Simple Centrifuge Home build

107628 Views 132 Replies 23 Participants Last post by john galt, May 7, 2013

FastCote

Discussion Starter · Jul 19, 2008 (Edited)

After reading tons of messages on various forums I decided a centrifuge would be ideal for my filtering/dewatering system. I read trade offs of the pump driven style (Dieselcraft) vs a "real" centrifuge based on components from the guys at Simple Centrifuge

After sitting the fence a bit and hearing that the turnkey system from simplecentrifuge was going to cost $2,200 I decided to jump in and build one myself. I stumbled across Leon Griffin at WVO Designs who shares an open-source design using the simple centrifuge bowl and a welded enclosure.

I decided to spin a version of his design and try to build one as cheaply as possible and more importantly require no welding.

What follows are some pictures and captions detailing my progress.

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121 - 133 of 133 Posts

waytallwhitey

· #121 · Jul 27, 2009

I built a variation of fastcote's CF set up and could not be happier with it! I just didn't use a cook pot for my collection bowl and I gravity feed into the CF. I'm only home for part of the weekend and can still manage to spin ~ 150 gallons and not loose enough time at home for my Queen to complain.

If you're on the fence about a filtration system, I strongly urge you to consider a CF set up!

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topgun35

· #122 · Sep 20, 2009

how do you keep the motor mounting face dry with out some kind of mechanical seal on the shaft

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waytallwhitey

· #123 · Sep 21, 2009

topgun35 said:
how do you keep the motor mounting face dry with out some kind of mechanical seal on the shaft

If you look at the pics, you'll see that Ben used a threaded nut to act as a barrier; I cut a piece of conduit and JB Welded it into place. It only has to stop a very little bit of wvo when the motor shuts down

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Nightcrawler

· #124 · Oct 18, 2009

Hi Guys, I was going to start a new thread, but decided to post here.
I now have a WVO Designs Raw Power Centrifuge. I'm very impressed with the quality of it & Leon is a really nice helpfull guy.
I got it all set up late a couple of nights ago. I am using gravity to feed the fuge.
I have the heater with the system that bolts to the side of the fuge. I have a problem with condensation in the fuge & in the "clean" hose to the tank. I had the fuge running at 29.3 which is pretty much half way on the dial. The heater was on 100 then 80 then 70 & finaly 50. The heater was so hot you could not touch it. Is that right? My buddies kept laughing & saying "stop fecking touching it then". I was convinced the oil was far to hot. I had the flow quite slow. When I saw the amount of water inside the fuge & in the hose I shut it all down.
I pumped the oil up into the dirty oil container, then ran it through the fuge without settleing. I thought if there was any water in the oil the fuge would take it out. Is that right?
What temp do you guys run the heater at?
What speed do you run the fuge?
Im not sure what gallons or litres per hr I was running as I only tried it out for about 30mins alltogether.
Any help on this would be a big help. O yea another thing, When I took the lid off the fuge the water from condensation was dripping off the lid. There was no crap in the bowl.

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Clay Henry

· #125 · Oct 18, 2009

opcorn2:

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waytallwhitey

· #126 · Oct 24, 2009

I heat ~ 50 gallons to 160*F and then shut off my heater. I can do the entire barrel in about 6 hours and not lose enough heat to bother about it. I get no condensation that I've noticed and I have done over a thousand gallons since starting to use a CF

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Nightcrawler

· #127 · Oct 25, 2009

wvo or wmo?

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vegginpsd

· #128 · Oct 26, 2009

nightcrawler
what was the air temp where you were running that batch of oil? Are you getting condensation because the air temp is so low? Just a thought. I dont remember having that problem with with condensation.

Have you ruled out very water saturated oil? If not try a hot pan test with the feed stock and see if what you are running is highly contaminate with water.

I never run WMO in the CF. However, I cant imagine it differing greatly from WVO though.

Are you seriously gonna put WMO through you DFA V3?

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Nightcrawler

· #129 · Oct 27, 2009

Yea thats a good point. It is cold here now. I guess there must be more water in the oil than I thought. I will try a pan test later. I am making a vapor trap at the moment. I have run 40ltrs through the fuge with the heat turned up a bit more & the clean hose fastened to a funnel so that the steam does not go into the cuby just as a test. I am now letting the 40ltrs settle to see if there is any water in it. I'm also making the system so that I can drain off a bit of oil before I run it into the fuge.
On the DFA website before they changed it, they said you could run WVO,WMO,Karasene & other stuff that I can't remember.
I have discovered that its best not to talk about WMO on most of this forum as people don't fully understand it & it causes bad feeling between forum buddies. I don't want to upset anybody on here as I really enjoy taliking to everybody.

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mytruckbroke

· #130 · Jun 21, 2012

Just in case anybody gets ideas about ordering a wolverine part. I ordered a complete wolverine centrifuge over 7 weeks ago and now they do not answer the phone or emails. My money is gone and no centrifuge. Now i got to start saving again and try to find a cheap bowl and build my own cf.

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john galt

· #131 · May 7, 2013 (Edited)

I have not finished reading this entire thread YET, but I would think you could rig a cheapo router to spin at 3600 rpm fairly easily and if anyone has a metal lather we could spit out a bunch of these cheap. I was a metal fabricator by trade years ago but have not had a shop in years.
I would think that if that stock takes being turned on a lathe it will take being spun on the centrifuge with out issue.

AWESOME THREAD BY THE WAY

my other question is where can you get used veggie oil we have damn few restaurants around here and it would be easiest to build a garage and buy bulk oil and create bio diesel from that. I just have NO idea where to get the oil from. certainly nothing local and shipping might be the killer?
anyways any help is appreciated. I would think we could put together org kits and perhaps make a few bucks and offer members a great price if we could put these together for about 3 to 500 bucks and oil is available from somewhere.
just a thought.

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Clay Henry

· #132 · May 7, 2013

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john galt

· #133 · May 7, 2013

it has been HEALED praise GOD
now press your face against the computer screen and take your wallet...:hehe:

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