it'd plug again. This stuff was nasty!

I let the nasty oil sit in my filter for about 20 minutes while I went about doing other things and it hardly budged. So, I dumped the stuff back into my carboy (I made an absolute mess of the garage trying to dump that nasty oil back into the carboy...I couldn't find a funnel) and hooked this carboy up to the centrifuge and centrifuged it as well.

So, just from that experience alone I'm impressed! In under 20 minutes the centrifuge made my nasty, stinky oil run through a 100 micron filter like it was water! In OVER 20 minutes I STILL couldn't get the stinky unfiltered stuff to go through a 100 micron filter. I was sold! Sign me up!

I did a few more tests and messed around with it with colored water (I have some really cool videos I need to edit that I'll post when I have a chance) that show how the centrifuge works (thanks fuelfarmer for the ideas! Still working on the slow framerate thing).

So, after playing with a centrifuge, I'm sold on them! If you'd asked me a few weeks before what I thought of them I would've told you "don't waste your money", but not now!

So, I called Leon up & said, "OK, sign me up! I'm sold!"

And, so, over the last few weeks I've been putting together a page on my site where I can offer them to anyone that's interested. I wrote it based on my experiences with this thing (you'll see what I mean, just go read it).

Leon also had created a bunch of videos on how to assemble his unit, how to program that really cool AC drive (My gosh that thing is fun to play with!), and a few other really cool video's. I embedded some of them in the page I built and the rest I have linked down in the resources section.

I also took TONS of pictures of the thing (duh! this is Graydon we're talking about, I'm a photo-holic), cleaned up a few and made a photo gallery out of some that I took and out of some Leon already had.

Here's the link to the photo gallery:
http://www.utahbiodieselsupply...eries/centrifugewvo/

As I get more video edited I'll share it back here and post it on the page I wrote too.

So, with that, here's the page I wrote for the centrifuges...
http://www.utahbiodieselsupply.com/centrifugewvo.php

After playing with this one for a while, I'm sold! The thing rocks!

As for Simple Centrifuge and Absolute Centrifuge, I'm sure they work just as well.
Centrifuges, if designed well, are just that. They spin really fast and throw the crap to the side of the rotor and the good oil goes up & out.

It sounds like they all make great products, I just happened to choose the Raw Power Centrifuge to play with and really was impressed.

My advice is to check them all out, ask to talk to their customers (Leon's happy to let you talk to several of his), see if you can see one in action (or just watch all the cool video's we're starting to get up online) and then try one out.

They're probably not right for everybody, but like the BioPro's, for those situations where they make sense, they do an amazing job!

I want to test a Dieselcraft style one next. I hear they do really well too but for now the Raw Power Centrifuge is the one I now have experience with.

One thing Leon offers that really impressed me though is a 30 day money back guarantee. If you buy one and don't like it for any reason, he'll let you ship it back to him (barring you haven't run over it or destroyed it or something like that) and he'll send you a full refund on the purchase price (you have to pay the shipping to send it back, but he'll refund the rest).

So, if you're interested in one, stop on by & check out the one I now can offer.

Here's the link again:
http://www.utahbiodieselsupply.com/centrifugewvo.php

I'd also encourage you to check out all the other ones too.
ie. Simple Centrifuge, Absolute Centrifuge, Diesel Craft, etc....

Talk to people that have them & see what they think (I've heard really good things from the folks that own Diesel Craft units).

I'll post more updates as I continue to play with it more....
So far though, I'm really impressed!

-Graydon
Now A Centrifuge Junkie

Graydon,
Nice review!
Do you think the oil flowed through the filter faster because it was warmer then the pre fuged oil?
I am interested in the fuges ability to remove water from the WVO, are you planning any tests for that?
I sure hope they dont ship the thing with the drive just hanging from the OPEN wiring like it is in your photos! Be careful playing with that drive as it has open electrical contacts and its not designed to be operated outside of an electrical enclosure let alone laying on the floor or balanced on the fuge. If your kids or pets are around DO NOT have it plugged in as you could KILL somebody!
Being in the electrical industry for so many years has shown me too many shocks and electrocutions not to say my piece.
Cheers,
Jon

John,

I'm not sure how much of the heat in the centrifuged oil played in going through the filter, but I think it definitely helped and played a role.

I wouldn't get your hopes up too high on centrifuges removing water. I'm going to test for it, but I don't foresee this style of centrifuge being terribly effective at doing water removal unless you turn it on, run it for 10-20 minutes, shut it down, let it drain any water, and then repeat. However, I would say that the Diesel Craft style ones have been shown to remove large amounts of water. They basically flash evaporate it off. SunWizard over on the SVO side I understand conducted some amazing tests with a Diesel Craft style centrifuge and found it removed quite a bit of the water in oil.

From what I understand, the water laden oil is passed under pressure into a vessel that now has a huge pressure drop. The water vaporizes and is pushed out.

I think to a certain extent on this unit that occurs, but not anywhere nearly as effectively as it would on a Diesel Craft style one (because there's really no appreciable pressure on this unit). However, the trade off is that this one can filter more oil because of the bigger bowl and doesn't require a pump or pressure gauge to use.

Leon said that there have been some of his users that have removed the two spare ports on the top and centrifuged and seen fairly good drops in water content and that's what I plan to test it with.

On the AC Drive...
They actually ship everything as a kit and have instructions that show you how to put it together. They leave the drive installation and wiring to the user to do as they need to (it doesn't ship with any wires). There's an excellent book that came with the drive that talks explicitly about how to mount the drive in an electrical enclosure.

I was just doing some testing on this one so I didn't enclose it yet. If it ever gets a permanent spot anywhere around here I'll be building an enclosure for it pretty quick. But yep, it definitely should be enclosed whenever you use them in a custom installation. They also ship a nice enclosure for the heating element to that prevents someone from getting shocked.

-Graydon

Good stuff, thanks!
Jon

I had a good visit with RickDaTech tonight (he's doing well by the way) and asked him more about the Diesel Craft centrifuges. He sold them for quite some time and did several experiments on them.

His research showed that they dewatered oil extremely well...if the oil was up to temperature. About a 130 deg F or higher is optimum for this sort of thing.

Here's how they get rid of the water so well...
As the water laden oil under pressure goes through the centrifuge, it's sprayed against the sides of the centrifuge container. The act of splashing that oil against a metal wall, if you will, at high temperature and pressure into a vessel that doesn't have nearly the same pressure (spraying high pressure oil into a non-pressurized vessel) causes the water molecules to flash evaporate.

Once they evaporate, the vapor gets pushed out of the canister with the oil, and voila, you've got dewatered oil!

I'm now really curious to play with one or hear from anyone that has one and has tested water content levels before and after in centrifuged oil.

-Graydon

Here's a pretty good thread on the "bowl style" centrifuges...
http://biodiesel.infopop.cc/ev...9605551/m/2131076872

Ignore all the bickering & read to the good stuff...

Here's the famous Diesel Craft thread by SunWizard
http://biodiesel.infopop.cc/ev...9605551/m/2001011761

A 156 pages of reading...guess I'll read through those later, but I'd imagine there's some great "tech talk" going on in there. SunWizard's posts are always great to read!

quote:

Originally posted by Graydon Blair:
Here's the famous Diesel Craft thread by SunWizard
http://biodiesel.infopop.cc/ev...9605551/m/2001011761

A 156 pages of reading...guess I'll read through those later, but I'd imagine there's some great "tech talk" going on in there. SunWizard's posts are always great to read!

Reading all 156 pages can be a chore; however, it does provide a lot of eye opening insight into the beginning days. I remember when I first read about centrifuges.....I didn't believe it....now I have two dieselcraft centrifuges. I'm impressed.

Thanks for posting the links Graydon.
I was hoping to use a fuge to save energy and time dewatering my WVO, I currently vacuum dewater. If I still need to heat the oil though to dewater with a fuge there is no point in going that route for me.
Upflow and vacuum it is I guess...
Jon

quote:

Reading all 156 pages can be a chore; however, it does provide a lot of eye opening insight into the beginning days. I remember when I first read about centrifuges.....I didn't believe it....now I have two dieselcraft centrifuges. I'm impressed.

It took me about a week to read. It was worth it.

quote:

If I still need to heat the oil though to dewater with a fuge there is no point in going that route for me.
Upflow and vacuum it is I guess...

I never really considered the energy cost of fuging. I bought a brand new Spinner II a few months ago for $20 off Craigslist. I bought a small block chevy gear pump, made the modifications, but have yet to run it. I guess if you heat the oil up in your processor and fuge it and then process the oil without losing too much heat, it might be the way to go. I intend to start fuging when I start making BD again. Hopefully soon.

Currently I fill the processor with 100L of WVO that has been passed through a window screen. I then bring it up to around 200F and begin dewatering. It takes about 1.5 to 2 hours to bring it up to temperature and complete the dewatering. It then takes about an hour of circulating to cool down enough to add the methoxide.
I had hoped with a fuge I could just set it and forget it (with some automation control of course) for a day to dry out a tote of WVO. Then when its time to process I could fill the processor with the already dried oil and start adding the methoxide right away while I am heating up to 150F, this would save allot of time and energy heating the oil to 200 and waiting for it to cool down to 160...
Having to heat the oil in order to be fuged makes it a big waste of energy in my situation because I dont intend to use the oil right away...
Once I get my bio-fired boiler done I should be able to bring it up to temp much quicker and I have though about incorporating a truck radiator loop I can valve the oil into in order to cool it down quicker... Time will tell...

Fabricator if you are reading this how long does it take your 300 gallon batch's to cool down? Thats allot of mass...
Jon

I wonder if the fuge even does as good a job of dewatering as my vacuum setup does. I have taken 1/2 litre of water out of oil that passes the HPT with my setup.
Jon

Jon,

I think you only need the temperature to be around 130F. It only takes me about 10 minutes to get my 120 liters up to that temp.

You are processing a lot more oil now than you were before and will probably need a couple of fuges to separate the crud and water out of your oil prior to processing. If your system works, why change it?

Maybe Fab will chime in.