Made my first mini batch

[kainers]

I have been scared and skeptical till now.I never was very good in chemistry class in high school.If I can do this anyone can.LOL

I went in to ask a friend about putting on some biodiesel classes and help him in selling his set up.HE was allready doing it.Today he put on this little day class on biodiesel.I can say Iam deffinetly no longer afraid of the chemicals involved.I was very carefull but it wasn't all that hard.I ended up buying a starter kit from him and it had everything from doing your titrate test and meth and lye mixtures for x gallons and all.

http://www.makebiodiesel.com/products/fuelmeister.asp

that is the system he has and as soon as i can get a bigger collection going of WVO then I am going to get one too.I burn close to 100-200 gallons a month so you can imagine my fuel bill at this time at 2.69 a gallon.

Mike

[biobenz]

For a lot less than $3,000.00 you could build one that will give you execellent fuel and it will be more personal than a commercially made unit that has a reputation of not being as simple as touted.
Any closed-to-the-air system is viable for biodiesel production as long as it is compatible with the methoxide's corrosive properties.
Some have made excellent reators with 200 liter drums, and others have used a water heater plumbed to be used as a reator, and yet others have come up with truly immaginative uses for containers as biodiesel plants.
Look around and collect ideas before tossing 3K at a plastic cone tank set up.This is MHO of course.

[girlmark]

OH NO! not the fuelMeister! it's the biggest rip-off in biodiesel history. It also doesn't work as advertised. It also isn't as easy to use as they claim. It's also not as safe as something you can build yourself.

here's my post from another forum which has a lot of links to discussions of Fuelmeister.

quote:

"Here are some Fuelmeister discussion links. Note that we point out that almost no fuelmeister users actuallhy post on any forums, so there's a complete lack of user reviews other than the people who go on to become dealers (who often pose as 'legitimate' users without disclosing that they make money promoting the thing)

http://www.forums.biodieselnow.com/t...?TOPIC_ID=3285

and this older one which eventually gets into some info about
Biodieselgear.com:
http://www.forums.biodieselnow.com/t...?TOPIC_ID=3263


Discussion of the much cheaper Biodieselwarehouse DIY kit, which is also the opensource Appleseed one that you can source parts for locally
http://www.forums.biodieselnow.com/t...?TOPIC_ID=5106

and Larry talking about a very preventable problem that happens to the
Fuelmeister:
http://www.veggieavenger.com/avenger...opic.php?t=442


Mark

[girlmark]

here's the link to plans for making your own safer processor:

www.veggieavenger.com/media

Mark

[kainers]

thanks for all the links.I think I will read more then make my own.Cross your fingers.

Mike

[sagebel]

Mike, I just started to build my processor today and so far I think I have spent around $300. That is including 55 gallon drums, 3 pumps, fliter, plumbing supplies, etc... I am setting up to run svo or make bio. Once I get time, I will go through and list P/Ns for the filters and other stuff. I found a filter and base at NAPA that filters to 5 microns and the filter only costs $10. Once girl Mark's book gets here I will start reading and then making small batches and eventually 30 gallon batches.

Scott

[kainers]

Yeh let me know.I thought I did good on my mini batch.I SUCK.I titrated it out to .7 that comes to 4.2 grams of lye and 200 ml to 1000ml of WVO.

I SUCK I SUCK I SUCK.Darnit remeber not good at chemistry wife is complaing of fried good smell in the house.The garage is too cold so now we have the heater on full blast and the window open in the kitchen.

Yeh first time.Forgot the lye used the titrate mix instead[img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif[/img] and 110ml of meth.Now 2nd batch mixed 10 minutes with hand mixer put in I think 4.2 grams of lye and 200ml of meth.It has been sitting for about a hour now on a heating pad no results.

HELP.I am suprised I have not blown up the house or have chemical burned the crud out of myself.

MIKE

[sagebel]

I haven't gotten to do any of that fun stuff yet. I figure that if I can't figure out bio, I will just run SVO. I have a blender and a won a tripple beam balance on ebay that should be here soon.

Scott

[RazzyB]

[ QUOTE ]
Yeh let me know.I thought I did good on my mini batch.I SUCK.I titrated it out to .7 that comes to 4.2 grams of lye and 200 ml to 1000ml of WVO.

I SUCK I SUCK I SUCK.Darnit remeber not good at chemistry wife is complaing of fried good smell in the house.The garage is too cold so now we have the heater on full blast and the window open in the kitchen.

Yeh first time.Forgot the lye used the titrate mix instead[img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif[/img] and 110ml of meth.Now 2nd batch mixed 10 minutes with hand mixer put in I think 4.2 grams of lye and 200ml of meth.It has been sitting for about a hour now on a heating pad no results.

HELP.I am suprised I have not blown up the house or have chemical burned the crud out of myself.

MIKE

[/ QUOTE ]

Mike, how'd that second batch come out?

[kainers]

I got impatient and dumped it after about 2 hours there still was no change but a soapy film on top of it.I am going to just start over again when I have more time.

I only am collecting around 3 gallons of WVO a week so no immediate plans for me as of yet.

Mike