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Homemade centrifuge/pump V3.0

Stretch44875

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See here for my previous setup.


Second version used new centrifuge and deuce air tank above it, old version pump and heater to pump oil through the air tank, and it would drain into the centrifuge. It was just so I could filter oil for haspin, and temporary.

So after building and using an oil driven centrifuge, I built a motor driven one. And after making many messes, and dealing with broken hoses, a rebuild of the entire system was in order. Reused some stuff from the other setup.

Here is how it works.

Oil is dumped into the 5 gallon bucket sitting on the pallet rack. Inside the bucket is a large strainer from a hydraulic tank. If I had to guess I would say it's 100 micron filter. The bucket has a pipe going through a hole to fill the red barrel below it. The bucket also can be filled by a pipe above it, and in fact is being used this way during the pictures. I was pumping from a 55 gallon drum at the time.

All the tanks/barrels have a clear hose on them to see the level of oil in them

From the red barrel oil is pumped to the black heater drum on the top. This drum has a bottom fitting for filling/draining. A fitting about 8 in up is for the centrifuge. Barrel is heated by a 220v hot water element, with a thermostat inline. Thermostat is set at 180-190 degrees.

Oil comes out of the fitting on the heater drum to a gate valve to adjust flow, then through a 24v inline valve, then a shut-off ball valve.

Then into the centrifuge. 8 in rotor, 4500rpm, belt driven, 1/2hp. Pressure cooker pot to hold it all, self draining. After that, it drains into the black drum below, then I can pump it to the two large tanks on the upper right for storage.

Total of 14 ball valves, 30ft of 1/2 pipe, god knows how many t's, elbow's and nipples. Everything is hard plumbed, except for pump, suction line, and fill line. Pump is plumbed with 1/2 hydraulic hose. Suction and fill lines are 3/4 braided clear hose.

This thing can move oil anywhere and everywhere with one pump. Has a suction line for pumping out of 55 gallon drums, and a fill line 40 ft long to fill the trucks. Pump manifold is a suction side and a pump side, with ball valves to select what barrels/tanks/lines you want to move oil from/to. Also installed a drain line for the storage tanks so you can get fuel without electric.

System has 5 switches. Pump, centrifuge, heater, valve. Pump switch runs an electrical outlet where the pump plugs in.

To filter, I turn on the heater, and fill the heated barrel from the red barrel. When it gets to temperature, I turn on the centrifuge and 24v valve. This is where it gets fun. Turn on the auto switch, everything else off, and walk away!
There is a float switch on the heated drum. When it gets low, a relay shuts everything off.

Heater element and thermostat are below the drain for the centrifuge, so they are always in oil. When the heater is on, the oil is really moving inside the drum, you can look inside and see the oil moving from being heated.
 

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Stretch44875

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Pics of switches and tanks. 3rd pic is the drain and bucket for when the centrifuge turns off and drains the bowl. 4th pic is the pipes under the centrifuge for clean oil on the outside and dirty drain oil on the inside. Last pic is after insulating the heated tank.
 

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russ132

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Hey Stretch I had no idea that Tiro is as close to me as it is. I live up on Kelleys Island and work in Fremont. I would love to get together sometime and compare filtration methods. That is a cool setup you have there. I need to post my setup as well.
 

Stretch44875

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GPH is around 4, depending on where I set the gate valve to the centrifuge. So at 40 gallons it takes about 10 hours for a batch. That's the main reason for the float switch to turn it off automatically.

Last load I got a layer of silver gunk out of it, must have been some metal in that load. Have no idea how well my setup works, but it's spinning faster, hotter oil, and slower feed than most centrifuges. So it should be well under the 1 micron range.

Russ, sounds like you are about an hour and half away, I'm not far from route 4. Think I am good on storage tanks, but gimpy may need some. Also supposed to get a couple of the plastic totes from speeddemon at some point. If you get down my way during some weekend, I am usually home.

Dennis
 

Speddmon

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That's a neat looking set-up. WAY different from the last one I saw at you place. And, yes I still have those plastic totes for you...if I ever get up that way again LOL
 

russ132

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Stretch,
I have a few questions for you.
What type of pump are you using?
How do you flush the lines of dirty oil to move clean oil?
Very cool control manifold by the way.
How do you provide 24V to the float valve?
Could the 24V power supply power something larger?
 

Stretch44875

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Dave, that is GPH, not GPM. So 4 gallons, single pass, one hour.

Pump is Meter-Flo pump, model number 540-800-111 CCW Driven about 6500 rpm with a 1/2hp motor. It is a pretty small pump, that's why I am running it so fast. Dead heads about 300psi with the 1/2hp motor. Not really the right pump for what I am doing, but it was free and works. Here is a link to a spec sheet on it.

http://wwwd.graco.com/Distributors/DLibrary.nsf/Files/L12611/$file/L12611.pdf

I don't worry about the dirty oil in the lines. Figure it's only couple cups of oil, compared to the 40 gallons I am usually moving.

24v valve is powered by a small 24v plug in transformer I had laying around. Think it's maybe 1 amp? Not sure what else it could power.


Had the first breakdown. Float was a plastic toliet float ball, didn't like the hot oil and got a hole in it. Also my heater element needs replaced, it is grounding out somewhere. It was used and abused before I installed it here. Also manged to overfill the one barrel and make a mess.
 

GPappy

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Then into the centrifuge. 8 in rotor, 4500rpm, belt driven, 1/2hp. Pressure cooker pot to hold it all, self draining. After that, it drains into the black drum below, then I can pump it to the two large tanks on the upper right for storage.
Could you give details on the building of the centrifuge. I have been thinking about building something to process WMO as I have a potential supply of relatively clean oil that I would love to use in my Duece. Commercial centrifuges are a big pricey given the amount that I would use.
 

Stretch44875

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Unfortunately, I seem to have lost the pics of building the centrifuge. If you go to the simple centrifuge page, or wolverine tech page, you can get an idea of how to build the rotor. I used a large hydraulic cylinder sleeve for the outside, then welded in and machined the top/bottom on a lathe. Rotor has 2 small holes near the inside to drain the dirty oil out when it stops. I took the rotor to a engine machine shop and had it balanced.

Biggest difference is the belt drive. 1in shaft mounted in bearings with a pulley is all.

Bottom of the pressure pot has a 3/8 pipe threaded towards the outside for draining the clean oil, a old cooking pot with the bottom cut out is what the rotor spins inside, inside that is a another pipe threaded in to drain the dirty oil, and then the 1in shaft that holds the rotor. It comes through a 1 1/4 pipe nipple threaded in the middle.

Somebody also asked about the water heater element mounting. It is threaded into a 1in pipe coupler, that is welded to the steel drum. Threads on the element are not tapered, so I added an o-ring to seal the element against the pipe union. Also filed the end of the union so the o-ring had a flat surface to seal against.

Dennis
 

russ132

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I did exactly what Stretch did for mounting the heating element. I however used and old party helium tank for the heating vessel. The oil has more "hang time" in the tank than using a piece of pipe which I have heard likes to burn elements up. And it doesn't take forever to heat up like a 55 gallon barrel. Oil enters the bottom through a 3/4 inch line and exits near the top through a 1/2 inch line. I originally built a sealed unit but found that any moisture in the oil was trapped as steam in the system so I added the one inch vent line in the top. The vent line also works as a sight tube for checking my oil level. The heating unit is the lowest point of the gravity fed system so the element is always submerged in oil. I also added a drain in the bottom so I could occasionally drain a little to test for water settling to the bottom.
 

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russ132

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It is not wired anywhere near as nice as any of Stretch's equipment judging from his pictures. Wiring is just not my specialty.
Stretch, I am absolutely amazed that you built your own bowl. I thought you bought the bowl and built the rest. I had thought
about doing the same and just couldn't figure it out. Nice fab work!!!
 

Ferroequinologist

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Hey Dennis,
Very nice setup! I noticed the two home heating oil drums on the right are tilted to the back. Do you keep your finished oil in them, and slanted them for added crude removal? do you have some drain lines on the back (lower) end?

I'm hoping to get my boxcar down here to SC soon, and really build a permeant system in that.
 
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