My father has a small wrecking yard and as such gets loads of WMO and tranny fluid.
He drains it from all the engines and gearboxes he pulls.
He's been complaining of his ever increasing electricity Bills. This seems like a perfect opportunity to install a small Diesel turning a 3 Phase induction motor back feeding to the grid to help supply some of his power needs and lessen his bill. He gets quite a lot of oil especially for a small operation and burning it would mean he doesn't have it sitting around and waiting for it to be collected.
I have been using WVO for a long time but my experience with WMO is very limited.
I'm wondering if anyone has used it and in what engines? I have a couple of small aircooled China 178 engines I could set up for the old fella so would be interested in anyones experience with those. He gets a fair amount of petrol from the vehicles as well so blending with ULP would not be a problem either.
I imagine the addition of some tranny fluid would help thin the oil out as well.
Also, are there any simple and basic filtering setups people have had success with? I'm thinking of something like an open top 44 gallon drum with some layers of cloth over the top and having the prefiltered oil tapped off from above the bottom of the drum going into a fuel filter he gets from the cars he wrecks. No big deal if they had to be changed out every week. Not like there is a shortage or cost involved with them.
Water won't be much of a problem because draining the oil himself he can keep those separated and I don't think he's ever had a car with water in the oil yet anyway.
If I could set up an engine and motor he can run even a few days a week kicking out a couple of kw/h, I think it would be a big offset to his power bill and make use of a waste product I think he has to pay to dispose of now.
Dear Glort,
I burned 100% WMO in an LDS 465 multifuel engine for 10 months, daily. The only issue I had was wet stacking, and that was simply because I only ran the engine at a high idle.
I did a similar thing...prefilter by dumping the oil into a truck airfilter, then filter through a 30 micron pre filter, then 10 micron final filter (or 5 micron, which ever was available).
I also used the mixture you are writing about, in an IH 6.9 idi engine for a couple of seasons....no problems.
Lots of conflicting opinions as to how well this will work. I have not done it personally, so have no long term experience to impart. As I understand it, the main issue appears to be the additive packages in the oil that contain metals. These additives do not breakdown under the relatively low combustion temperatures. Without fully breaking down, they create ash that is supposedly very abrasive and will abrade the upper cylinder and rings. Some claim wiped out engines in just a few hundred hours of operation, while others like dual fuel have run it for a while without issue.
Some reference the white ash found in some waste oil boiler burn chambers as evidence of this issue, and I have seen pics and video of this ash. I myself run a babbington burner I comissioned last winter, and have witnessed no white ash in my burner so far with probably 30 gallons of various types of oil thru it so far.
The issue I see is that there are so many different oils with different additive packages available, it is hard to gauge one persons experience as we do not know their oil's lineage... It may be the success stories have a source of mainly additive free oil, and the horror stories had a source of oil with high addive contents.. Also in this country a few years back there was a program called cash for clunkers, with all those cars turned in having silica abrasive added to the oil and the engine run till destruction/seizure occured(so they could not be put back on the road ever). I am thinking any of that waste oil making it into someones fuel supply would not be very healthy for a diesel fuel system.
As for filtering, what I do with my stock is add it to a drum via a standpipe that goes all the way to the bottom of the drum. The oil then percolates upward while gravity is pulling the solids downward. The dirtiest oil at the bottom then becomes a filter all in itself with the cleanest oil being found at the top of the barrel. WVO guys do this with several barrels, the oil comming off the top of one drum passes to the bottom of the next drum and the cleanest oil taken off the top of the last drum. The advantage of the drum is that any water in the oil stays in the bottom of the drum. the key to the drum is to not move the oil thru it too quickly so it can filter.
Your typical engine oil filter dosn't really filter down that low. You will need to filter to a finer level to protect the IP of a diesel. You could certainly pre-filter with the engine oil filters, but I would run a 10 micron hydraulic filter as a final step. I don't filter any more than pouring the oil from the top of the drum thru a fine mesh in the funnel, as the babbington burner dosn't really have a nozzle that the fuel must pass thru.
If I had expendable engines, I might consider it as a generator fuel. If I didn't, another option would be to use it in a burner to make steam and run a steam engine. At least with a burner, burn quality can be more easilly maintained for a good clean burn. Besides steam engines are cool:)
I changed the oil in my truck yesterday and decided to give the little china horizontal a run on it to see how it went.
I simply put it through an old fuel filter with a small pump and then just through the inline filter before the engine. i put about 20% Bio in it when I drained the engine to thin it out.
First impressions were a re confirmation of what I already thought.... It sure is messy black staining shit to deal with!!
Had bio in the engine and I watched the WMO progress down the fuel line and into the filter and apart from a change in exhaust odour, predictably nothing else happened.
The engine seemed to run very well on it and had minimal smoking despite being loaded up with an induction motor as a generator. The Exhaust -appeared-to be hotter than when I run this engine on bio or WVO but that is just a guess as I have no way of taking temps.
I ran the engine about 4 hours and used about 3-4L of oil and all seemed good.
Ronmar,
Thanks for the heads up. It seems to me there is more misinformation on the web about thinks like this from people that parrot fear without any experience and there are also those that do things totally wrong and when it bites them they blame the idea, not the poor methodology they use. In amongst this the creditable reports get mixed in so it's really hard to sort the wheat from the chaff.
As for abrasive ash, not sure. Veg creates ash and carbon when it is burned yet there are not theories of that wearing the cylinder or rings. Sure there is no added metals in it but one would have to know what they were in the first place and how they did react when burned. One thing that casts some doubt to that theory is that engines burn oil when they run anyway. Sure it's in much lesser qty but over even 10 years, it adds up.
Also, oil picks up a lot of blow by and combustion products when are then circulated in the oil including ash from combustion. I would think it would not take much of this abrasive substance in the oil where it circulates through the bearings and on the cam etc to wear an engine pretty quick.
I guess the only way to really know about this would be to do specific tests with equipment no one here probably has access to or the time and money if they did.
I looked into the cash for clunker fiasco and while it seems to be regarded as a success in the US, from the outside looking in with no political Bias, it seemed to be a complete exercise in stupidity with fqr more negative long term consequences than benifits by 100 fold. Thankfully when such a program was mentioned here in the United States of Australia, it was shot to pieces in the same day.
Pretty much all the cars my father gets are Runners and are tested so there is not going to be anything in the oils that shouldn't be there.
The filter system needs to be dead simple as the old fella is going to be a bit blase about this anyway and to get him to use it, the thing will have to be simple and straightforward to use. I can do maintenance on it when I go there but in between it will have to be pour and go. Yesterdays results were encouraging on that front. The oil filtered easier than I expected. While the amount I processed was only about 10 L, I also used somewhat pre blocked filters and only small ones at that. The throughput was quite reasonable and didn't seem to drop off to any from start to finish.
I have used an upflow system like you describe and that is a great suggestion. I know the idea, have had one and probably would not have thought of it in this application had you not mentioned it. I have never claimed to be too bright! I might set it up on a smaller scale to test the whole thing first and use 20L drums instead of 200's till I see how well the old fella takes to the idea.
The biggest surprise yesterday was when I took notice of the fuel consumption, even running a 1500W load it was so low. I don't think this is going to get rid of as much oil as I thought!
Every car he wrecks of course has a fuel filter and until I recently got him to save these for me, they got thrown out. When up there last week I notice there is already over a dozen good ones there on the shelf and I know that only about half the vehicles he gets have that style I want. The others would be fine for doing oil for a generator. If they will filter fine enough for a fuel injected engine, whatever they pass will be fine for a Diesel as well. They have been for my car for 12 months!
As for engine longevity, I guess thats something I'll have to see. Replacement parts are cheap enough for these things so doing a set of rings even once a year won't be any big deal.
I was tearing down an engine that broke it's timing belt in an accident last week when up there. As 14 of the 16 valves were bent, we parted the engine for spares. To my amazement, despite this being a performance Turbo engine with over 400,000 km on it, the thing still had hone marks right through the bores. The old fella and his mechanic said that was the way they all were. They wear rings and bearings these days but the bores stay fine. With a bit of a rub with some wet and dry paper, I removes the bit of buildup that was above the ring lands in the bore and couldn't detect any lip at all.
They said this is because the engines use steel liners instead of the bore being the casting material of the block. I notice most of the china engines are the same so this makes me think the ring and maybe bearings would go well before the bores themselves. This makes repair more of an R&R job rather than the much more complicated effort of boring and oversize pistons etc.
I think a china horizontal engine would be the one to go for but they are really hard to find here and very expensive when you can. Might be a case of using a vertical I have now and see what happens!
WMO in my Listeroid was not a good thing. It wiped out the cylinder and rings in 150 hours. Carbon deposits formed on the injector tip and messed with the spray pattern and needed to be cleaned every tank full. This oil had settled in a drum for years and been filtered through a 10 micron string wound house water filter.
Burn it to heat a boiler and run a steam generator.
Yep, experiences vary. It most definitely needs to be done in an engine that runs at a high temp, with hot combustion temps. A listeroid might have issues in this department due to the time between power strokes can cause lower combustion chamber temperatures. The chinese horizontals do run hotter cylinder-head temps. IMO that is probably the main reason they turn out such low fuel consumption numbers...
A snippet from the Alternate Fuels Section...
http://www.microcogen.info/index.php?topic=1659.0 (http://www.microcogen.info/index.php?topic=1659.0)
One thing that we may want to consider when using alternate fuels is fumigation.
I suspect deposits (and wear caused by deposits) may be reduced greatly if propane or NG fumigation is included in the modification.
IMHO, veggie oil and WMO go hand-in-hand with fumigation.
my $0.02
veggie
+1 for what tom said
I destroyed a 10/1 listeroid on wmo but did get about 1500 hours + out of it.
Then switched to a 16/1 metro listeroid and it was well on the way to destruction before I just gave up on wmo in engines as fuel.
Now just use wmo in a waste oil burner. just refilled the tank and am using 6 gallon a day to heat a 4000 sq ft shop.
Billswan
I have never used WMO in my 6/1, but I have used SVO for many years without any issues or even any significant carbon buildup. I initially used propane for fumigation and also started using natural gas a couple years ago. I haven't done any exhaustive testing, but I think propane may do a slightly better job preventing carbon buildups than natural gas. I also preheat the SVO to 240F prior to injection.
Bob B.
Quote from: Ronmar on December 26, 2013, 10:16:23 PM
SNIP
Some reference the white ash found in some waste oil boiler burn chambers as evidence of this issue, and I have seen pics and video of this ash. I myself run a babbington burner I comissioned last winter, and have witnessed no white ash in my burner so far with probably 30 gallons of various types of oil thru it so far.
SNIP
Your typical engine oil filter dosn't really filter down that low. You will need to filter to a finer level to protect the IP of a diesel. You could certainly pre-filter with the engine oil filters, but I would run a 10 micron hydraulic filter as a final step. I don't filter any more than pouring the oil from the top of the drum thru a fine mesh in the funnel, as the babbington burner dosn't really have a nozzle that the fuel must pass thru.
If I had expendable engines, I might consider it as a generator fuel. If I didn't, another option would be to use it in a burner to make steam and run a steam engine. At least with a burner, burn quality can be more easilly maintained for a good clean burn. Besides steam engines are cool:)
Are you making steam with your babington? I've always thought a hot air engine or steam engine would be the best use of WMO. I have Proeschel's (http://www.proepowersystems.com/Engine.htm) hot air engine concept bookmarked for when I get off my ass.
If carbon is the issue, I think that can pretty easily be dealt with using water injection. I have used that for years on my vehicles and it does a good job of keeping coking at bay.
I think veggie makes an excellent point in his linked post.
I know that the older vehicles my father wrecks are most likely to have mineral oil in them but the newer ones are all specced for Synthetic. No way to know which car has what in it other than guess. The performance cars are likely to have synthetic but maybe someone cheaped out and put regular oil in it. OTOH, many of the vehicles he gets looked to be very well maintained before they were in an accident which is why he has them so maybe the owners went the extra way and put synthetic in them?
Trans Fluid seems the better bet but I doubt he gets enough to make the exercise self sustainable. Less oil in trannys and he does not service them like he does engines with oil changes.
Does anyone have any thoughts on Blending WMO with petrol? There is no way he would go buy gas to fumigate an engine with but ULP would be a different matter as that is another by product if you like.
I have blended ULP with the WVO I have run in my vehicles since I started on the veg caper 8 years ago and believe in it's benifits with Veg very strongly.
WMO however is something different. My thoughts are that ULP would help the WMO burn better the same way I believe it works with veg. The ULP lights off easier and sooner than the veg allowing for a more complete combustion process and brings the burning behaviour closer to that of the Dino for which the IP and timing is set up for.
If deposits caused by carbon from incomplete combustion are the main culprit or danger to engines having a short life, Water injection and Blending with ULP would seem to be effective in overcoming this would they not?
I have never tried 6/1 water injection, but I seem to recall that some folks tried this with mixed results. Propane fumigation accomplishes the same thing since water and carbon dioxide are the products of propane combustion assuming adequate oxygen is available. So in addition to steam cleaning your 6/1, you can also generate significantly more power by feeding a 6/1 propane.
You only need to drill/tap a hole into your 6/1 air intake, screw in a hose nipple, and then attach it to a pressure regulated propane tank having a flow control valve. I imagine proper water injection would be more complicated although water is certainly cheaper than propane.
Bob B.
Quote from: deeiche on December 28, 2013, 06:22:15 AM
Are you making steam with your babington? I've always thought a hot air engine or steam engine would be the best use of WMO. I have Proeschel's (http://www.proepowersystems.com/Engine.htm) hot air engine concept bookmarked for when I get off my ass.
No, just hot air for my shop. I built a 6' heat exchanger tube with fins on inside where the babbington fires, and fins on the outside where outside air is blown in. Here is a pic, you can't see it but there is a blower on the outside end that blows in fresh air along the outside of the heatex. It outputs about 300F air at a pretty high volume. It transforms my 24X24 garage from 30F to 70F in about 15-20 minutes, and blows hot air for about another 10-15 minutes after the burner is shut down. I put a thermal switch on the fan so it shuts off when the hot air temp drops to about 120F. I use 2 pressure regulators, one at 25PSI for the nozzle, and another low pressure to regulate the pressure on top of the fuel which is how I control fuel delivered. the sweet spot is right around 7/8 - 1 PSI of fuel pressure.
(http://i270.photobucket.com/albums/jj85/rmarlett/th_a72284403dab1f710d58a31779e023d2.jpg) (http://s270.photobucket.com/albums/jj85/rmarlett/?action=view¤t=a72284403dab1f710d58a31779e023d2.jpg)
Quote from: sailawayrb on December 28, 2013, 10:15:03 AM
I have never tried 6/1 water injection, but I seem to recall that some folks tried this with mixed results. Propane fumigation accomplishes the same thing since water and carbon dioxide are the products of propane combustion assuming adequate oxygen is available. So in addition to steam cleaning your 6/1, you can also generate significantly more power by feeding a 6/1 propane.
You only need to drill/tap a hole into your 6/1 air intake, screw in a hose nipple, and then attach it to a pressure regulated propane tank having a flow control valve. I imagine proper water injection would be more complicated although water is certainly cheaper than propane.
Bob B.
Thats exactly what i do with my 6/1 but i use Natural gas not propane. I normally run 85% Natural gas 15% diesel.
Ronmar,
I love your babington. I did some experimenting a few years ago with a babington but never got it right.
I'm very impressed with Ronmar's Babington heater too. That huge temperature swing (30-70F) for a shop that big in 15-20 minutes is awesome.
Quote from: sailawayrb on December 28, 2013, 10:15:03 AM
I imagine proper water injection would be more complicated although water is certainly cheaper than propane.
I'm not sure "Proper " injection as in like a car is needed. Maybe it is, Like I said, I'm not sure.
I have run a very basic injection system on my vehicles since the beginning of my veg days and despite so many people telling me it's "wrong", there is no doubt it's worked very well on a variety of vehicles.
I use nothing more than a garden misting Nozzle driven either by a windshield washer pump or more recently for greater volume, one of those 12V marine type pulse pumps.
With a WMO engine, I think I'd try something like a drip type setup onto the air filter to humidify the air or have it go straight into the manifold.
Another thing I was thinking of was using a CV Type carburettor like off a bike with the throttle plate removed and running water instead of fuel. I think a CV type carb with a very light spring would self regulate to the demands of the engine keep the air well saturated with water. Of course it could also be adjusted to regulate the water flow with Different Jet sizes.
I noitice on my horizontal Engine there is already a boss that is tapped on the side of the intake manifold. On the verticles there is a threaded plug for putting oil into the engine for easier starting. Could make things easier on both engines depending on which way I go.
Hi Glort, by "proper and complicated" I meant actually vaporizing the water before injecting it which would normally involve a high pressure water pump and a nozzle having tiny holes. However, I think you might be onto a better path by just dripping water onto pourous material and using a combination of engine heat and intake air flow to vaporize the water. I see a larger diameter intake pipe section that has a sponge like material (but not as dense), perhaps retained in a SS cage, that is slowly gravity fed water. I would consider this approach to be "proper and simple" and likely also preferrable to propane because of less complexity and lower acquistion/operating cost assuming this approach proves to be equally effective at preventing carbon buildup. I would very much welcome hearing more about this if you proceed in this direction.
Hi Carlb, I also added natural gas to my 6/1 fuel options a couple years. I run a similar level of natural gas as you indicated except that I retain my engine RPM control using SVO in lieu of diesel. I only use 100% diesel for starting and shutting down and all my fuel management logistics are handled automatically by the control system. I found that when the power grid goes down, it can be difficult to obtain diesel. Obtaining SVO is much easier and you don't need very much when operating on natural gas. I have yet to lose natural gas during a power outage...but I always have backup propane if that ever were to happen.
You could also use exhaust heat to vaporize water into steam for the intake. On a Roid, the intake being adjacent to the exhaust would be handy for this. You simply need a duct assembly attached to the exhaust and connected up into the air cleaner. Allow a small opening at the exhaust end so intake suction will establish a flow towards the intake. Then all you need is a mechanism that allows water to drip onto the exhaust pipe at 350F+ and flash to steam. The duct will conduct the flashed steam to the intake. I would want to wrap the duct and intake to help keep the steam from condensing in the intake.
Sailaway,
I have avoided vapourising the water completely on purpose by using the low pressure pumps and nozzles.
It was my feeling that having the droplets get into the combustion chamber before changing state would help with carbon removal which was my real goal. I know normally the idea is to have the water as a vapour but I think that's the goal of the performance orientated users, who seem to be the majority and the audience the WI manufacturers seem to go after.
I did see a paper on this some years ago that suggested my theroy of having the water droplets in the combustion chamber gave way to a sort of Cavitation which was a micro explosion as the heat and pressure rose in the cylinder and the water changed state rather violently. This was said to erode carbon deposits without the energy to erode the piston tops or other parts of the engine.
I can only say that my course injection seems to have worked well enough for me. With my first Veg car, after fitting the WI I noticed a difference in the way the car ran after a couple of days. This was not at all what I expected but definately wasn't Imagination. The engine made it's main improvements over the course of a bout a week of driving ( admittedly a busy week) but then kept on improving over many months with very subtle things that only a regular driver would detect. The main ones were starting, the engine note changing, and definately more torque.
I haven't noticed such a change in other vehicles I have had but my present one has definately changed engine note and Pulls way harder despite actually turning the fuel down on the thing. I know that's not imagination because my son noticed when I turned the fuel down but now keeps asking if I turned it back up again.
On this one I'm committing the Internet sin of injecting pre turbo. I have been watching it over the months and can't see any difference in the compressor blades at all. They don't even look any cleaner which was one effect I WAS expecting.
For the purposes of carbon removal, ( and likely others) I'm pretty convinced that fine atomisation like all the manufacturers go on about is not needed at all and in fact a fine stream of water may even be better. I have poured water directly into the manifolds of running non turbo engines and at even low revs, say 2-2500 rpm, as soon as the water stream enters the manifold it's sheared and broken up rather spectacularly. Having 200 PSI pumps and nozzles that spray a vapor so fine it never touches the ground to me in the majority is just hype. For air cooling and charge density etc, you can have it a lot coarser than that and it will still be pure gas by the time it goes through the manifold, past hot valves and into the cylinder.
For vapourisation I think spraying the air filter is a great way of doing that. I nominated it more because of control factor than the ability to get droplets into the engine but something is better than nothing. :0) I have tested a few filters this way and none of them seem affected by the water at all. Another surprise given the treatment some of them have got trying to see some sort impact with them.
I like the Sponge idea. I see that as some Stainless Kitchen scourers downstream of a water inlet. I have packed a pipe with these for quietening exhaust and it worked well. I'm sure it would to disperse water droplets in an inlet quite effectively.
Over the last few days I have been playing with my little China Diesel running on WMO.
Suffice to say, I'm far from impressed.
The main load I have been testing with is an induction motor set up as a generator running 3x 500W lights. I have burnt about 7L of the WMO over about 6 hours.
It was pretty clear today the engine was loosing power when I could not hold the lights at 230V without Smoking like a steam train. It was also about as hard to start to day as I have ever known that engine. I run it a lot on SVO and its usually hard to start with that in the pump from cold. A shot of spray degreaser or a cap full of petrol down the intake and once it fires, it's off. Today It took about 5 windups with degreaser down the intake before it would keep running.
It would fire with the degreaser and hammer away a bit but would chug 5-10 sec then die. It has NEVER done that before no matter what rubbish I fed the thing.
I finally got the thing going and warmed it up and gave it a few big revs to clear the thing but it wouldn't basicaly. The revs were right down and it was blowing clouds of black smoke. That is a new and undesired behaviour as well. I put the lights on and it was clearly unhappy with the load smoking at just 200V. I have run the same load at 300V with no smoke and could have gone higher lest my fear for blowing the lamps.
I thought I'd try blending the WMO with a bit of petrol to see how that went. It works well with veg, maybe it would with WMO? I put about 10% in another bottle of the same oil I was using and stuck the pickup in that. I waited till I could see the level in the bottle had dropped 5 times as much as was needed to flush the straight stuff and couldn't tell the engine was running any different.
It could have been the engine was a bit clagged, it could have been that 10% is not enough but in any case, the engine wasn't happy and neither was I.
I decided to terminate the exercise and went and got a Litre of B100 and put the fuel pick up in that. After a while when the Bio had gone through, I noticed the change in odour from the exhaust and also noticed the voltage had dropped to 180. Second lesson with WMO, it seems to have more power than B100.
I reset the throttle to give 210V before the thing started smoking too much and let it run like that till it used about half a litre of bio. It was clear the thing still was far from happy though.
I went and got one of the wifes plant spray bottles and squirted about 200Ml of water down the intake. I'm always amazed at how much water a diesel will take and I was squirting it in about as fast as I could steadily sustain.
After the first bottle, the engine did sound happier. It had regained more of that diesel knock/ ringing tone which is always a sign of a happy engine to me. It fades with Veg but is still there if your ear is tuned to it. I looked at the Voltmeter and noticed it was now making 240V on the untouched throttle setting. I refitted the air cleaner I had taken off and waited a while to see if it was the effects of the very cool intake I felt but 10 min later, if anything, it had crept up a volt or 2.
The smoking was the normal bit of light haze this engine produces which you have to get the light right to see. Totally and utterly different to what it had been on the WMO and before the water treatment.
Thinking this was a good thing, I went and got some more water and really gave the thing a deluge. Nearly put the fire out a few times and made some white smoke but experience shows this is a good thing in cleaning and speeds up the process. Because the revs dropped the 3 phase motor lost excitation and was basically freewheeling. I hit the throttle on the Diesel and it revved briskly and right out to it's top end like normal but what it wouldn't do near a little earlier.
I unplugged the lights, gave it another good rev which re energised the windings and dropped the lights on again. It settled right back around the 240+ it was at before. After the 2nd Bottle of water, the voltage was up another 10V and the smoke was still just a light haze. I gave the throttle a touch and it came straight up over 310v with no lag or struggle. After that I backed the throttle back to set the voltage at 220 and it was purring along. I could feel the pressure and the exhaust heat were far less then when the thing was labouring along at 200V on the WMO.
I have been a champion of WI for many years now and if this wasn't as graphic a display as I could imagine, I don't know what would be. I also noticed how much the engine temp had dropped. I was sitting close to the engine spraying the intake and the cooling air was blowing on my leg. Normally it's pretty hot at close range but now it was cool. as I sat there and watched the engine a bit more, a very rapid rise in the temp of the air coming off the engine could be felt.
It as quite a learning experience today.
I have a lot of reservations about straight WMO as I pretty much used it. I didn't do anything to come to any conclusions about engine wear but the decrease in performance I saw kind of makes that a moot point to me atm. If WMO was used, I think one would want to be thinning it pretty well with dino or plenty of petrol and I myself would certainly be running some sort of WI to combat the clagging whatever it was that took away so much performance of this engine.
I know engines are all different but this little thing has been my test mule for years. I have put all sorts of crap and garbage through it but I have never seen it decline like the WMO caused. I have run turps and tranny fluid through it, print press cleaning fluid, Veg Oil I cracked and distilled and WVO Mayonaise I blended with water to see how that would go. It went better than the used engine oil!
I know some people have success with this but it seems I have more to learn with it. I have put so much WVO through that little engine and it never changes. The wmo is something different. It's a shame because it would have served a purpose but I'm not confident in it atm. Maybe I'll try to get some used tranny fluid and give that a go. Maybe I should pump one of the drums the old fella has which would contain a minx of the WMO and tranny fluid and see how that goes. I wouldn't know the ratio but it would be the real ratio of what he gets some of it has been sitting there a good while so at least should be fairly well settled and maybe have the kighter fractions at the top.
I need to research this more but I also have to weigh up the other factors. If the blended oil tranny fluid works better or with some added petrol, Might be OK. For generation purposes with the old fella, it may also be that when I go up there every month or so it may just be easier and simpler to go to the local chip shop, pick up 150L of the oil they always have sitting round and just set up a dump and go filtration system for him.
Even 100L of veg would be enough energy to put a dent in his power bill.
Were you doing anything to pre-heat the WMO? I also didn't catch how many HP your diesel engine is rated for? I am going to take a stab here and say the smallest Air Cooled diesels I have typically seen are around 5-6HP. Is that about the size engine you are running? I am also guessing that the test setup you are running with the induction motor, controlling output by RPM, is running the engine somewhere below it's peak rated RPM?
If my guesses are correct, that sounds like a failure with WMO was inevitable. WMO is significantly thicker at a given temp, so it is not going to spray/mist as well thru an injector. Add to that an engine running at 1/2 load or less(1500W would be an appropriate load for 3HP) and at reduced RPM, basically not nearly at full op temp on an air cooled, and less frequent power strokes, and that WMO is going to form carbon and foul the injector pretty quickly IMO. Your running symptoms sound like that is what happened, that and the fact that water appeared to have cleaned it up and brought it back to "normal". That is where a liquid cooled engine has an edge, with it's ability to maintain a more reasonable op-temp with varying load.
Knowing how WMO performs/sprays in the Babbington at low temp, I would not contemplate injecting WMO in a diesel without 200F or more of pre-heat to the oil. My preheat coil on the babbington sets in the hot airflow comming off of the heater. I have to heat the feed pipes with a torch for the first minute or two to maintain stable hot combustion, untill I can turn on the blower and start flowing hot air over the coil to provide the preheat.
I'd guess it was a coked up injector too. Glad it cleaned up. If you want to live dangerously, try it again and then remove the injector when it's "slagged" and see if you find a chunk of carbon on the injector tip. Also I've had better luck with WMO drained from gassers than diesels.
fwiw
and i have posted this info in the past
i have done extensive testing on my trigen which is powered by a s195 changfa idi engine
water cooled enclosed with tstat and electric water pump, with radiator and thermostatically controlled
fan
the engine runs between 205 and 214deg F and during testing i ran it at full load
full load is determined as the point that there is just beginning to be some light smoking
what i found was about a 5% increase in power per unit of fuel consumed (in this case waste 15/40 series 3 low ash diesel oil)
there was no adverse effects notable with 50 hours of testing, so
the way i figure it is this
because of the relative low cost of replacement parts, and the very low cost of the waste oil as a fuel
which i got from known sources in known good condition (sans water and other unusual contaminants) the bottom line analysis clearly demonstrated that in this case the waste oil as a fuel over time was not only economically viable but down right desirable.
i could pull a full 8kwatts (300ft above sea level, 70deg F ambient temp) all day long if i wanted to using waste motor oil. coking was not a problem nor was any carbon buildup in my exhaust heat exchanger.
my conclusion was that the use of low ash motor oil, in an engine such as the changfa running at full load, up to 200 deg F coolant temps, and 1800rpm, while it might accelerate cylinder wear (again "might" as i saw no signs of wear) the fact that near free fuel source was clearly outstripping the overhaul cost for this engine.
when diesel is about 4 bucks per gallon you really don't have to run too many hours with near free waste oil to pay for rebuilds, and in my opinion the engine would likely run several times the amount of hours needed to break even.
this demonstrated to me that it is an economically viable fuel.
now would i recommend using it in an original lister or some other engine that has unobtanium or very expensive and hard to get parts for rebuild? certainly not!
and would i recommend it for use in a listeriod with its relatively cheap and available parts? maybe, maybe not... i would want to do some testing to see how it worked out.
finally i would not recommend the used of waste oil streams that are of unknown origins, some oils have all sorts of additives, higher in ash content, certainly some will have higher concentrations of other contaminants such as water and acids, some/part or all of which likely will accelerate wear. this sort of thing is likely exacerbated by the relative low speed operation of a listeroid, part load operation, relative low coolant temps and maybe other factors such as softer liners.
bottom line it makes sense to me on my changfa trigen for the above reasons, and the fact my engine will never see part load operation (apart from a few minutes at startup and shutdown).
again ymmv
bob g
Quote from: Ronmar on January 01, 2014, 01:56:05 PM
Were you doing anything to pre-heat the WMO?
No, Didn't heat the oil. I think That is useless. IMHO, the temp of the oil will be controlled by the injector pump and the injector. I don't believe that heating the oil before the IP is going to make a lo of difference especially when the oil then goes through the injector pipe and then into the injector which is embedded in the head. If the oil is no hot from running through the injector, I don' believe it's going to be any hotter if it's preheated before hand.
QuoteI also didn't catch how many HP your diesel engine is rated for? I am going to take a stab here and say the smallest Air Cooled diesels I have typically seen are around 5-6HP. Is that about the size engine you are running? I am also guessing that the test setup you are running with the induction motor, controlling output by RPM, is running the engine somewhere below it's peak rated RPM?
This one is a 165 air cooled. I forget the name but I remember the initials YD embossed in the crank case. It is rated at 2.6kw@ 2200 rpm.
During the WMO test, I ran it in different configs from what I estimate to be about 60% power/rpm to over rated output as evidenced by the heavy smoking fairly early on. The engine was running PLENTY hot during the whole test. The heat coming off the engine was starting to worry me as it was significantly higher than on Veg.
QuoteIf my guesses are correct, that sounds like a failure with WMO was inevitable.
That's more than likely the case. My experience and knowledge with these things is 98% with Veg or Bio. I would not and have not had the problems I had with the WMO when using veg. In Hindsight, it's my gut feeling that the load and certainly the engine temp should have been sufficient. Perhaps what works with WMO is running an engine flat stick and not much under.
QuoteKnowing how WMO performs/sprays in the Babbington at low temp, I would not contemplate injecting WMO in a diesel without 200F or more of pre-heat to the oil.
I know where you are coming from but maintain that the Temp of he oil should have been more than sufficient. If thinning was needed, I'd be doing it with Diesel , Bio or to a limit, petrol. The other thing is, The pressure out of an injector is a bit more than a babbington.
I am also of the feeling that additional thinning may be required but I don't believe that preheating is not going to be near as effective as fuel Dilution.
Like I said, no doubt a lot to learn. :0)
Quote from: glort on January 01, 2014, 02:27:02 AMOver the last few days I have been playing with my little China Diesel running on WMO. ......
Any chance the oil was synthetic base ? Maybe try a fresh quart of 10-40wt and skip the unknowns
+1 for what Mike said.
Glort, thanks for reporting your test in such detail.
A couple of observations...
1] The oil: The fact that it burned so poorly suggests that there may have been a high content of "un-burnable" liquids which degraded the overall mix.
2] The engine: It is the nature of air cooled diesels to run a bit on the cool side when it comes to cylinder and head temperatures.
Because they are not thermostatically controlled, the cooling system must be designed to tolerate high ambent temps. as a worste case scenario.
Lab tests on Duetz air cooled engines running WVO showed considerably more deposits on the rings and injectors than water cooled test units.
The cool cylinder temperatures created excessive deposits in only 50 hours of running.
I know it's not proper to quote tests without a reference or a link to the test but I just can't find the .PDF in my files at the moment.
When I find it, I will post it.
cheers,
veggie
I really believe heating the oil would help it break up and atomize better when sprayed from the injector. The cold viscosity of the oil really works against the atomization process...
2.6KW is a really small diesel:) Wish I could get a liquid cooled that size...
Quote from: mike90045 on January 02, 2014, 08:43:22 AM
Quote from: glort on January 01, 2014, 02:27:02 AMOver the last few days I have been playing with my little China Diesel running on WMO. ......
Any chance the oil was synthetic base ? Maybe try a fresh quart of 10-40wt and skip the unknowns
No, The oil was from my own Vehicle. Being 22 years old, Even the cheapest supermarket grade oil is about 7 ratings above the engine spec requirements. The oil I did use was known brand Mineral oil of current specs.
All the oil would have had in it is about 20% B100 Which I put in the oil to help it drain out of the engine and the residual from any Veg oil the vehicle runs on.
Veggie,
As above, I don't know what the oil would have in i that was unburnable.
I drained it from my vehicle and as soon as I changed the filers and refilled the engine, I filtered what I drained out and used it. No chance of water or anything else other than the Bio and any left over veg. If anything, they would have been an asset in this case.
I think perhaps I'll have to get a laser thermo to take some temps. I can get a clear shot at the barrel of the engine and the cooling fins and also the crank case. Not sure if he exposed part of the head is the head itself or a cover. never really looked or though about that.
What temps would you think the cylinder and ( if it makes any difference) the crank case would want to be?
If I get a laser thermo, I could check the temps of the injector with preheating of the oil and without. I'm as confident in my beliefs as Romar is in his so it would be interesting to see which theory is the more correct and learn which one does apply. I'd be keen to give this a go on vehicle engines as much as stationary ones. I could try a thermo couple but I'm
not sure how I would get an accurate contact/ reading off a Fuel injector pipe.
While I have no doubt as to the tests you quote, that kind of throws up another problem with WMO with what others are saying about using it in a lister.
Perhaps we should be trying to establish some guidelines for what does work best. Temps an air cooled or water cooled engine should run at, minimum loads, and what has worked for people.
The Combustion requirements aren't clear to me atm. I would seem heat is he key factor but I may still be missing something.
Something else that occurred to me is that your air cooled engine may be Direct Injection.
We all know how sensitive DI is to viscosities greater than DinoDiesel.
Instead of spraying as a mist, the oil may be exiting as droplets and stings of goo.
Key to any alternative (viscous) fuel is the reduction in viscosity.
Done in one of two ways...
1] Dilution with a much thinner liquid (ie: Gasoline)
2] Heating until the alternative fuel viscosity approaches 8cP to 10 cP
Then run the engine as close to full load as possible for best thermal effy.
veggie
Now you mention it, it may well be DI. I hadn't thought of that. I might pop the injector out again and have another look.
I had it out the other week when I made a blanking plate instead of an exhaust gasket and fired the thing out of the Cylinder and it was spraying on veg pretty well even at low speed turnover.
Seems much more difficult to get an engine to run happily on WMO than Veg but then again, I have been using WVO so long in so many things, I probably do things by instinct with it now.
I'm thinking the best thing to do witm WMO is to pyrolyse it to crack the stuff back down to Diesel and just use that!
I've got a question for all you folks here! I've been pouring about a quart of Wal-Mart 2-stroke oil into the tank of my 240-D Benz when I fill up to try to lube the injection pump as I read that the new low sulpher fuel doesn't do as good a job of it as the fuel that the engine was built for. I'm intending on cleaning some WMO real good and maybe adding 1 to 3 gallons to my tank at each fill up. I'm wondering if the WMO will mix with the fuel in the tank or will just sit there and my engine will be running on stright WMO that the lift pump sucks off the bottom of the tank? I assume that the 2 stroke oil mixes in as I fill the tank and then drive around but WMO is much thicker and maybe wont mix without some outside help ??? ? Anybody got some thoughts? Maybe I should blend with dino or gasoline before I pour either type of oil into the car? If I blended the WMO with gasoline and then pour into the car will the blend be destroyed by sitting in the diesel in the tank? I was hoping that in the summer I could save $20 on a fill up and maybe dump in 5 gallons of WMO ;D. Maybe not so simple though? Thanks for any ideas. Leland
If I follow your question(s) correctly, Yes, WMO and ULP or Diesel will blend without problem and so will a ULP/ 2 Stroke mix.
If you are intending to add 2 stroke to the WMO/ ULP, I wouldn't bother. The WMO will make the Blend as lubricating as it can be.
I used to preblend ULP and WVO but don't bother any more. I put in the oil and then the ULP and another drum of oil . I believe the filling of the tank in this way provides plenty of mixing and then as soon as you drive the vehicle, it's all sloshed around anyway. Even if you got a slug of ULP in the pickup, it's going to dilute as it travels along the fuel line and then goes into the filter where it will mix and be bled back to the tank as well.
I have just been blending in the tank now for over a year and have seen not one single thing to indicate the ULP and Oil aren't mixing. WMO is even more compatible with ULP and Dino as it's made from the exact same base stock. To this end, while ULP, Dino and Veg will blend perfectly ( and NONE of them including WMO will ever separate)
Don't try blending WMO and WVO unless you have a good amount of ULP or Dino in the mix and I personally wouldn't blend the engine and veg oil unless I was going on a trip where they will both be constantly mixed and agitated and therefore kept blended. I'd make sure I used them all up pretty much then refilled with one or the other.
I think that is a cautionary approach and tests I have done would indicate that it should take a couple of days at least for them to separate. Of course there are MANY different types of veg and engine oils and even diesel and ULP comes in different formulations so I would err on the side of caution in this case. Then there is temperature and probably some other variables. I have also seen the goo that occurs when they separate so I myself would be careful to avoid that.
For what you want to do, Diesel/ WMO/ ULP/ 2 stroke all go together like water and cordial so you have no worries.
I just wouldn't spend any money on 2 stroke when you are using WMO ( or veg) because thats going to give the mix PLENTY of lube value.