Another waste oil burner.

[Berniep]

One of my winter projects for the last few winters has been a waste oil burner.
I started with a standard mother earth news type drip design scaled down but never really got a clean burn. Then I happened upon the Babington ball stetup and tried for a while with that and a vertical version where the jet is submerged just under the oil. Basically a babbington setup uses one or more very small holes(one ten thousandth) in a sphere then oil is pumped over the ball and air is forced out the hole. When it is running right this will form a fog of oil that burns very well. Unfortunately variations in oil delivery and temperature seem to make it hard to make stable. I never really got it to where I wanted it. The vertical setup uses a jet submerged just under the surface of the oil to atomize the oil. Here is my experiment with that.
Please excuse the grainy cell phone pics but that I always have my cell phone with me but hardly ever the camera.



I never got it stable.I think a bigger pool of oil would help to stabilize the oil depth over the jet.
I had been fooling around with more drip and forced air setups when Letsroll posted his build. Here is a link to it.
I think the success of his setup is the high heat in the burner chamber. Plus the flow regulator valve.
Regulating the air and fuel is vital to getting a clean burn.
If you don't get a clean burn you can soot your exhaust closed very quickly.
I really wasn't sure what kind of valve to get and ran across a metering pump on ebay, with a max output of 24 gallons per day, I figured it would be perfect. It has a high speed and a low speed. High speed is about 2 strokes per second and low is about 1, and the stroke is adjustable via a dial. I don't know if these things are meant for continuous use but I will find out. I already had a small squirrel cage type fan from my earlier experiments and used a regular ceiling fan control to regulate it.
Here is the pump and control setup. along with the oil tank(made from and old fire extinguisher that was going to be a water separator but I decided to use it as the main tank.




Here is the whole setup

 

[Berniep]

Here is a pic of it running.


Here is one of it just after I turned off the oil.
It is made out of two cast 2 inch pipe caps. This make a very good heat chamber to get a good burn although it take a few minutes to get it up to temperature. As you can see it get red hot.
This is after about an hour of running.


It burned about half a gallon of waste oil in that hour.
I have much more experimenting to do but I don't think I can turn it down and still get a good, reliable, clean burn.
In operation with the door closed the flame extends to the sides of the tank and the sides of the propane tank will glow near the bottom. I am not sure I like that, seems like it might burn through relatively quickly like that.
I might try making a larger replaceable ring to go around it to keep the flame off the sides. This thing puts out as much heat the wood stove beside it.
Many thanks to Letsroll for his design. Without his thread I probably would still not have a good design.
I am going to try and take some video of it in operation and a better picture of the burner, hopefully today.

 

[Berniep]

Evidently my pump doesn't like like cold oil.
Every time I have tested it up until yesterday I had a warm shop to test it in.
Yesterday I started in about a 35 degree shop and could not get good oil delivery. I was hoping to use this a quick heat that I can get going quicker than the wood stove. I will have to try the air pressure and flow control valve to see if it works well enough.

 

[Train]

The oil temp probably has some effect on your vertical no doubt. But your bigger problem is you built it backwards.

 

[Berniep]

The oil temp probably has some effect on your vertical no doubt. But your bigger problem is you built it backwards.

Ok
How so?

 

[Train]

Hi Bernie. Take your picture above and remove the overflow tube. Now if that long tube had no holes in it and you pump the oil in THAT end, what does that do to the oil level in the short end?

 

[Berniep]

Hi Bernie. Take your picture above and remove the overflow tube. Now if that long tube had no holes in it and you pump the oil in THAT end, what does that do to the oil level in the short end?

It would submerge the jet and there would be no thin film of oil over the jet and no atomization of the oil. No atomization =no flame. That whole contraption was to test if I could maintain a very precise level of oil over the jet. When it is right It makes a very fine fog of oil that burns very well. THat in the picture is a constant overflow system. Pump in more than it burns and the excess runs out. Tilt the whole contraption to vary the oil level over the jet. Turns out that oil viscosity changes too much for that little setup. It would burn for about 30 minutes then become unstable as the oil supply warmed up.
I could keep it going only by making constant adjustments. I want something that can burn by itself while I am on the other side of the shop working.
I think I have it in the propane tank setup. Ran it for a couple of hours on a different batch of waste oil and it ran much better cold. I think I got hold of the batch of 90 weight oil that I changed a while back. I think if I had it mixed in a drum it wouldn't cause problems. I just have it it gallon jugs right now.

 

[LetsRoll]

BernieP...take a look at this YouTube video. I'm going to build one to see what amount of heat this setup puts out. Mine puts out a ton of heat. But start up takes some time to get going (preheating the burner). If this setup forges a large amount of heat, I might implement it into my stove this spring. I already have a few things I want to fine tune anyways (like atomizing the oil more).

 

[Berniep]

BernieP...take a look at this YouTube video. I'm going to build one to see what amount of heat this setup puts out. Mine puts out a ton of heat. But start up takes some time to get going (preheating the burner). If this setup forges a large amount of heat, I might implement it into my stove this spring. I already have a few things I want to fine tune anyways (like atomizing the oil more).

I saw that video a while back and also the one by him he calls the ashless babington. And they look promising.
Most people recommend that you use .010 drill bits and he used a #80 which is about .013. Doesn't seem like much but it can make a very big difference in the atomization, most people will drill two holes side by side if the want a bigger flame.I built a test babington setup. Mine would only hold a flame if I preheated the oil which I didn't want to mess with but now I seem to be fighting the same demon.When the oil is cool (even 60 degrees) you get a lot of large droplets that don't burn and fall out of the flame.
I have not given up on the babington burner yet, it seems like a much more elegant solution than what I am using now but I wanted something that would burn all this oil I have been saving. If I could get the system dialed in with waste motor oil like he has with vegetable oil It would be great. I could just put a port in the door of my wood stove and stick it in and light it.

There is a yahoo group for the babington and also they talk about it on the wastewatts group quite a bit.
Most of the people that really have them down and are using them seem to be using waste vegetable oil. Seems to me that waste motor oil ought to be easier to burn but I am not having that much success with it yet.

 

[Train]

Sorry Bernie, I didn't really explain in enough detail.

Okay, your long tube is solid and that's where your oil is going into. Also, remove the copper overflow tube and plug that hole. As the whole assembly fills, the oil now overflows out the short end. You now have a two inch, ( that is two inch pipe yes) flat pool of oil. That is where you want your jet. Now picture the tip of your jet a couple of inches higher than the top of the fitting. Add on a short piece of pipe and you have a way to adjust how much oil is covering the jet by simply screwing in or out the short piece of pipe.

I think I explained it right. If not I'll keep trying. Unfortunatly I can't even use my shop as it's still to cold in my area. I've got a small turk project I'm waiting to finish, then the burner we're talking about and then Cliff's ( letsroll) stove as well. Right now the 24 inch gas pipe for Cliff's stove is still buried under snow. It's been a long winter and I don't think it plans on leaving any time soon.