Newbie caught the bug

[therecklessengineer]

Yes you are. You only need to filter enough not to clog up your pump. No more is necessary. Pretty much all of the stuff in the oil will drop out with the glyc.

[staphoent]

I don't heat liquid oil before the start of processing ie final dewatering in the processor.  The only stuff I heat is whites which go into a separate heated tank (as seen on the wiki) for a preliminary dewater.  Good oil yielded is pumped off the top and when there's enough crud I'll process in one batch.

For longer settling, have two settling tanks.  Decant off the top of one into another.  Once both are full, the through put frequency will be the same, but double the settling time.

I see, that makes sense. I guess its worth doing if settling and draining does the same thing as filtering.

[staphoent]

Forget the cartridge filters, they're a Pita, use the j cloth system, much easier and far less messing about.

Tesco Daizy cloths are as good as 5u and if you're really fussy you can have a new filter every time.

I've just filtered 200ltr through one and it'll do another 200 and all for about 5p.

Like Julian says, all of my pre reaction filtering is done at ambient.

Ha sounds a lot more cost effective, are you refering to the J-cloths found in placed in catridge filters found on this page:

http://www.biopowered.co.uk/wiki/Tips_and_wrinkles_1#J_cloth_wrapped_filter

or the J-cloth 'net' constructed with coat-hangers found here:

http://www.biopowered.co.uk/wiki/J_Cloth_bag_filters?

[staphoent]

Yes you are. You only need to filter enough not to clog up your pump. No more is necessary. Pretty much all of the stuff in the oil will drop out with the glyc.

Ok thanks, when you say 'You only need to filter enough not to clog up your pump', what micron size are you referring to?

[Tony]

That is dependent on the pump.  The open impeller ones can handle quite a lot.  The more powerful ones tend to be closed impeller and they can block with bigger lumps or snag fibrous material on the impeller edges.  But small particulate matter won't affect them, so really only very basic filtering is needed (think mesh rather than micron!)

[Head Womble]

Mickindashed is right about some people are using two heat exchangers, it's getting quite a common practice.

The first is known as a SHHE (still head heat exchanger) this not only helps reduce the load on the condenser but also re-heats the returning gasses (remember the GL system circulates the same air around the system without introducing any more), the plus side of this is there's less demand placed upon the heater, so less energy used.

The second is the condenser it's self.
Some of us have made our own updated version of the standard PD, this has four or five cores nestled into a single water jacket, these are known as quad or multi cores.
However I can't find a section for these on the wiki (I'm sure it's there, if not maybe we need to write one).

[staphoent]

You need to get the lumps out before you process or you'll block your pump. I settle my oil in a barrel which has a floating pick up (basically  hose pipe going from the bottom outlet up to a float off a toilet cistern valve). All the crud sinks to the bottom and the floating pick up draws from just under the top, so what I draw out is clean. I have a 200 micron filter between the settling tank and the processor, but it hasn't ever shown any sign of blocking so I assume the settling rather than the filter is doing the work. I have a different tap on the bottom of the barrel so that eventually I can drain off cruddy oil at the bottom and start again with a clean barrel.

The GL design is the best, but it's been improved in some ways by people on the forums and GL hasn't incorporated the best changes into his plans. Two changes that I think are important to make are 1.  GL shows the Venturi horizontally just before the top entrance to the reactor. That works sometimes but not reliably. The Venturi should be mounted vertically. 2. The plumbers delight condensor isn't much good. People put a multi plate still heat exchanger before the condensor using the return air from the bottom of the condensor for the "cold" side on the heat exchanger. I made that modification myself and it did wonders for the efficiency of the condensor.

I suspect that using a heat exchanger this way is putting a patch over what was a bad design in the first place, and that you could ditch the plumbers delight condensor altogether and just use the heat exchanger as a condensor with the cooling water going through the "cold" side of the condensor. I think someone on here uses two heat exchangers, one to reheat the return air in the vapour circuit and one as a condensor. Basically I don't think the plumbers delight condensor is up to the job so I'd recommend you research around how people have improved that side of things.

If you do decide to use a heat exchanger, find yourself one with threaded ports so that you can connect it to your pipe work with threaded to compression fittings (assuming you are using copper pipe).  Some Worcester Bosch units have threaded ports or failing that there used to be a German company on eBay who sold generic heat exchangers with threaded ports.

As a final point for a newbie, please take proper care with the chemicals. Methanol is nasty stuff. They're not kidding with the warnings they put on it. Same goes for Kaoh.

That sounds like a good idea Where do you purchase one of these 'floating pickups' from?

Thanks for the information on the GL design changes, I will do some more research/asking questions about the heat exchangers and their different designs.

Ive heard some bad things about methanol so I will be trying to keep the methanol encapsulated as possible!

Thanks for your advice

[Jamesrl]

There is a benefit to working with Methanol, Ethanol is the antidote.

I take 1/2 a bottle of the red medicine the night before a batch, 1/2 on the night it happens and perhaps a visit to the medicine shop (pub) the night after.

You can't be too careful with Methanol can you.

[Jmg]

There is a benefit to working with Methanol, Ethanol is the antidote.

I take 1/2 a bottle of the red medicine the night before a batch, 1/2 on the night it happens and perhaps a visit to the medicine shop (pub) the night after.

You can't be too careful with Methanol can you.

I know look at how biohazard turned out, poor chap.

Since taking up bio I always have a medicinal nightcap or 4 at the weekend, even when I'm not brewing. Better safe than sorry, especially with my plastic bomb processor.

[Mickindashed]

That sounds like a good idea Where do you purchase one of these 'floating pickups' from?

Thanks for the information on the GL design changes, I will do some more research/asking questions about the heat exchangers and their different designs.

Ive heard some bad things about methanol so I will be trying to keep the methanol encapsulated as possible!

Thanks for your advice

Get an oil barrel. Not the kind with a removable lid, just the regular design. It has two holes in the top with screw threads. Turn it upside down so the top is now the bottom. Cut out what is now the top with a jigsaw. Now you've got a 220 litre open top tank with two holes in the bottom. The big hole has a 2 inch bsp thread and the little one has a 3/4 inch bsp hole. Get a metal 2" to 3/4" reducer and screw it into the big hole with some ptfe tape. You now have two 3/4" holes in the bottom of your barrel.

Buy three 3/4" bsp to 22mm compression fittings. Screw one of them into the little hole in the barrel put a stub of pipe into the compression fitting and a ball valve underneath. Now you have a pipe to tap off from the bottom of the barrel. Screw the other two 3/4" to 22mm fittings into the top and bottom of the 2" to 3/4" reducer and put a stub of pipe into each compression fitting. Put a ball valve at the bottom. Inside the barrel, put some hose onto the stub of pipe and secure it with a jubilee clip. The hose is going to run to the floating pick up.

The floating pick up is just a bit of bent pipe shoved in the end of the hose and secured somehow to a float. I used the float off a toilet valve. Plumbase will sell you one for about 99p. When you fill up the tank with oil the float will sit up on the top with the bit of bent pipe hanging just below. When you open the valve, the hose is drawing from a point about 2" below the top of the waste oil. So long as your waste oil has had a bit of time to settle, anything light will have floated to the top (in other words above where you are drawing oil from) or fallen to the bottom - that's below where you are drawing from. Every so often you can draw off, say, 20L of the crap from the tap that draws from the bottom, filter it, and put it back in the tank - but if you are taking 100L fills from a 200 L tank and you keep the tank brimming it'll be ages before you need to worry about that.

My oil comes out totally clear after a few weeks settling with no work on my part and no dirty filters. Have a look at the settling page on vegoilcar.co.uk.

By the way, don't mess around with 60L batches. Once you are up and running making bio will turn into a chore just like any other, so you might as well make a 100L + batch and save yourself having to brew up all the time.

[staphoent]

That sounds like a good idea Where do you purchase one of these 'floating pickups' from?

Thanks for the information on the GL design changes, I will do some more research/asking questions about the heat exchangers and their different designs.

Ive heard some bad things about methanol so I will be trying to keep the methanol encapsulated as possible!

Thanks for your advice

Get an oil barrel. Not the kind with a removable lid, just the regular design. It has two holes in the top with screw threads. Turn it upside down so the top is now the bottom. Cut out what is now the top with a jigsaw. Now you've got a 220 litre open top tank with two holes in the bottom. The big hole has a 2 inch bsp thread and the little one has a 3/4 inch bsp hole. Get a metal 2" to 3/4" reducer and screw it into the big hole with some ptfe tape. You now have two 3/4" holes in the bottom of your barrel.

Buy three 3/4" bsp to 22mm compression fittings. Screw one of them into the little hole in the barrel put a stub of pipe into the compression fitting and a ball valve underneath. Now you have a pipe to tap off from the bottom of the barrel. Screw the other two 3/4" to 22mm fittings into the top and bottom of the 2" to 3/4" reducer and put a stub of pipe into each compression fitting. Put a ball valve at the bottom. Inside the barrel, put some hose onto the stub of pipe and secure it with a jubilee clip. The hose is going to run to the floating pick up.

The floating pick up is just a bit of bent pipe shoved in the end of the hose and secured somehow to a float. I used the float off a toilet valve. Plumbase will sell you one for about 99p. When you fill up the tank with oil the float will sit up on the top with the bit of bent pipe hanging just below. When you open the valve, the hose is drawing from a point about 2" below the top of the waste oil. So long as your waste oil has had a bit of time to settle, anything light will have floated to the top (in other words above where you are drawing oil from) or fallen to the bottom - that's below where you are drawing from. Every so often you can draw off, say, 20L of the crap from the tap that draws from the bottom, filter it, and put it back in the tank - but if you are taking 100L fills from a 200 L tank and you keep the tank brimming it'll be ages before you need to worry about that.

My oil comes out totally clear after a few weeks settling with no work on my part and no dirty filters. Have a look at the settling page on vegoilcar.co.uk.

By the way, don't mess around with 60L batches. Once you are up and running making bio will turn into a chore just like any other, so you might as well make a 100L + batch and save yourself having to brew up all the time.

Thanks for the Advice,

Your instructions would make things a lot easier. My question is, Does the floating pick-up essentially do the same thing as using having an outlet 3/4 of the way down on the side of the barrel (after  you have drained form the bottom), or is there further advantage to the floating pick-up.

After thinking it through, I would prefer to make 100L+ batches, however the benefit of the 100L gas bottle is that it has a conical bottom and was free! I don't have the facilities to make or the finances to buy a steel barrel with a conical bottom.

BTW, approximately how much pipe (in length) would I need to create a set-up with 2 45 gallon settling tanks and one GL styled reactor? I was hoping to pick some up today

[Mickindashed]

The floating pick up does basically the same thing as having a tap 3/4 of the way down on the side of your wvo tank. The advantage of doing it the way I told you is that doing it my way makes use of the existing holes in the barrel. If you fit a tap to the side of a barrel that's one more hole to drill and something else that might leak. As for how much pipe you need, I suggest you don't start buy a couple of metres to begin with and take it from there once you've got going with the build and you can eyeball what you need next. In case nobody said it earlier, the best option for your Venturi is the dickjotec design - it works and it's a lot easier than the other options. Have you had a look for an old hot water tank? If you can find one it'll save you a lot of hassle because the heater's already fitted and all but one of your connections are ready made.