WVO and filters - woollies supplied!

[wonpapachongtongs Biofuels Forum Newbie Find all posts View Profile Close wonpapachongtongs]

Re: WVO and filters - woollies supplied!

[quote=wonpapachongtongs;14357]I'm new around here.
After I get the information on the perfect filter I'll tell you all the easiest way on how to get the job done.

After I got Geoff's reply I realized that it said the perfect (prefilter) not filter.

I use from a 2 pac a pillow slip cover from the local "Dollar Rama" Store for my prefilter. His cloth shopping bag may last longer over the long haul. I just happened on one of these this morning and will see which one seems to work and hold up the best. The pillow case is made from a very strong fiber type paper material similar to what is used in the fuel and oil filters in your car but it's not as fine.

For a prepre filter I use a bag filter from the paint store that fits in and is used for straining a 20 Lt pail of paint. That or a laundry bag from Walmart. It's like wire mesh screen but it's flexable because it is made of a synthetic material. I just hang it inside my pillow case covers first before hanging them all inside my first 20 Lt pail.

There are several places I can get some really clean oil but it has some large pieces of french fries floating on the top.

Here is the post I could'nt finish the other day.

You start by cutting the bottom out of a 20Lt. plastic pail. Then cut a wooden disc 4 or 5 in. in diameter larger than the bottom of that pail. Now cut a round opening in the cente of the disc slightly larger than the bottom of the pail. You now have a ring 4 or 5 in. wide with the inside of the rings diameter slightly larger than outside diameter of the bottom of the pail. Cut a round piece of the material you will be using to final filter your oil. Make it 5 or 6 in. larger than the outside diameter of your ring. Your filtering material has to be around 1/16 in. thick. You will have to experiment here. Lay the filtering material centered over the opening of the ring. Take your 20 Lt pail and jam it down into the centre of the ring. The filtering material will climb up between the outside wall of your pail and the ring and it take on the shape like the edge of a pie crust. Physics takes over here and it will bind and lock in place. Your filtering material is stretched tight across the bottom of your pail. Hang you pre filters bags in side the pail. Now put this set up on the top of what ever is going to catch your filtered clean oil. Heat your oil and pour it into the pail.

Like I said yesterday I live where there is one of only two felt manufactures in the country. I have been force blowing through different material trying to measure resistance and see if I can find something that will filter down to 5 microns.

I think I have found something that's perfect for using in the application I descrbed. The material is called viscose and is only made in Germany. It's made from wood fibers. My felt contact said that only Germany has the proper stiching machines for making it. It is colored and it's really an excellant synthetic shammy. It's amazing because it holds something like 10 times it weight in liquid. Water flows through it so I know heated oil will as well. I'm guessing but I figure one or two layers will filter down to 5 microns. I just found some of these shammys at a Dollar store. They can be reused. Scrape them first,both sides with a putty knife then wash them in the machine.

Has anybody found a suitable material that filters down to 5 microns? I want to find and use something without paying for the filtering bags. The space I have to do this at, my landlord who has trucks will buy from me on site all the oil I can produce.

This is the filtering material I'm talking about.

Super Shammy

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

Re: WVO and filters - woollies supplied!

Hi Fitian,
Glen and I are currently using the woolies carry bags for initial filtering then the 5 micron filter bags that we got from you for the final filtering. I really like the idea of the slow overnight filtering which doesnt require any regular monitoring.

How do you clean your filters? Would others also please advise?
Laurie

[Fitian Was here Find all posts View Profile Close Fitian]

Re: WVO and filters - woollies supplied!

Hi Fitian,
Glen and I are currently using the woolies carry bags for initial filtering then the 5 micron filter bags that we got from you for the final filtering. I really like the idea of the slow overnight filtering which doesnt require any regular monitoring.

How do you clean your filters? Would others also please advise?
Laurie

Hi Laurie,

It's good that you got your filtering system going.

Since preventions is better than cure, I always use a swimming pool liner or a lady's stocking inserted inside the filter bag to catch most of the crap that the strainer missed on.

To clean my filter bags I turn it inside out and either run some bio or warm clean oil through it. But first I gently scrape the fat off the surface with a plastic rule.

You could also turn it inside out and dip it a few times into a tin of hot oil.
I learnt that from David. I guess he can advise more on this issue.

Yeah, I like to fill 3 or 4 bags at nigh and go. In the morning I collect at least 40 L of clean oil to either store or fill the tank and they will last for a while before I need to filter any more rather than having one filter bag and end up with 8 or 10 L.

BTW I have got more bags if you need.

Cheers

[W123 x 2 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close W123 x 2]

Re: WVO and filters - woollies supplied!

I use an old washing machine my brother in law gave me. I use dam water in the beast and pump the waste water on to some trees nearby. The woolies green bags seem to last quite well, some have been washed 6 times or more. Holding them up to the light and comparing with new ones, there seems no difference.

Oh and sugar soap works well as a cleaner in the machine for the bags. It's probably eating away at the guts of the machine, but that was free and so far so good.

Cheers, Michael

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

Re: WVO and filters - woollies supplied!

Thnx Fitian and Michael,
Can you see any reason why I shouldn't use hot water and detergent and wash the filters or bags in a bucket after scraping off as much of the solids as possible?
Laurie

[Guest Close David]

Re: WVO and filters - woollies supplied!

When talking about cleaning filter bags there are two types of cleaning to be done, the fats and the particles.

The fats are by far the most common and with some good but unsettled Oil I have been in a hurry to get ready lately, it was not uncommon for the bags to become clogged enough with fat from 20L of oil to make them impractically slow.

To remove the fats I use a long handled spoon and scrape out the main volume of it which can easily be a couple of litres. I then heat up a large pot of oil to around 60-80oC and submerge the bag in the oil to let it melt the fats. I dip and dunk the bags in the oil untill the fats are disolved. I hang the bag over the pot or a "Waste" bucket until the fats have filtered through. I could Imagine that as long as a person were careful, there would be no reason the fats couldn't be melted out of the bag with a hair dryer which may be easier and cleaner still. Just remember to drain them over a seperate container to your filtered oil.
Once the fats are removed the bag is good to go again.

Particles are much less a problem. Even with non settled oil I could easily get 500L+ of oil through a single bag without having to wash it out. As the bags clog they will also filter finer so a little patience will likely yeild a better quality oil.
To remove the built up particles, I turn the bag inside out and pour hot oil through it. ( I think best to keep the oil to about 80oC so as to not distort the bags construction and filtering ability.)

I then soak the bag in a strong soloution of KOH and water ( any strong detergent would do) to disolve the oils and I then blast the bag ( still turned inside out) with the hose on a strong spray of water to blow the rubbish away.

The bags are then dried on the clothes line. I'm not overly worried about drying the bag because I'm drying all my oil anyway so a little water isn't a concern for me. When I use the bags again, I double filter the first lot of oil so as to catch any particles the oil may dislodge from the bag. The idea is to effectively clean the outside of the bag and get all the contaminants trapped inside it.

Fats are the most likely to clog a bag and can easily be removed by melting them and allowing them to pass through into a waste container. Proper washing is needed far less frequently as the majority of particles end up in the bottom of the bag which is only a small part of the total available filtering area.

[hannahs bridge Donating Member Find all posts View Profile Close hannahs bridge]

Re: WVO and filters - woollies supplied!

Geoff, The flow indications cast into the filter head produce the outside > in flow, which does appear to negate the availability of the sediment bowl. It may be that the CAV filters are not water blocking filters and thus, any water which pass thru the filter cartridge should fall to the sediment bowl and not to the IP.
I agree that it would seem to be better to have the sediment bowl before the filter, to allow sediment, water, etc, to settle in the bowl rather than being trapped by the element. Thus you should reverse the connections, after replacing the filter element, to make the filter work in the direction you prefer.

Regards,
Tony

This is not a new thread, but after speaking to my local filter supplier today, possibly I can shed some new light on the subject.
A batch of these filter heads, from India, have the fuel flow arrows pointing the wrong way. Basically a mistake.
Now that I have reversed the fuel flow on my setup the bleed screw on the head actually bleeds air not fuel.
Personally I could not figure out why the outlet side of the filter had more holes than the inlet side. This is because, in a high flow situation, the filter medium may move and come up hard against the end. If that end has plenty of holes there will be no restriction. I was also informed that these little filters are recommended for engines up to 300 HP.

Malcolm.

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

Re: WVO and filters - woollies supplied!

Nylon stockings or pool skimmer filter bags make good inserts to place inside the proper 5 micron filter bags. Then when they have clogged, you pull them out and discard. I find that with my oil (cottonseed from takeaway shops) that i can do this about 3 times before the filter bag needs replacing. Turning the bag inside out and flushing with HOT water is all that's needed to clean the bags. I do this with one of those plastic bath shower fittings connected to the laundry tap and the oily water in the big plastic bucket gets tipped back into the steel drums my oil comes in and discarded at the tip. The bags are just dried on the line. They still have an oily feel due to the impregnation of the oil, but they work fine and are probably even better than when new.

Has anyone tried tried composting their filtrate? What about worms, will they survive in it? Just trying to be as eco friendly as possible

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

Re: WVO and filters - woollies supplied!

Bruce,
I did not have any success with feeding the filtrate to worms, the ones in the test all died on me. I feel that the oil clogged the pores on their skin and they suffocated.
If the oil was in a small part of the worm farm, mixed with the bedding, perhaps this would work, but I have another use for my filtrate - pass to others to make biodiesel from.