A new processor in the making :-)

[Bueff Biofuel Enthusiast Find all posts View Profile Close Bueff]

Well, first of all I would like to thank everyone for their input so far. It has been an amazing journey so far. After several years of trying, bucket lifting, 200l of mayonnaise and a couple of hundred thousand km on bio fuels, I finally get a chance to build a processor that will allow me to keep up with the cruisers thirst and the milage I am doing at the moment.

The starting point was the thread "what I saw on Ebay" where jkis pointed out a insulated 1000l stainless steel tank. It turned out the tank actually holds app. 1300l so perfect for 1000l batches. After picking Matt's brain about big batches I put in the large amount of $150 and got it. The guy who was selling it, had to move juice processing gear out of a shed due to closing it down. So on the trailer it went and thats where it stayed for the next 4 weeks .

My better half left to work in Melbourne for the next 2 month and I thought thats perfect timing. Last weekend I had a part of the Brisbane crew over and after a few more ideas I went to work this weekend.
Result so far, I have welded the brackets for the paddle mixer and the baffles in the tank and fitted the heating elements today. There are 2x 2400 low watt density elements and one 1800 low watt density element. The 2x2400 will be powered by a generator running on bio if I am in a "rush",but the idea is to connect the 1800w unit directly to the solar system so it heats the oil once the battery bank is fully charged. Since the tank is well insulated it doesn't matter if it takes a week to heat the oil to temperature.

I hope the photo thingie works so you can get an idea. Please feel free to chip in ideas, always open to new things.

Have a good Sunday evening!

[jkis Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close jkis]

Re: A new processor in the making :-)

good to see that someone got something out of the "what I saw on Ebay" section, and what a great buy it was to
will be watching your build
cheers stuart

[tillyfromparadise Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close tillyfromparadise]

Re: A new processor in the making :-)

Hi Bueff,
It looks like you need a panel beater.

[SUZUDDIS Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close SUZUDDIS]

Re: A new processor in the making :-)

Jens

looks good. Happy to help with the lift off the trailer, was an interesting move.
good luck getting it finished before your GF gets home. Hope the rain stays away while you have time.

did the neighbours dog come home ?

Michael

[Tony From West Oz Vice Chairperson of WARFA Find all posts View Profile Close Tony From West Oz]

Re: A new processor in the making :-)

Do you have a thermostat to limit the maximum temperature the oil can be raised to?

Tony

[Bueff Biofuel Enthusiast Find all posts View Profile Close Bueff]

Re: A new processor in the making :-)

Do you have a thermostat to limit the maximum temperature the oil can be raised to?

Tony

Hi Tony, yes there will be a thermocouple sensor with a PID to control the temperature.

[Bueff Biofuel Enthusiast Find all posts View Profile Close Bueff]

Re: A new processor in the making :-)

Jens

looks good. Happy to help with the lift off the trailer, was an interesting move.
good luck getting it finished before your GF gets home. Hope the rain stays away while you have time.

did the neighbours dog come home ?

Michael

Hi Michael,

Yes the dog is back, he went on quite an adventure, luckily he is microchipped so the vet rang the owner :-)
I just need another weekend to make the lid, fit the bearings and the thermo couple and the processor can go inside the container (got some "excited" friends on standby :-) )
So lets hope it stays dry :-)

[Bueff Biofuel Enthusiast Find all posts View Profile Close Bueff]

Re: A new processor in the making :-)

Hi Bueff,
It looks like you need a panel beater.

Hi Tilly, yes you might be right there, what are you doing next weekend, you wouldn't be around the Lismore area by any chance ?

[Captaincademan Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Captaincademan]

Re: A new processor in the making :-)

[

QUOTE=Bueff;62440] Please feel free to chip in ideas, always open to new things.

[/QUOTE]

Hi Jens,

two things come to mind -

1. make sure the tank is properly earthed through a safety switch and you have overload protection - 3 elements isn't mucking around!
2. try 'tuning' the paddles (if you haven't already) by filling the tank with water to see how it goes. you may need to either gear the motor down or reduce the size of the blades, or play with the pitch of the blades. get the mix as violent as possible. keep in mind the oil wont behave exactly like water as it is a fair bit thicker, so the mix will be less violent with oil than your water test. Both of my mixers have had different motors on them , so I have had to muck with mine a bit at build to get it to run right. Get the rotation of the blades such that it pushes the mix down, not up, to try and get it in all the nooks and crannies of the mixer. this will mean that your shaft will want to climb out of the mixer though, so it will need some sort of thrust device (or you could just push the mix up, and hope it doesn't leave dead patches in the mixer).

Have Fun!

[jkis Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close jkis]

Re: A new processor in the making :-)

if your not in a big hurry to heat it up, solar water heating panels go cheap at times
cheers stuart

[peter1 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close peter1]

Re: A new processor in the making :-)

Having made a LOT of 1000L batches, I think the electrical heating will be a pain.

I'm not sure how much the solar will do. Depends on how long it actually takes to come on once your batteries are charged and how much energy it can put into the tank.... which will cool some over night regardless of insulation. Of course on a cloudy day, not much to be gained there.
The other 2 elements on 1000L wont be quick either. You may not be in a rush per se but I always found that you wanted a fairly early start on Bio day as it's a lot of work getting it all done on one day. If you had the oil pre dried and the tank filled, that would be a help but if you are decanting drums etc, it's a good days work.

I heated the oil with a burner and found that vastly easier. You can overshoot and boil dry any damp oil and then put that in the processor which will take a fair bit of heat out in it's own thermal mass.

Got to say though, at the end of the day, I just don't fancy the idea of electrics heating oil for a few reasons. The processor that I did the 1000L batches with has an element but it never got used once. The oil was heated over a fire and then progressed to a burner that would boil a '44 in 17 Min flat. For oil that wasn't wet, an old hot water heater was used as a HE and the fire shot though that instead of having the original gas burner. The oil was just pumped through the HE and the processor and recirculated.

Don't spose the generator you'll be using is water cooled? You could use the coolant heat in a co gen setup and the exhaust heat from a genny that size wouldn't be insignificant either. A simple Exhaust HE would no doubt be as effective as the electric elements if done right.

[Captaincademan Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Captaincademan]

Re: A new processor in the making :-)

Although I haven't made a 1000l batch before, I think the most efficient form of heating would be a turk burner or similar under a sturdy tank base.

Having said that my 200l mixer would heat my oil from cold winter morning say 15 degrees or so (that's oil temp not air temp) to 55 deg in about 45 mins with a single element.

Using a burner kind of lends itself to doing it outside though. I wouldn't be keen on a fire under 1000 litres of hot oil in my lounge room. One leak in the right spot and it could be a terrible outcome.

I would have thought with 3 elements as long as you had sufficient supply would have to bring 1000 litres up in 2 hours or less? that's just intuition not supported by any numbers though. The good thing about elements is they are quite controllable. you could switch them on or off individually or even install the thermostats on the side of the tank vessel to limit over heating of the oil. A few options there to think about.

[Tony From West Oz Vice Chairperson of WARFA Find all posts View Profile Close Tony From West Oz]

Re: A new processor in the making :-)

Although I haven't made a 1000l batch before, I think the most efficient form of heating would be a turk burner or similar under a sturdy tank base.

Having said that my 200l mixer would heat my oil from cold winter morning say 15 degrees or so (that's oil temp not air temp) to 55 deg in about 45 mins with a single element.

Using a burner kind of lends itself to doing it outside though. I wouldn't be keen on a fire under 1000 litres of hot oil in my lounge room. One leak in the right spot and it could be a terrible outcome.

I would have thought with 3 elements as long as you had sufficient supply would have to bring 1000 litres up in 2 hours or less? that's just intuition not supported by any numbers though. The good thing about elements is they are quite controllable. you could switch them on or off individually or even install the thermostats on the side of the tank vessel to limit over heating of the oil. A few options there to think about.

Cade,
While a burner would be one of the fastest heating methods, solar would win hands down for efficiency. Zero inputs other than the sun's rays.
It does have other costs though, the cost of the solar absorbers, the cost of plumbing them together, etc.

If I were to use solat to heat the oil, I would prefer to use water as the medium passing thru the panels and have a heat exchanger (some pipes in the reactor?) to transfer the heat to the vessel containing the oil. That way, if it had to be taken down between batches, there wouldn't be any mess, other than water to deal with.

Tony

[Captaincademan Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Captaincademan]

Re: A new processor in the making :-)

Your dead right Tony, Efficient probably wasn't the best choice of words. I was thinking of install cost and time to heat. The turk burner can be made from scrap components and only requires a small fan, as it runs on WVO. But you don't need me to tell you that!

For the uninitiated, they are bloody hot and get hot quickly, and produce a rather intense column of heat, running on only a slow drip / stream of WVO. Sure there is electricity input for the fan unit, but that's nothing compared to the cost running heating elements.

Would use of a solar unit limit your heating time to well after sun up to well before sun down? I guess you could insulate the tank to retain its heat over night and spread the heating over maybe 2 days? or am I off the charts as it could be heated in one day (variables aside)? I too am about to build a new processing system in my new shed, so am pretty keen to see where this thread goes.

[Tony From West Oz Vice Chairperson of WARFA Find all posts View Profile Close Tony From West Oz]

Re: A new processor in the making :-)

Cade,
A square metre of solar absorbers can provide ~1 KW of heating power. If you have 10 sq metres, you have 10KW of heating power.
Solar input is greatest when the panels are aimed at within 10 degrees of the sun. The maximum output is thus between 10am and 2pm, but you will get significant amount of heat even at 8am and 5pm in Summer, or 9am and 4 pm in winter, even with the panels flat on the roof (assuming a 20° Pitch).
A small pump (1/2 Hp should be more than adequate to circulate the heated fluid)
The only thing that I would have concern with is "what do you do with the heat when you are not heating the oil up to make a batch"??? - especially in Summer!

Solar air conditioning for the shed?

An alternative would be to have a large solar hot water system (at least 1/2 the size of the batch you are processing), with less than the optimal number of panels (you will not have a family living there using the hot water). When you want to heat the oil, you pump the hot water thru the heating coils in the processor. If your hot water is at 90°C and oil at 25°C, you should be able to get the oil to at least 50°C in short time (water has higher thermal mass(?) than oil). You then have a hot water system in the shed, add a shower and wash basin, a bed and cooking facilities and your "doghouse" would be habitable .
Regards,
Tony