If I go through a screen door mesh, then a pantyhose mesh, then through a 2 barrel cold upflow settling system, and then through blue jeans filter and finally through another pantyhose mesh, what micron of filtration do you reckon I have achieved?
Is there a better pre-filter for my Mercedes than the OEM or equivalent? I have had to replace my small cheap pre-filter after 2 months of blending and am evaluating my filter choices and my filtration techniques.

quote:

Originally posted by bmor:
If I go through a screen door mesh, then a pantyhose mesh, then through a 2 barrel cold upflow settling system, and then through blue jeans filter and finally through another pantyhose mesh, what micron of filtration do you reckon I have achieved?

I wouldn't have a clue but you would have made great achievements in wasting your time and effort that I can tell you!

I settle my oil, (upfront or just leave it in barrels for a few months, pump to a second settling tank and then filter through a 5 UM filter bag and a 1 um water filter that is on the same "circuit" as the bag filter. Last time I changed these filters I had put 2500+L of oil through them and when I changed them it was quite apparent they could have gone at very least another 2500L.

I don't pre-filter the oil at all these days with a screen or anything else. It all goes into the drums ( which are sealed) and left till I get round to their rotation which can be 6 months or more. Event though there is a lot of water and food particles in some of the drums, I don't have any problem with the oil going rank and merely pump off the liquid gold till I hit the slops which goes to a bio maker friend with a hi powered drying setup which can dry about 900L of wet slops in an hour or so.

quote:

Is there a better pre-filter for my Mercedes than the OEM or equivalent?

To me the OEM merc filter is just a strainer. It's too coarse to be a filter. I like good old fashioned paper because say what you will, it makes for nice fine filtration.

I use the disposable inline paper filters and change them about every month. At $3 ( .27C US) they are cheap and effective. I have mine secured with hose clamps which have "thumb" tabs on them so they don't need a screwdriver to change and the Mrs and kids can swap one out if they die by the side of he road.

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If I go through a screen door mesh, then a pantyhose mesh, then through a 2 barrel cold upflow settling system, and then through blue jeans filter and finally through another pantyhose mesh, what micron of filtration do you reckon I have achieved?

Haven't a clue.
If it were mine I'd replace the final pantyhose mesh with a rated 5µ cartridge filter.

About five microns if your blue jeans dont have any holes in em, but your five micron oil is gonna still be quite wet.

Assuming that VO is dry without testing it is like assuming that VO is filtered to 5µ after passing through 'bluejesns'. Test VO for moisture and use a rated filter for the final polishing, otherwise it's just guessing.

I have looked at pantyhose/stocking fabric under a microscope, the unstretched fabric has rectangular openings that are approximatly 25 microns in there smallest dimension and around 100 micron in there longest dimension, this is with name-brand material that has 5 threads used as one thread during the weaving, cheaper brand stocking material uses less threads and the openings are even larger, as you stretch the fabric the openings become even larger.

You can't see anything smaller than about 40 micrron by eye without magnification, plus any of this type material used as filters will be rated as a "nominal" micron rating, this means they will pass stuff up to at least 10 times larger than any arbitrary micron rating, it depends on how the chunks are oriented when they hit the fabric, any "nominal" filter only collects something like 30-40% of there rated size particals each time the fluid passes through them, this is why I circulate all my oil through "nominal" rated water filters at least 30 times. One pass through even a known "nominal" rated 5 micron filter will pass something like 1/2 the particals as big as 50 micron, if the filter is not specifically rated to be "absolute" it is a "nominal" rated filter, "absolute" rated filters will cost you a LOT more and will likely clog quickly unless they are used at the very end of the filter chain.

My oil cleaning process.

Last time I checked this oil passed the HPT coming out of the 2nd barrel.
I need to find out where I can buy a 5 micron cartridge filter.
Replacing the pre-filter in the car has addressed the power loss I was beginning to notice.

quote:

I need to find out where I can buy a 5 micron cartridge filter.

Natural Cotton String-Wound Filter Cartridge
Applications:
• Vegetable Oils
• Dilute Acids
• Alkalis
• Organic solvents
• Portable liquids
• Paints
• Alcohols/Glycols
• Petroleum
• Water/Hydronic heating fluids
• for use to 300°F


5 MICRON STRING WOUND FILTER
SKU: CU5R97T

Standard Boiler Filters 9-7/8" Unbleached Cotton, string wound, economy

http://www.amresupply.com/product/CU5R97T

Ebay usually has fleece polypropoline water filters available in bulk buys of 50 for less than $1.50 each including shipping, you can mix and match micron ratings, they work fine for me.

John Galt what kind of a housing do you use for the filter. Whole House water style or what? Cause the housing they sell is pretty expensive.

I use a 'whole house water filter' housing.

To use the string wound filter, I salvage the plastic ends off the 30µ sintered polystyrene house water filter, and seal them to the ends of the string wound filter with silicone RTV. Works perfectly, no end leakage.

What's been working well for me for a long time is pillow cases from the Thrift Store. They sell them for .50- $1 a piece. I line a 5 gallon bucket that I've drilled holes in the bottom of with one of the pillow cases. The bucket goes into a hole that is cut in the barrel like a cork goes into a bottle...Thanks BK for that idea. That's just the pre-filter to catch the pieces of batter and so on. It also seems to help in seperating some of the fats out of the oil.

Following that pre-filtering, the oil gets mist washed, settled, water & junk drained off, heated, settled, top 3/4 or so transferred to another barrel, heated again, settled again, top 3/4 transferred to the final blending barrel. Once everything is blended the fuel is recirculated through a 10 micron and 2 micron filter in series. The fuel also passes through these filters as it goes into the vehicle.

I am currently using the Cim-Tek canister type filters for BD that have the above micron ratings and advertise a water block feature. I had been using, and still have, GE whole house water filter housings, one with the 15-20 micron cartridge and the second with the 1-2 micron carbon cartridge. These were followed by a Goldenrod Water Block. On the GE filters the cartridges have a piece of PVC pipe with holes drilled pushed through the center hole and felt battery terminal washers at either end to prevent bypass...Thanks Tim Cook for those tips.

well I just found a 3 unit whole house filter, came with 5 30 micron filters. It's the blue plastic type housing like JG's picture above, so I'm pretty sure these filters are readily available at the hardware stores, hopefully in assorted micron ratings, if not then I have the link above.

As for water in the oil, what was bone dry in the cooler months now shows a few bubbles under the HPT in the peak of summer, so it seems my education continues.

Onward, Thanks for the feedback.