Graydon, I keep watching for some high speed video slooooowed way down. I want to see if drops of oil are flying all over the place inside the bowl and out the top.

Could a strobe light freeze the action for a still camera?

quote:

Originally posted by fabricator:
Yep, the big one is around 15-16 gpm, the two 960s are around 4-5 gpm, as far as power used I have no idea.

Do you have pics/ video? This sounds like a serious set up !

quote:

Originally posted by fuelfarmer:
Links to youtube clips.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1X7Lr-gdxZY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...0lcE&feature=related

Ha! on a previous internet browsing adventure, I had watched those videos.

Cool! Thanks.

quote:

Originally posted by fuelfarmer:
Graydon, I keep watching for some high speed video slooooowed way down. I want to see if drops of oil are flying all over the place inside the bowl and out the top.

Could a strobe light freeze the action for a still camera?

Hmmmm......
That'll have to be a project for me.
I'll turn the camera speed way up & then spin up some water in it.

Then pull the video in & slow it down...

I may go & try to slow down the stuff I have right now & see if it shows anything.

Here's a link to a slow motion version of me dumping water into the centrifuge.
http://www.utahbiodieselsupply...trifuge/rpcslomo.mov (right click, save as)
This is in HD Video (720 p) and file size is about 47 mB.

Near the end is me speeding up a full bowl of water and causing it to spray over the top.

Not the greatest quality, but I was shooting in 30p (30 frames per second).
The video camera can be turned up to about 1,000 FPS, so I'll try to shoot some pictures of it ripping along in high speed & then I'll slow them wayyyy down as well so we can get a better idea of what's happening.

Enjoy!

Fuelfarmer,
Do you want me to shoot the video of me dropping in water or just speeding it up so that it overcomes the bowl?

Well, crap, looks like I'm going to have to default this trick to someone with a faster video camera.
Turns out mine only shoots in 24, 30, and 60i.

The 2,000 is just shutter speed, not frame rate.

I could try & shoot it in 60i & import it in, slow it down & see if it picks it up, but I kind of think it's out of the range of functionality on my camera (Canon HV30 HD Camcorder).

I know Leon has a much cooler video camera. I'll try & hit him up for something like that.
-Graydon

I would like to see oil going into the bowl at normal volumes frame by frame. The oil does not merge smoothly with the fast wall of oil at 3600 RPM and I would think 6000 RPM would be even more violent.

Notice the drops of oil under the lid.Most of the drops are around 180 deg. from the oil inlet. It appears to me that the drops are splashing out of the bowl.


I helped the splashing with a "splash guard" that stops the splashing, but there is still the retention time problem that I think exists.


One of the CF companies that has simple in the name appears to have solved both problems with an interesting oil feed system although I have not seen one run yet.

Sounds good....
Now to find a camera fast enough....

I'll have to go take a look at Simple's new design.
Sounds interesting.

-Graydon

Hey Graydon
How about you run some oil through the fuge, add a volume of water 1/2 the volume of the bowl and run it through again. Then stop the bowl and look at what drains out the bottom holes. This would give you some idea of how well water is removed from oil by the fuge.

The other experiment I would like to see is if you attached the spare outlet in the lid to a vacume/condensor system and ran newly reacted bio through the fuge. Would this work effectivly as a flash evaporation unit and then allow speedy settling seperation, similar to whole batch demeth process.
Look forward to hearing the results.
RegardsDom

I'll add that to my list of things to do with it...
I don't have a condenser so I'll have to leave that one to others....

-Graydon

Interesting conversation, I have had some concerns about 'splashing' with my home made fuge as you guys are discussing.

The idea we came up with to prevent it was using a high pressure pump on the feed and have the discharge tube aligned so it would throw the oil in the same direction as the rotation through a small nozel so it would already be up to some 'speed' and reduce 'splashing'

I should also note the splash might not be as big a concern as many think, when the oil hits the wall on a gravity feed system it seems to get 'sucked' towards the fuge wall.

There is an amazing amount of energy stored in the rotating mass. I once got curious and stuck the end of a pencil in the fluid while waiting for the fuge to stop spinning (mine takes over 11 minutes to stop because of the large rotor mass and efficient double tapered bearing housing we built). It literally 'grabbed' the pencil from my grip, and this was at no where near full speed. I recommened on NOT testing this for yourself without some way to do it safely.

And fuelfarmer, I like your splash gaurd, thats a neat idea! Might have to make some more changes to my fuge, we can call it the 'farmer gaurd'

Oh, (sorry to post so much) if you want to see how much splash is from the feed line just install a three way valve on the feed and switch to dyed water after the rotor fills, if it splashes mostly dyed water out we know we have a problem we need to fix.

This is a short clip of food dye dropping into a CF bowl of water. This clip is at the end of a youtube clip. Use the pause button and drag the play indicator back and forth to see how fast the climbs the wall.

http://s25.photobucket.com/alb...current=MVI_0071.flv

Funny, thats where the idea came from

How about we try it with a fuge full of oil and see if any water escapes, if we don't see much if any exit the rotor it would probably be safe to say splashing isn't that big a deal, although I still like your 'farmer gaurd', gonna have to make one for my fuge.

Hi Guys.
Found his page where leon explains vaporisation does indeed occure within the fuge with no futher input. This may explain the reasonin for what appears as splashing on the lid of fuelfarmers rig.
May also work to demeth bio?

Here is a photo of the splashing and possible lack of retention time I yammer on and on about. I have been wasting way to much time playing with the CF.

I understand the concern with splashing if a "one pass" method is being used. Perhaps it is best to rethink the plan and go with 2 or 3 passes. This might over compensate for the small amount that splashes out.

Nice crisp photos FuelFarmer!

A few video still frames.
In the first photo red water based food coloring is going into the bowl and doing what it should be doing. Staying in the bowl.


In this photo a mixture of food coloring and oil is going into the bowl and in a few seconds some red dye is seen on the containment wall. I think the oil is not staying in the bowl long enough for the water based food dye to drop out. The oil is just moving up and out with very little retention time and sweeping the dye along.

Good work! And it shows the fuge isn't holding the water in. What RPM do you spin Farmer? Do you know your G's?

Cf is spinning 3600 RPM. Don't know the Gs. Gs need to be calculated at the bowl opening diameter not the out side diameter unless you can prove the oil is getting to the outside before it exits.

Here is what I think is good evidence of splash out. The photo is a still frame of video.


In this clip watch the top right of the screen, try full screen, and you can see drops hit the wall. Also there should be no red water based dye exiting the CF if it is removing all the water. The CF is removing a lot of the water, but some is getting out with the oil. Retention time problem?

http://s25.photobucket.com/alb...w¤t=CFtest.flv