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Centrifuge/Pump Questions

6K views 24 replies 10 participants last post by  Super10brss 
PA Biodiesel site states that this centrifuge requires a 1 HP motor to run. You cannot lower the rpm on the centrifuge and expect it to work as it needs speed to spin out the contaminates. According to the site, this is a gear pump. Capacity for the centrifuge is rated at 16 GPM, but that is probably for one pass through the centrifuge and you will need many passes with a spinner type centrifuge to clean the solids. You would have a trip through a 55 gallon drum in a little over three minutes. An hours worth of processing would give you many passes through the centrifuge. This type of centrifuge is not well suited for removal of water.

How much oil are you planning on processing? If it is for normal driving, an insulated barrel should not cost that much to heat. How much fuel would you use a week? I am planning on doing some cross country driving, but even that requires less than 200 gallons at a time. Lucky you on the source. My biggest problem will soon be sources for oil.

Don't under power the centrifuge as it will not work well and will probably burn out the motor. You do need to run it at capacity to get proper cleaning. But, if you are circulating into a barrel, capacity is not a problem as you are just running the same oil through the centrifuge many times. That is OK, as that is how this type of centrifuge works to get the dirt out.

Check PA Biodiesel for prices on pumps and motors as they advertise that they are competitive. I don't know if they are or not, but it will give you a place to start for matching motor and pump for a complete system.
 
You will find PA Biodiesel extremely easy to deal with and very helpful. Take a look at the kits on their website and see what items you have readily available (Home Depot, Lowes, Menards) and consider getting the rest from PA Biodiesel. That way you will have them for tech support and the right parts to get you started. Let us know how you make out.
 
1740 rpm motors are usually heavy duty well built. Check and see if it is rated for continuous duty as that will determine the quality of the motor. That should be plenty to give you the psi you need to run that centrifuge (90) properly. I have a band heater that works well on my insulated drum. See if the motor can be set up for running on 220V. That will let it start easier and run better while pulling the load. I believe the pumps that PA Biodiesel sell use Lovejoy connections. You will be able to tell when you have run the centrifuge long enough when you get very little between cleanings. Since these centrifuges really don't work well with water, look at setting up an upflow system. They are ingenious and effective at leaving the water behind.
 
Ooops sorry. It is a carbonator mount and they show you how to hook it up on the web site.
 
tweener - when you do that, please post your results as I am thinking along the same lines but am not sure when I will get at it. It would be better on our gear pumps because they would not be required to run the grit through the gears. If the results are the same using either method, then mixing and settling first would be the better method.

Gear pumps are reported to emulsify water if it is present in the oil and the grit in the WM is not good for them. Using air pressure to move oil solves that problem but I am not sure it is more efficient.

Spinner type centrifuges require many passes to get their work done and were originally designed to clean the oil on working engines so they were constantly cleaning the oil as the engine ran making countless passes. Centrifuge oil filters area available for Chevy Duramax and perhaps the Cummins engines right now. Our use for cleaning WM is simply an adaption for this type of centrifuge. It leaves us with the same question all the time, when is the oil clean? We need a working test to determine that and I don't know how to design one.
 
Jeff, I don't think with a spinner type of centrifuge you are ever going to get by with a single pass. The oil is only in the centrifuge for 2 seconds or so. It simply does not have time to catch everything on a single pass. If you think of it as time in the centrifuge, then it isn't the number of passes that you count, but time in the centrifuge. Our folks that are filtering are sort of doing the same thing with multiple passes through a set of filters or multiple filters.
 
I think the confusion here is over centrifuge design. The spinners are very small, powered by the pressure from a pump and actually were designed to function much like our by pass filters do. Only a fraction of the oil at a time in an engine was filtered. The open bowl centrifuges (Simple, USFiltermaxx and others) are powered by their own motor and the oil can be fed in as slowly as you want. They are perfectly capable of cleaning the oil in one pass.

I upflow my oil, run it through a 5 micron bag filter and can't believe what the centrifuge takes out. I have an absolute handful of black tar full of sand (particulate matter) I don't think the oil I started with was of the highest quality and I don't think a spinner type centrifuge could have cleaned it in one pass.

I also think we have differences here between WVO and WMO. I am encouraged by your recent experiments with WMO.
 
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