Engineering WVO Conversion and Centrifuge

I was invited to speak at the alternate energy group in Charleston SC on June 18^th. I was given only 15 minutes to speak on WVO and came prepared with all the technical papers and test data I could find.

With such a short timeframe, I took the “Shock and Awe” approach and broke out the nastiest picture I could find: A greased TDI that had severe coking and led to engine failure. I followed that up with test report after test report of failed engines due to Vegetable oil. Severe Engine Damage, carbon buildup, rings sticking, lubrication oil contamination and catastrophic engine failure. I rounded off my opening tirade with pictures of a severely coked and scoured piston and a pile polymerized engine oil that looked like Jello.

Now you may be wondering, as my audience was, why was I being so negative? Don’t I believe in and, in fact, promote the use of WVO as fuel? Yes, but allow me to give you a peek into the mind of an engineer; everything breaks and at some point, the engine in your vehicle will fail. The use of WVO as fuel in place of Diesel will probably lead to that failure sooner than later. I believe that everyone considering the use of WVO as an alternate fuel needs to clearly understand the risks and evaluate their motivations. WVO is not a direct replacement for Diesel; professional WVO conversions are neither cheap nor simple but are designed to reduce if not eliminate the risks associated with WVO. Many people with early Mercedes have found that minimal or no conversion is necessary to run on WVO. In this case, return on investment for the whole vehicle could be made inside of 30,000 miles of driving on WVO. Owners of newer vehicles require a much longer payback and carry a higher risk in the value of the vehicle over the value of the fuel.

My conclusion is to acknowledge without prejudice what you will find in any alternate fuel forum; different people, in different places with different motivations. I am open to cater to the whole spectrum. I believe it is somewhat self regulating as most “shoe string” conversion will be for the inexpensive vehicles and the comprehensive and automated systems will be developed for the more expensive vehicles. As an engineer, I will always be drawn to the failures as that is where improvements can be made.

Leon

www.WVOdesigns.com

I am starting a new community project leveraging my WVO experience, converting my vehicle to run on vegitable oil, collecting vegitable oil and cleaning vegitable oil. Oh, yea, and my “real” job as a mechanical engineer.

I am starting a site dedicated to the open discussion and distribution of designs relating to WVO. I am documenting my systems now and posting them on the board for all. I will included component drawings, parts list and wiring schematics. Please critique, and share your experiences. It is my goal to have a robust design, developed by comunity experience, for every diesel vehicle suitable to be run on WVO.

I hope that the community shares my opinion that there is a need for this kind of resource and pulls together to build something to help us get to the next step.

Check out www.WVOdesigns.com

This shot is to compare to previous post and is what the WVO centrifuge bowl should look like after collecting a reasonable amount of crud…

This was my first rather optimistic pass with the WVO centrifuge.  This is after 175gallons of freshly collected oil….I guess it isn’t magic but it sure does try.  You can see the bowl is chock block full.  Once it reached this condition, the oil would have simply passed through.  It took me 20 minutes to scrape about two pounds of solid crap out of the bowl.  I will have to do a better job of pre-filtering to get a full 270gallon tote through in one pass.

Here is the WVO centrifuge mounted and plumbed to two 275 Gallon totes along with the electric heater system that I designed.  The heater is mounted vertically and temperature controlled, I am getting about 150F at flow rates of about 10gph and the vertical orientation provides some pre-settling before the centrifuge.  I had anticipated mounting with three angle iron legs but we just used some 2x4s and mounted it to the totes with one 2x4 leg.  Looks kinda hooky but is good for a first pass.  

I finally got all the pieces to put my WVO centrifuge together.  Here I am bolting the enclosure to the motor.  You can buy the rotor and the motor from simple centrifuge but I had to design my own enclosure and lid.  I sent the design out to a company I worked with in the fire industry to have built in stainless steel.   Its overkill but most of the cost was labor anyway.  What do you know, it all bolted up first try.  You would think I was an engineer. 

The brains of the operation.  System runs fully automatic or off.  Manual purge switch is installed for priming only. 

Three lights:

red-purge valve open, yellow-system on, not to temp, green - system on VO

Northern Tool Tank with hot fox. 3/8” Stainless Braided Teflon fuel lines.