looking for good way to do my final filtering to 10 micron or less.What do you use and how many gallons can you get thru your media.Also how do you know how efficiant your filter is.

350,
I do filtering in one step to 5 microns, using a poly felt filter. It is 8" diameter with either a plastic or steel ring in the opening and 20" long. I have used these filters for ~500 litres before washing them to remove contaminants amd then re-using.
If the oil I get is particularly dirty, it may only take 40-50 litres to clog.

As I cold filter, most of the contaminant is tallow or hydrogenated palm oil. I usually scrape this into another container and continue filtering without washing the filter, as the tallow holds most of the other contaminants which would otherwise be trapped in the filter medium.

I have only retired the filter bags due to damage (when I used a heater, I burnt the bag in a small spot) or fungal contamination I had some wet oil and mould grew on the bag when left in the oil for 2 weeks).

Like Tony O. I cold filter through 5 micron poly felt and then vacuum draw oil through a Racor 500fg 2 micron water oil seperator. Seems to come out golden at moment.

I layer my bags...25-10-5 micron

that way I filter three times at once. takes longer to clog too.

Odie,

You should be aware that if you place a filter bag inside another of the same size the outer bag stretches...compromising its micron rating slightly. It is much better to make each filter bag slightly smaller than the one it is fit inside to avoid this.

I am just getting started and just filtered my first batch of WVO. So take what I say with a suspicious eye. I used a toilet paper filter. It is supposed to filter to less that 1 micron and take out up to 6 ozs of water. I wasn't sure it would flow thru, but it did without heating and just gravity. I am in Southern California, so not too cold. So far so good. The filter element is certainly not expensive. As I say, I have just done one small batch of 5 gallons, so don't know how long it will last before replacement. I took a look at the filter and it had some stuff on top, so it is filtering.

De

I will have to try the bags I was woundering how long they lasted.how do you claen them.I can get some that are 6in by 17in I think they said they were 2 sq feet of area.20 for $55.I have filtered the oil to about 30 microns and the filters Iam useing now plug up to fastI get this black tar like stuff on them the oil looks good but I can only get may be 20 gal then I have to change.

quote:

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Originally posted by danalinscott:
Odie,

You should be aware that if you place a filter bag inside another of the same size the outer bag stretches...compromising its micron rating slightly. It is much better to make each filter bag slightly smaller than the one it is fit inside to avoid this.

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The inner bag does not stretch the outter bag. What causes the filter bags to stretch is the weight of the oil sitting in the bags. This constant weight of oil pulls the bags down and pushes out on the sides of the bags. The filter bags weight nothing.

I think most of these industrial filter bags that we use are really designed for air/dust filtration and not liquids.

The inner bags are all being supported by the outter bag and have minimal deformation. Granted, the outter bag takes all the stress and probably loses part of it's micron rating. But, as the bags collect impurities, their micron ratings go down as they slowly clog.

I am planning to add a final 1 micron bag as my outter bag anyway so I think it's a mute point now. Even if the 1 micron bag stretches out so what? It still should be way more than sufficient as the car's filter is 10 microns.

If I was going to multi layer bags I would put supporting metal baskets in between filter bags so each bag had its own support independent of the others, with a basket supporting final bag also.

that's not a bad idea.

The bags I am using have a metal ring sewn in. The rings sit on top of each other as the bags are layered. The steel ring combined with the tickness of the bag wrapped around the ring results in about a 1/8"-1/4" spacing between bags. I did a 4 layer bag set up and it is about 1' taller than a single bag. There might not actually be a visible gap between each bag, but certainly some stress relief, or sharing of the load between all the bags.

it's really a question of where the pressure is being applied...what are the flow rates thru each bag?

if the inner bag flows faster than the outter bag, then the outter bag is holding all the weight as the inner bag is really just "floating" in oil and the oil in the inner bag only flows thru the bag when the outter bag's oil has passed thru allowing the inner bag's oil to then pass into the outter bag.

Now if the outter bag flows fastest, then the inner bag supports most of the weight. As oil slowly flows thru the inner bag, it then flows out of the outter bag faster than it can be replaced by the flow of the inner bag. therefore the outter bag supports almost no weight as it immediately passes oil.

When the bags are first filled the outer bag takes a beating..or rather stretching. Teh inner bags do not "float" until later when the pressure is equalized a bit.

And the filtering ability is not compromised uniformly. The major filtering compromises take place at weak points in the filter bag. This can result in small tears of enlargement of exiating holes such as at points where the bags are sewn together. These small tears or holes will result in some particulates passing though which are much larger than the micron rating. It may not be in large nough quatities to be significant to you though.

A warning about washing synthetic material filter bags. Doing so will compromise the micron rating. They are not designed with reuse in mind. You can make your own non-synthetic 10 micron bag filters for aobut $5 in 5 minutes which CAN be washed and reused over and over with no change in filtering ability.

Some of the prices you all quoted seem TOO high for felt bags heres a link to some
1-9 $2.73 a piece
try this link
bags

How do you clean your filter bags? They are only a few bucks each but throwing them away adds up fast.

I thought about turning the bags inside out and pouring some hot water thru them to flush out most of the fat. Air dry them and reuse them. They won't be like new, but you certainly should get many more uses out of them.

I would not think "back flushing" with hot water would hurt the bags.

There seems to be a little confusion here - all polyester felt filter bags are designed to be supported by a metal mesh holder that carries all the weight of the liquid to be filtered.

That is the ONLY way that they will work to the manufacturers specs!

If you don't have that support then the resultant stretching and distortion will render your felt micron rating completely meaningless as virtually any size particle will flow through a stretched bag.

If you multilayer the bags with gaps in between them then each bag has to be independently supported.

Back flushing with boiling and perfectly clean water (also filtered to a better rating than the bag specs) is possible but once again only if the bag is supported by a metal mesh in the reverse direction.

Dooh...

I think everyone that is using the filter bags is just letting them hang freely and pouring WVO into the sock.

I guess you would have to use a final "support" sock that does nothing but carry the weight of everything.

Not me my bag is in a filter housing with a metal support stand underneath it in housing. Bag was made to extend to walls of housing. I vacuum it from that housing through a Racor 500fg for water seperation, oil then goes into sealed storage or my cars fuel tank. I have a prefilter on my cars fuel line before main fuel filter and things seem to be working okay. Except for time I think I got a bit too low in barrel and sucked up some thick muck, won't do that again.

quote:

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Originally posted by danalinscott:
When the bags are first filled the outer bag takes a beating..or rather stretching. Teh inner bags do not "float" until later when the pressure is equalized a bit.

And the filtering ability is not compromised uniformly. The major filtering compromises take place at weak points in the filter bag. This can result in small tears of enlargement of exiating holes such as at points where the bags are sewn together. These small tears or holes will result in some particulates passing though which are much larger than the micron rating. It may not be in large nough quatities to be significant to you though.

A warning about washing synthetic material filter bags. Doing so will compromise the micron rating. They are not designed with reuse in mind. You can make your own non-synthetic 10 micron bag filters for aobut $5 in 5 minutes which CAN be washed and reused over and over with no change in filtering ability.

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Dana, could you expand on this reusable filter? I need one that can filter quanity to a relative ~15 micron rating. I then could use it straight in my tank with my Vormax unit. Thanks

quote:

I vacuum it from that housing through a Racor 500fg for water seperation,

Umm..A Racor will only separate "free" (large visible droplets) water from vegoil. Not designed to remove suspended water (microscopic droplets) from vegoil.

quote:

Dana, could you expand on this reusable filter? I need one that can filter quanity to a relative ~15 micron rating. I then could use it straight in my tank with my Vormax unit. Thanks

I developed this for use in my prefilter/dewatering units ($20 ea. or both for $30) and include how to make them in both prefilter How-to files. I also sell the How-to file to make them separately for $10. No need to provide support for them as they are designed to hang free and not disort past 10 microns. It is still best to use a polishing filter and heat settle suspended water after using ANY bag type filter for wvo.

BTW CPU I took a look at your F250 conversion...very impressed. Beutiful work!

Run some searches here, this has been discussed many times. The leg of a blue jean or other tightly woven cotton works well as long as you do not need the assurance of a manufactured filter with a tested rating.

filterbag.com sells filters for $3 and change. I bought 1 micron filters last time. There is another place that sells them cheaper than that, almost by half.

Yes CPUneck Super Job on the conversion...
everything going ok with it?
Do you want to do mine? I already have the 2nd tank in.