Second version used new centrifuge and deuce air tank above it, old version pump and heater to pump oil through the air tank, and it would drain into the centrifuge. It was just so I could filter oil for haspin, and temporary.
So after building and using an oil driven centrifuge, I built a motor driven one. And after making many messes, and dealing with broken hoses, a rebuild of the entire system was in order. Reused some stuff from the other setup.
Here is how it works.
Oil is dumped into the 5 gallon bucket sitting on the pallet rack. Inside the bucket is a large strainer from a hydraulic tank. If I had to guess I would say it's 100 micron filter. The bucket has a pipe going through a hole to fill the red barrel below it. The bucket also can be filled by a pipe above it, and in fact is being used this way during the pictures. I was pumping from a 55 gallon drum at the time.
All the tanks/barrels have a clear hose on them to see the level of oil in them
From the red barrel oil is pumped to the black heater drum on the top. This drum has a bottom fitting for filling/draining. A fitting about 8 in up is for the centrifuge. Barrel is heated by a 220v hot water element, with a thermostat inline. Thermostat is set at 180-190 degrees.
Oil comes out of the fitting on the heater drum to a gate valve to adjust flow, then through a 24v inline valve, then a shut-off ball valve.
Then into the centrifuge. 8 in rotor, 4500rpm, belt driven, 1/2hp. Pressure cooker pot to hold it all, self draining. After that, it drains into the black drum below, then I can pump it to the two large tanks on the upper right for storage.
Total of 14 ball valves, 30ft of 1/2 pipe, god knows how many t's, elbow's and nipples. Everything is hard plumbed, except for pump, suction line, and fill line. Pump is plumbed with 1/2 hydraulic hose. Suction and fill lines are 3/4 braided clear hose.
This thing can move oil anywhere and everywhere with one pump. Has a suction line for pumping out of 55 gallon drums, and a fill line 40 ft long to fill the trucks. Pump manifold is a suction side and a pump side, with ball valves to select what barrels/tanks/lines you want to move oil from/to. Also installed a drain line for the storage tanks so you can get fuel without electric.
System has 5 switches. Pump, centrifuge, heater, valve. Pump switch runs an electrical outlet where the pump plugs in.
To filter, I turn on the heater, and fill the heated barrel from the red barrel. When it gets to temperature, I turn on the centrifuge and 24v valve. This is where it gets fun. Turn on the auto switch, everything else off, and walk away!
There is a float switch on the heated drum. When it gets low, a relay shuts everything off.
Heater element and thermostat are below the drain for the centrifuge, so they are always in oil. When the heater is on, the oil is really moving inside the drum, you can look inside and see the oil moving from being heated.
Pics of switches and tanks. 3rd pic is the drain and bucket for when the centrifuge turns off and drains the bowl. 4th pic is the pipes under the centrifuge for clean oil on the outside and dirty drain oil on the inside. Last pic is after insulating the heated tank.
Hey Stretch I had no idea that Tiro is as close to me as it is. I live up on Kelleys Island and work in Fremont. I would love to get together sometime and compare filtration methods. That is a cool setup you have there. I need to post my setup as well.
GPH is around 4, depending on where I set the gate valve to the centrifuge. So at 40 gallons it takes about 10 hours for a batch. That's the main reason for the float switch to turn it off automatically.
Last load I got a layer of silver gunk out of it, must have been some metal in that load. Have no idea how well my setup works, but it's spinning faster, hotter oil, and slower feed than most centrifuges. So it should be well under the 1 micron range.
Russ, sounds like you are about an hour and half away, I'm not far from route 4. Think I am good on storage tanks, but gimpy may need some. Also supposed to get a couple of the plastic totes from speeddemon at some point. If you get down my way during some weekend, I am usually home.
Homemade centrifuge/pump V3.0
