We're proud to introduce the Raw Power Centrifuge from WVO Designs.


This bad boy can filter dirty veggie oil extremely well!

It's capable of spinning an all aluminum rotor clear up to 6,000 RPM's! (Yep! That's fast!)

We tested it with some nasty McDonalds oil and were really impressed with how well it worked.
In under an hour we'd filtered 10 gallons of the nastiest, smelliest oil into nice, beautiful
amber colored oil that flowed like water through a 100 micron filter.

WVO Designs put a lot of effort into the design of this bad boy and it shows!

One feature we were really impressed with was the easily removable rotor.


All it takes is a little bit of loosening on the main nut and the rotor bowl pops right out.
Clean it up, put it back in place, secure the sucker, and you're good to go again.

I shot a video early on in our testing of it that gives a good overview of how it works:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1-9OEq6cUo

This was my first experience playing with centrifuges as I'd honestly been quite skeptical about them for quite a while. But man, not anymore! If you've never filtered oil with a centrifuge you're in for a real treat!

Here's how I set mine up (kind of cludgy, but it worked for testing).


And here's the results...


Crystal clear amber gold from the nasty stuff I started with.

One thing that really impressed me was their cool attachable inline heater unit.

It mounts right to the centrifuge and has a heating element with a thermostat built right into the thing.

Within a matter of minutes the oil was nice & warm and was flowing through the centrifuge.

Here's a link to a photo gallery I made using lots of pictures of the thing.
http://www.utahbiodieselsupply...eries/centrifugewvo/

It'll give you an idea of what it looks like.

I did a really big write up on it complete with all the resources and technical information WVO Designs provides.
It has links to several videos (including a really cool installation tutorial video) as well as really neat technical documents that WVO Designs has put together.

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

They offer the centrifuge in two basic configurations:
Option 1:
A basic package which includes a standard 3450 RPM motor and centrifuge

Option 2:
An "Extreme" package which includes a variable speed motor capable of doing 6,000 RPM's, an AC drive to control the motor, and the centrifuge as well.

They also offer the inline heat assembly as a separate accessory as well.

If you get a chance, stop on by & read up on it. I was extremely impressed with both the machine and with WVO Designs in general. They've been great to answer my barrage of questions and help me learn how these things work.

If you're new to centrifuges, stop on by, I tried to make the page easy to read and hopefully it'll give you an idea of how centrifuges operate regardless of the company you choose to buy one through.

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

Enjoy!
-Graydon

Is this the same one that WVO Designs has on their site or $200 off?

Yep! That's the one!

He's doing a sale this week only.
I think it ends on Friday or Saturday?

He said I can offer the same discount as well during the sale.

If you buy one from my site, send me an email with the coupon code and I'll refund you the difference or just call me on the phone & let me know you'd like to get the sale price and I'll run it through with the discount.

He said the discount is only good through the end of the sale though. It's something he's doing just for Halloween.

-Graydon

It's damned tempting, I'll tell ya...

Yep. I agree. That's a sweet deal he's making...
$200 would buy quite a bit of catalyst & methanol.
...or filter cartridges for wvo systems...

I'd love to find someone with a CF ( any CF) here so I could test my finished oil in one and see if it would pull anything ( and how much) out of my finished oil. Given the cost, energy investment and to me, not all that impressive speed of all CF's, they would want to be able to make a big difference to what I'm doing now for next to nothing to justify themselves.

I wanted a CF for a long time and when I got into the position to buy one and looked into them a bit more, I was dissapointed in that they don't seem to offer much advantage over what I'm doing and producing now.
It seems that if you want to remove fats in one you cold spin the oil but that leaves you with water. If you heat the oil you get left with fats. To get rid of both you would have to reprocess which to me makes the exercise very slow. If you settle to get rid of fats, then you may as well do that in the first place and just dry and filter the oil the same as I do now with a setup that cost less than $100. Even if the Cf's do get the oil cleaner, the cost of one would pay for filters for the rest of my foreseeable veg days anyhow so its hard to make a case on that side either.

For those who are looking for a CF, I think this design is superior in many ways to the alternative. It is simpler, easier to set up, portable, can hold more rubbish and does not need the oil to be heated in order to process it among other strong points. I would think it would also be quieter as well from what I have seen on Vids of the pressure driven type. The buzzing racket those things make would drive me nuts in very short order.

I seem to remember a thread with a lot of controversy about these machines which IMHO was mainly from those without a clue and completely flawed thinking. I'm glad to see these CF"s have made it into production and wide distribution because I think they offer a lot of benefits over the alternative.

Hope these machines go well for you Graydon.

When I started with my pressure spun CF I spun up oil I'd been filtering down to 1micron with household filters. It removed enough crud from the oil to make me a believer.

I could run my oil for 12 hours and still get a fine sediment inside the cf bowl. Of course I figure you hit the diminishing returns around 4-5 hours. My oil starts out exceptionally clean too = I never pour really dirty oil into my barrel I always stop whenever the oil is no longer translucent. And it goes through a 200 micron barrel filter before it ever hits the cf now - I used to go to 100 microns.

CF's are sure nice. I wish I could justify dropping the 700 simoleans for this one...

DCS,
Yep. I totally agree. They're probably not a great fit for everyone. Especially if what you're doing now works. Kind of along the lines of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" mentality.

Since I started playing with centrifuges I started doing some research on them. I'm far from being an expert yet (I'll leave that to the manufacturer's, engineers, and those more experienced with these things), but here's a few things I've learned.

1) Water is REALLY hard to centrifuge out.
As I understand it, most centrifuges will pull a chunk of the water out, but it's that last little bit that they struggle with. I've heard that the pressure spun units (a la Diesel Craft, etc) are actually better at removing the water because of the pressure.

As the pressurized oil (presumably full of water) hits the centrifuge, the pressure drops and the water "flash evaporates" out of the oil and leaves the centrifuge as water vapor. SunWizard on the SVO Side I think did a bunch of research on this type of centrifuge and was able to show that it could successfully lower the water content.

I haven't done my testing for water content with these big bowl designs yet. Leon said that a few people have found that if you pull the caps out of the two spare ports, people have reported water levels dropping. I'm going to be testing that theory on my Raw Power unit soon & will be sharing the results over on that centrifuge thread. Until then, I'd say they're a wonderful tool to filter oil with, but am holding my verdict on how well they'll dewater the oil.

2) Centrifuging Soap Out Of Biodiesel Is An Absolute Pain
Fabricator has spoke about the problems he's seen with it on a couple occasions. I haven't tested this unit on Biodiesel yet (either washed or unwashed) but I have plans too. I have a bunch of samples of unwashed fuel I'd like to test with it.

That said, filters aren't much better at this task either. A good water wash or dry wash towers (whether wood shavings or the ion exchange resin style) are a much better way to remove soap from Biodiesel.

3) Heat Does Wonders With Centrifuges
Like filtering through sock filters or bucket/drum strainers, add a little heat and the little dirt specs & gunk just love to fall out of suspension of the oil. However, you brought something up that I think is really worth pointing out. Heat the oil up too hot and you've just eliminated the ability for a centrifuge to effectively pull the fats out because they become dissolved in the oil. I think it's an excellent point for anyone that plans on playing with centrifuges to take into consideration

4) They Have Their Limits
You can't over do it on the flow rates otherwise you'll overwhelm the bowls/cartridges and the gunk will go right on through them.

5) They Filter Better At Slower Flow Rates
At least with the bowl design, I found that the oil gets filtered better when the flow rate is decreased. I have a video that shows how the bowls fill up & then overflow that I'll be publishing really soon that illustrates it really well. Overdo it and you're not getting the benefit

6) They Filter Really Well
I still am dumbfounded how well that thing filtered my nasty Micky-D oil. It took that stuff and just cleaned it like no tomorrow. I was amazed watching it pour through the 100 micron filter like water. Just blew my mind to see it do that.

So, I think as long as we know the limitations of centrifuges and not expect them to exceed those limitations, they'll do well.

Yep. That thread was interesting...I just posted a much lengthier post over there on what I found in all the testing I did (complete with lots of cool pictures). My feeling is that anyone considering a centrifuge should research them. Look at all the brands on the market. Talk to people that own them and then make a decision about which one to buy. I know I'm pleased with the WVO Designs one, but it's the only one I have experience with so far. That said, I couldn't be happier with the results.

Here's hoping my water tests go well!

-Graydon

Here's a couple video clips of this centrifuge in action..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1-9OEq6cUo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUhgKFV5Ri4


-Graydon