Go to Otherpower.com Home Page Go to Forcefield Shopping Cart Go to Wondermagnet.com Home Page
Front Page - [Homebrewed Electricity-- (wind) (solar) (hydro) (steam) (controls) (storage) (mechanical)] - Classifieds - Site News
Everything - Newbies - [Remote Living-- (housing) (heat) (light) (water)] - Reviews - Diaries - Our Products
Converting oil burner to waste oil?


By 44toy, Section Remote Living
Posted on Thu Feb 05, 2004 at 06:45:23 PM MST
anyone tried it?

I have built the oil drip wood stoves for shop as I can come across much used oil from equipment. Been thinking about coverting a oil furnace to run on used motor oil with some kerosen etc added to thin it. I know several filters will be needed, and a good flame would be hard to maintain. The waste oil furnaces that have been talked about lately seem to be a good idea, but I would like to have a little more convenice plus any fuel efficency. I would consider buiding one from heavy steel if that would stop crack in the heat exchanger. I hate to waste anything, but also can not be on a constant watch to maintain a flame. I burn kerosen now and am a little leary of leaving a stove burning 10 hours without attention. I also Have seen a well built wood stove over heat and catch fire. Any help appreciated.
Converting oil burner to waste oil? | 8 comments (8 topical)

Re: Converting oil burner to waste oil? (none / 0) (#1)
by witapple on Thu Feb 05, 2004 at 11:26:54 PM MST

I know there are others out there that know alot more about these than I do, but I have been playing with waste motor oil for several years and did do an experiment with an old oil furnace my friend donated for the expirment. Getting it started was a big problem with the original arc, I used a propane torch to start insted and as long as I could give it CLEAN low viscosity oil it kept running but it would stop when thicker oil would hit the nozzel. I was not satisfied with my "drip" type stoves either.



Re: Converting oil burner to waste oil? (none / 0) (#2)
by Norm on Fri Feb 06, 2004 at 07:14:00 AM MST

Hi Guys: I was wondering have you ever thought of a really hot ignition to ignite and preheat heavy oil...I mean like a carbon arc ? A regular igniter has high voltage and fairly low amps. If you had just a hot enough spark to vaporize the oil and then the regular igniter to ignite it ....another thought a super glow plug? Norm.  
( :>) Norm
[ Parent ]


Re: Converting oil burner to waste oil? (none / 0) (#3)
by charged on Fri Feb 06, 2004 at 08:09:07 AM MST

Try setting up a dual-burn system.

This leaves the regular heating oil system completely intact.

For your waste oil you need to make a small non-aerated vaporizing chamber which is nothing but a coil of steel tubing sitting in the flame cone of the kerosene flame.

The end of the tubing is a small jet head.

The filtered waste-oil is slowly pumped down through the spiral (in the flame) and it vaporizes inside the tubing. There's no air in there so there's no way for it to ignite.  It just boils.

The jet hole is at the bottom of the spiral, pointing back across the spiral.

You need a check-valve, a flow control, a pressure regulator and a slow-flow pump for the waste oil.

The jet tip should be a very small opening since you don't want it to easily flow liquid oil. But it should easily pass the vapor.

When the oil vaporizes inside the tube, the vapor passes throught the tip easily and then ignites when it hits the open air and flame. Some of that waste-oil flame heat is used to keep the vaporization process going.

You can use the same basic photocell circuit to monitor the flame activity.

The kerosene flame starts, the waste-oil system is heat-primed and ignited, and then the kerosene system shuts off again, leaving the waste-oil to do it's thing.

OR

Just put a severely under-capacity jet tip on the kerosene gun and run both at the same time, all on the same circuit. No mixing of the oil with any other fuels is really necessary.

BUT, you can add other types of oil as you want because it will all be vapor before it hits the flame front.

You could probably make a vaporizor "box". But, I'd stick with small diameter (1/4") high-pressure steel tubing since it easily handles the small pressure making it much safer.



Re: Converting oil burner to waste oil? (none / 0) (#6)
by Gordy on Fri Feb 06, 2004 at 02:07:41 PM MST

Hi all,

I think I have an idea for a simple way to try this, if you have one of thoughs old style pump up blow torch,s, with the preheater trough under the coiled tubing.

In normal use you would fill the tank with fuel, then presureise it, then open the valve on the back so that the fuel starts flowing out of the jet and runnigng into the trough. Then light the fuel in the trough. Keep an eye on the fuel level in the trough, you don't need alot in there, and you sure DON'T want it to overflow once it's lit.

I have used, old (ransid) gasoline, kerosene, and deisel in these with good results. Though it might work I didn't have enough nerve to try fresh gas!!!

For the waste oil you will probably want to put kerosene or rubbing alcohal in the trough to get a faster / cleaner start.

A concern I have is how to filter out All of the residue from the oil. So that as it vaporises in the preheating tube it does'nt leave residue in the tubes and eventualy plug it ?

I'll have to go out to the shed and see if I can find Gradndads old troch, then cange oil on the truck.

Doe's anyone know how the synthetic oils burn compaired to regular oils?

Grody

[ Parent ]



Re: Converting oil burner to waste oil? (none / 0) (#8)
by powersavers on Sun May 16, 2004 at 10:50:47 PM MST

I use a filter cartrige made from 3 inch pvc pipe, rolls of toilet paper,diatomacious earth and denim blue jean material. this is the filter for my waste cooking oil that runs my truck engine. i also filter oil this way for my oilburner experements, and havnt had any clog ups yet. search on infopop biodiesel discussion site for posts from powersavers. this filter setup takes the color out of waste oil,(pics posted,too) and filters down to 1 micron or less.        
good luck, charles     83 DATSUN 720 GOIN'ON GREASE'' how many corporate fat cats,warmongers and harem humpers did YOUR fill-up feed today??

[ Parent ]


Re: Converting oil burner to waste oil? (none / 0) (#4)
by hardwired on Fri Feb 06, 2004 at 09:13:10 AM MST

Yahoo has a waste fuel / babington burner email list, I just can't find it right now.



Re: Converting oil burner to waste oil? (none / 0) (#5)
by Kilroy2k1 on Fri Feb 06, 2004 at 09:19:42 AM MST

I believe this is the group your looking for.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/altfuelfurnace
Might also want to look at the homepage address in my user info ;)
Tom S.


[ Parent ]


Re: Converting oil burner to waste oil? (none / 0) (#7)
by Lyn on Wed May 12, 2004 at 06:01:24 AM MST

I have had great succes burning really dirty waste oil from the sump below the engine in my ship. I burnt it in a regular heating oil burner (itallian rellio) that has preheating.  I blew the flame into a lightwalled 4' pipe that narrowed down to 1½-2' in the end.  The pipe were insulated with asbestos to keep the combustiontemp and pressure high in the pipe.  the result was automatic opreation on a standdard heatingsystem, with no smoke and only a little bit og grey ash.  The trick is to have the hot gasses, ash and so on pass a chamber that is REALLY hot, this might produce a lot of NOx etc. but it gives me free and maintenancefree heat.  The pipe i am talking about were stainless and sat in between the furnaceburner and the furnace.  I think that it is quite important that the burner has preheating so that the oil can be atomizid properlly.  
I narrowed down the pipe untill just before the blower really begun to pick up rpm's and ajusted the oilflow on the pumpe until it burned smokeless (a little bit on the lean side)
I have burnt about 8 tonnes of dirty oil without having to clean the chimmney or in any other way remove the ashes.

rgds

Henry

[ Parent ]



Converting oil burner to waste oil? | 8 comments (8 topical)
Display: Sort:
Menu
· create account
· How to use the board
· FAQs
· search the board
· Google search the board

Login
Make a new account
Username:
Password:

Total Views
  83 Scoop users have viewed this posting.

Related Links
· Also by 44toy

Powered by Scoop
You must be a registered user to post here. It's easy and free, and the link is on the upper right side of your page.
All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective companies. Postings are owned by the poster, but may be deleted or moved at the ADMIN's sole discretion. The Rest © 2009 Forcefield.
You can Email the board ADMIN here. PLEASE include the username you signed up with!