Vegetable Oil SVO WVO waste cooking oil as biofuel

[jordanmills]

I dunno, that's awful expensive. You can get something comparable to mine (though slightly lower quality) for a thousand less. Just a minute ago, I filled a 55 gal drum in about five minutes.

[leftcoastjeff]

yea but thats 14 gal per. min..... At 550 psi.....

What do you think it will do at 10PSI? whow look out!

LCjeff

[jordanmills]

Probably go too fast to pump a dumpster with only 50-100 gal in it.

[leftcoastjeff]

Woo-hoo what an experament, fire hose style!!!!!!
Now back to drilllllll pummmmmmps
$12.95 sounds good, its nice to "look BIG" and think bigger

Somebodies going to try it, and it won't be me! what a mess if somthing goes terribly wrong.......

LCjeff

[David]

Basically a 1" trash pump. Moves liquid oil absurdly fast.

I borrowed one of these off a mate and found it to be rather dissapointing on what I was expecting.

The first thing was the thing was absurdly noisy. I'm sure all these type pumps couldn't be as bad as the one I used but it would be something to keep in mind if you collect early in the mornings as I do. There was nothing wrong with the muffler apart from cheap arse design and packing it with a couple of stainless steel kitchen scourer pads made a very big Improvements in noise reduction.

Second thing was the output of the pump didn't live up to my hopes of what such a pump should do. It was ok, but it was not any better on thicker oil than the small electric pump I had been using. High ( and Noisy) rpm didn't seem to make much difference on the flow.

Using the pump was not a pleasant experience in any space not very well ventilated and although I quite like the odd whiff of 2-stroke in the mornings, it don't take long to get too much of a good thing real fast!

If one were pumping thin oil and the noise and fumes weren't a factor. these pumps are a very portable and lightweight alternative where others may not be available or would create difficulties.
For mine though, a good High flow bilge pump and a small SLA battery pose a more agreeable solution.

[jordanmills]

You're right on both of these. It's way too noisy at higher speeds, and doesn't pump thick oil fast at all.

[SunWizard]

I have a 4hp honda trash pump, very similar to this one:
http://www.northerntool.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/product_6970_74621_74621

and its working great for pumping even the thickest PHO. Bought at a local farm store for $400. Its fairly quiet and it pumps so fast I usually have it running at near idle speed, and it still does about 15gpm. (its rated 185gpm for water.) I attached 1" clear braided hoses to the intake and output, and a 4' section of rigid 1" PVC on the end of the intake which makes it easy to determine how deep you are in a barrel, and easy to put a cap on it when I take it out of the VO.

The only thing I don't like is its a little heavy to carry around for loading into my truck at about 60 pounds.

[David]

That is interesting info Sun. I have been discussing upscaling operations with a couple of friends and putting an IBC on the back of a ute or in a trailer for collecting. I have one of those transfer type pumps in 3" in a diesel but I could never use that for collecting because it would wake the dead. I was thinking of a petrol 2" Pump but was leaning towards the High pressure fire type pump rather than the transfer type as I thought it would be better on oil.

It's encouraging to hear of the flow rates you are getting with just 1" hose. Does the pressure in the hose increase much with high er RPM on that pump?
I looked in the hardware store about an hour ago and found some cheap Flexible irrigation hose in 2" I thought would be good. I Have also done what you have with the PVC "wand" for pickup and for the big pump was also going to put a valve on the PVC so I could keep the pickup hose full of oil so it would not loose prime.

There are lots of these pumps going on Evil bay cheap and although my diesel pump needed some tweaking of the engine when I got it, the thing has been a good unit so hopefully I might get lucky again.

Obviously the transfer type pumps work, Just wondering if the high pressure types would have any extra benefit?

[SunWizard]

I haven't measured the pressure on the hose. I used the 1" hose since its easier to move around, and easier to wipe the VO off when I pull it from the barrel. Raising the RPMs beyond about halfway doesn't increase the flow much, but I think thats due to load and viscosity on the impeller more than hose restriction. Thats fine since it keeps it much quieter.

I have some 2" and some 3" hoses and quit using them because they are really heavy when full, and you need to keep them full since losing prime is a pain since its slow and difficult to re-prime. If I get too much air in the intake, I have to use my 12volt pump to fill the intake pipe again, so I have gotten good at avoiding air, which is much harder if you have a bigger pipe or a flow above the 20gpm I run this at. At this flow its a trick to get the engine shut off before it sucks too much air, I have to plan ahead, and clamp the intake hose to the barrel (so its up from the crud on the bottom) so I can run back to the pump and be at the switch.

Clear hoses are very helpful so I can see if I hit the milky or crud layers, and I couldn't find them locally above 1" size. And the clear might collapse on input side even if you could find bigger.

The high pressure types might get a little higher flow, but they are not usually rated for large solids like this one so you could damage them easier.

[David]

Hi Sun,

^^^^ All Very good points, many of which I have experienced myself at some level or another. The 1" hose makes sense for the reasons you point out as well. I have seen it bigger than 1" here but collapsing could be a problem.

Have you thought of what I suggested and have done on my pickup wands? I put a ball valve between the PVC and the hose on the pickup side. I put a 90o elbow on the end of the PVC as well so the hose in in a more usable direction rather than trying to go up in the air. When I want to shut off the flow, I just close the valve. Being centrifugal pumps they just keep going and are still lubricated by the oil, they just don't move any. I would be highly surprised if they had the suck to collapse a 1" clear reinforced hose. The only time I have seen that is with a gear pump.

I use this system On my electric pump when sucking from cubees into 205L drums where I have to stop the flow frequently but dont want to loose prime in the pump and it works well and as you note the advantage of clear hose, you can stop the flow the second you see you are picking up any fats or whatever and be at the barrel end and not have to worry about the motor. The valve also is great in keeping the oil in the hose for ease of priming.

[fryedrydes]

I started using a 1" trash/water pump. $30 from a friend. It needed some work. The 1" clear braided hose on the input/supply side of the pump collapsed when I tried to collect oil. Still pumped faster than any pump I have ever used. I need to find a rigid hose or use PVC like Mr. SunWizard.

[HoldOnTight]

I use a reinforced tubing from Tractor Supply with the female brass fittings on the ends which screw right into the NPT pipe fittings...works great. It is half transparent spiral and half opaque white spiral, so you can see when fluid is in the hose. I use a PVC pipe on the end after the PVC valve, and I put a 6 in piece of clear tubing on the end of the wand so I can see what gets sucked in the pipe and I'm able to close the valve if too much undesirable junk gets sucked in. I have no filter whatsoever to impede the flow.

Pool hoses could work similarly well, but the ends are friction fit.

[Welder]

I'm curious why you guys want/use pumps instead of a sucker tank?

I will eventually need one or the other and would like some help deciding which is better. I know the word "better" needs to be qualified as sufficient and cheaper may be viewed as better, while someone else may view an expensive untit as better because it's stronger and/or easier.

[David]

I'm curious why you guys want/use pumps instead of a sucker tank?

I have looked into the sucker setups but come to the conclusion that pumping is the best soloution for me at this time. Huge fuel guzzling "Pickup" trucks are rare here and certainly aren't cheap, old or newso we generally make do with something smaller and somehow manage to get by with working with what we have.

I can fit 200L worth of plastic Drums in the boot of My Merc complete with pump, hoses etc.
When I fill my plastic 25L drums up, I can come home and in a couple of minutes unload them, put in empty drums and be on my way to another 200L of Oil. I can either then store the oil in those containers, take them to friends to drop off and pick up the emptys from last time, or decant the oil into my settling tanks and re-use the drums again next week. I get the drums free from restaurants and being a far more durable construction that the "Cubee" type drums you have there, they last a long time.

Where I can easily get 200L capacity of these drums in the boot of my car, I would be lucky to fit a tank capable of Holding 100L in the same Space. From what I understand, Unless I had a vac pump with me, I would not even get 100L of oil in that tank if I pre vacced it and so would have to make more than double the trips I do now to collect the same amount of oil.

Vaccuum pumps are very exy here and I even have a connection in the air con industry that can get them at the right price for me. After consulting with him, I am not at all comfortable with using refrigeration compressors. I am told there are many Highly toxic elements in these things and if they are a concern to my friend who is not at all the worrying type, they are something I will choose to avoid as well.

I collect oil from many different sources. Many of the smaller ones I only get 50-80L from at a time and I like to keep it separate as the oil I pick up can be variable. I give a lot of the oil I get to friends. Some oil is good for Bio making, some I prefer to keep aside for WVO. Also when it rains here it is easy to get water in the oil barrels and also easy to miss when picking up, especially if you are collecting at night which is the best time for a few places I deal with. By having seperate drums, it is easy to put 1 aside and let the water settle out then pump off the top without having to put it in the settling tank to start with or contaminating a much larger volume of oil. In a Vac tank, all the oil would all be mixed together which would be a large disadvantage for my purposes.

We don't have the waste or the ease and cheapness of getting things that seems the norm in the US ( and Canada) and a lot of the stores there either wont sell to oz customers or charge total bullshit shipping rates that make the exercise un-viable which I believe in many cases is no accident. That being the case, the variety of easily available and cost effective fittings, pumps and even the junk we can procure here is much more limited so one has to work with what is commonly available.

Our road laws also appear much stricter and a person would be crucified if they even thought about taking some of the Sucker rigs I have seen in pictures on our public roads. Can't say I'm sorry about that after what I have seen though and the sheer naievitey of some people!!
If a person were to be involved in an accident, even if it weren't their fault and a tank even fell off the trailer and rolled onto the road, there would be strife. If it leaked oil, The fines you would be hit with as well as the court appearance don't bear thinking about.
To secure a large tank in a trailer or ute to a sufficient standard to cover ones arse would be a significant cost in itself. Legal issues aside, Any dodgy looking setup would attract the attention of the police immediately and you would have the annoyance of being pulled over even if you somehow weren't fined.

I could not see a practical, reliable sucker setup costing less that $2500.00 here ( and I think that is hopefuly cheap) where as my present Bilge pump setup cost me around $100 and has been very easy and practical to use as well as being reliable. I am working on perfecting my chev gear pump setup I was using before and once I find the right motor for the thing, I believe it will fulfill my every requirement and desire for a workable and enjoyable setup to use.

The Bilge pump I use now dosen't give me any problems with getting clogged with debris, is silent, small and compact, cheap and flows sufficiently although I would like something faster. I have just bought a couple of 240V Submersible pumps I will run from an inverter in the car. Hopefully these will fill the one thing I would like to see improved with my current pump, the flow rate.
I am also playing with the gear pump if I need to pump thick oil and to have a second or 3rd way of getting oil just because I like the hands on stuff and mental stimulation of problem solving and designing simple loc cost solutions with these things. :0)

I understand the features of a sucker setup but for my situation there isn't a lot a sucker set up would have over the pump system I use now or could upgrade to in the future. The sucker advantages are completely outweighed by the drawbacks and Pumping is by far the better option for ME.

[Welder]

Thanks for replying David.

The warm Aussie weather likely makes pumping WVO easier than here in North America. In the summer time pumping WVO anywhere fromDallas Texas to Edmonton Alberta would be doable, but in the winter, WVO thickens up considerably, that's where vacuum beats mechanical movement.

In Canada there is some lard, soy and other veggie oils, but we get a lot of non hydro canola too. In Vancouver in December, I can collect non hydro WVO so maybe a sucker is better for me since canola is liquid to -10 degrees.

What about the rest of you guys, do you choose pumps because they are easier to get than building a sucker tank, or are there other reasons?