Has anyone had experience with the Lime Life Element made by Camco Mfg? I just ran across some of these that claim they will NOT burn out even if burried in sand or powered on without imersion!

These sound great for BioDiesel production. I am wondering if anyone has tried them & how well they worked.

Here is the claim by the manufacturer: Screw-In Foldback Lime Life"Our best immersion elements—with lifetime warranty* • UL & CSA listed • Gasket included • Best when water has high mineral content • Withstands dry firing • Heats in lime and sand buildup that would burn out ordinary elements • Highest grade nickel and chromium incoloy • Ultra low-watt density (50 watts per square inch)

Click Here to go see the specs

Jeep

No experience, but thanks for the link.

The heating elements that are made for heating vegetable oil are 25 watts per square inch.

Dear Jeep,

Do you have a cost on these???

Dear Dropout,

Do you have a source for oil specific elements?



Thanks,

troy

I suspect DROPOUT's statment of "25 watts per sq inch" is about what is needed to keep veroil from crisping up on the heater element.

Based on the tech info on the link I think this is a bit more advertising hype than anything new. The basic unit is listed as 1500 watts-110 volts and is 12 inches long, where the 12 inches is measured is not stated, this is stated as being a "50 watt/ sq inch" unit.

The normal $7.00 cheapie 45oo watts at 220 volts unit I am using is 12 inches long overall, the heating elemant is 11 inches overall. Powering this with 110 volts produces 1100 watts of heat so the power density of the cheapie unit on 110 volts is actualy less than this low-watt density unit (less then 50 watts/sq inch), this is still too much heat as it does bake oil onto the heater element.
I would have to read the fine print of there "lifetime gaurantee" but I bet they don't get many folks bothering to return an old burned out unit.

I recently added one of the cheapie standard 4500 watt heating elements to my filtering barrel, powering it with 110 volts. 1100 watts in this size heating element is still too much heat for the size, I have a large quantity of burnt-on encrusted oil over the entire unit, even bridging between the loop in a couple places. 1100 watts from this one unit also produces a LOT of rolling convection currents in the oil, not a bad thing in a filter barrel but not wanted in a settling barrel.
I will be adding a second one of these heaters to the filter barrel and wiring them in series to reduce the 1100 watts heat from one single element down to 275 watts heat from each of the two elements (550 watts total).

This will allow me to do more testing. With 2 elements in series powered by 110 volts the total heat from both will be about 550 watts, each element making 275 watts (this is probably around 12-15 watts/ sq inch ?) -or- I can power both elements in series with 220 volts for a total of 1100 watts, each element making 550 watts ( this is probably close to the "25 watts/ sq inch figure).

Another approach would be to power one element through a veriac and adjust the voltage to the element to less than 110 volts -or- find or build a SCR Pulse Width Modulating incandescent light dimmer to allow the heat to be manualy adjusted anywhere from "none" to "full on". These turn the heater on/off 60 times a second and control how long the heater is ON for each time period.

One way to get ultra-low density elements is to wire a 240V low watt density element for 120V. I measured a 6000W 240V LWD element to be 1/4" in diameter and 72" long from where it goes into the head back into where it goes back into the head. That gives 106 W/sq in. If wired for 120V it would be 26.5 W/sq in.

Wiring other 240V low watt density elements for 120V should provide similar densities.

as for 'burning crud on', remember that if you read a specification for vegetable oil, they probably tested it for vegetable oil, not 'WVO with water, starch, and residue'. Our oil varies in composition from one person's source to another's...

Troy:

I don't have my reciept handy right now but if I recall corrctly they were $20 at the local Lowes Hardware store.

Guys, these elements look very much different than your run of the mill elements. They are a lot thicker & look to be coated with a heavy coating of some time... not sure but it could be a ceramic of some type.
They look somewhat like the elements on your stovetop range but are still in the round & not flattened.

Not sure about the hype but how many standard water heater elements will withstand dry firing?

Perhaps some of that 50watts per inch spec can be accounted for by the increased diameter of the element giving a much larger surface area that by just taking into account the length.

I bought 2 for my home water heater as spares but I think I'll buy one for my BD setup & test it out soon as the weather warms a bit.

Jeep

JeepGal,

Watt Density is watts per square inch. Do the math yourself. Measure the diameter of the element and mulitply by 3.14 then multiply again by the length of the element. Is it really 50 W/sq in?

I've measured out a few over the last few months and I am begining to think they rate their elements like they rate the capacity of their tanks, with a special factory tape measure that has rather long inches.

Let us know what the true rating is please.

I have been using an old animal drinking water tank heater in my settling barrel. The entire unit that goes under the oil is bent from 3/4 inch diameter copper water tube. The heater is only in the horizontal portion that is bent into sort of a large flattened loop. The wattage is rated to be 1000 watts and the heated section of pipe is 30 inches long, The watt-density is just a bit more than 14 watts/ square inch. Absolutely NO oil is baked on this low-watt heater. It also causes no visable convection currents in an uninsulated barrel although there surely are some.

The 1/4 inch diameter by 23 inch long (total element length, out and back) 1100 watt cheapie water heater element in my filter barrel calculats to 61 watts/ sq inch -- produces rolling convection currents and has a heavy baked-on oil coating.

61 watts/ sq inch = heavy baked-on oil coating
14 watts/sq inch = no baking whatsoever.

Both these heaters were tested in the exact same oil as it was moved through the barrels in my filtering setup.

Can you try this with dirtier oil as a test?
I assume you're heat-settling (ooh- I like that term!) filtered oil?
Mark

Mark -- The oil that I am food-particle settling outside in the Illinois winter is the bean soup just-collected-and-strained-through-a-stocking oil that has been mixed with 5 gallon of clean water, can't get much worse oil than this for testing. The 14 W/SQ.IN. stock tank heater element has absolutely no oil or crud fried to it, just nice fairly-clean-but-dark old copper tubing looking. The horizontal heated section of the tank heater is located just a bit below half way down the height of the barrel so it is in the oil and not the bottom water or pancake batter.

I just realized, from my wattage density figures above, that by using the 2 (4500 watt at 220 V) cheapie water heater elements wired in series and powered with 110 volts the watt density of each element figures to be about 15 watts/sq inch, should work fine without any baking, if more heat is needed I will add 2 more elements also wired in series, power each set independantly from 110 volts but I don't expect this to be nescicary. Been too cold (teens) with snow (6 inches) to get to the task of adding the second heating element to my filter barrel so no actual testing done yet.

The single 110 volt powered (1100 watts) heater with the baked-on oil in the filter barrel was used to keep the oil warm enough to filter nicely, I made a mistake by mounting a water heater thermostat to the outside bottom of the barrel. With it turned all the way down (below the 90 f mark) the temp at the top of the oil stayed about 130 deg f. The outside temps were in the low to hi 30's f and the barrel is not insulated. This combination probably kept the heater on a fair amount of the time, the oil was kept warm and circulating through the filters for 7 days until I finaly got the crossflow air mods made to the flash evaporator so I could dewater this oil directly into 5 gallon jerry cans. As the oil level neared the bottom of the barrel the heater element came into view and I was able to see the baked-on crud.

The heater is mounted horizontaly 4 inches above the bottom of the barrel and even I can not easily reach it from the open top of the barrel so it must be removed for cleaning (PITA), hopefully 2 elements in series will eliminate the need for cleaning. These cheapie elements are about 1/2 inch shorter than needed to reach the center of the barrel when mounted so I will mount one opposite the other, pointing at each other, the heat will be evenly distributed from both sides of the barrel.

Hi Folks

See also this post

hi Iuse heating elements from discarded dish washers. they vary in size and shape and work great. Best of all they are useally free for the takeing. drill two approiate size holes[useally 1/2 in]spaced to the particular element.seal with high temp automotive silicone. runs on 110v controlled by water heater thermostat on side of barrel. [I use open top barrels] These elements are designed for contact with debris and other junk

If past experiance serves me correctly I believe a 220v heating element wired to op on 110v will only produce 25% of it's rated value on 240v. 6000w on 240v - 1500w on 110v

JeepGal,
Yes, I've been using the Camco elements for years. Love 'em! they last a very long time, even after caking one with crud. I am trying to buy them in bulk to provide them to fellow BDer's (ok, you SVO guys too!). HTH

quote:

Originally posted by Tim c cook:

61 watts/ sq inch = heavy baked-on oil coating
14 watts/sq inch = no baking whatsoever.

I got another data point to add to this.

22 watts / sq inch = no baking seen.

Test setup:

One 120V 1500 Watt element (E1) in series with a 240V 3500 Watt element (E2). When given 120V, E1 is giving off 204 watts over it's 11.0 square inches (18.5 W/in^2); while E2 is giving off 349 watts over it's 15.7 square inches (22.2 W/in^2). E1 had been used solo before, and so had some burnt on material (I cleaned most of it off). E2 was brand new, and was clean after test.

Test was to pass thru ~4 gallons of oil in an atmospheric pressure dewatering / filtering setup. Test ran for ~1.5 hours.

Horn

For a low density heating element, I've been using an 8 inch dia. elec cooktop element for a few years now that I found at the town dump for free. They are 220 V elements but run on 110 puts out about 450 watts (this is from memory). They have lots of surface area and I see no build up after years of use. What's cool is that you can uncoil it for more even heating by hanging it within a few inches off the bottom of the drum.