Bio-diesel

well I got the part, a power converter from 12 volt to 24 volt, worked like a charm for about six hours then went up in smoke. Its still running but at reduced power. Thing cut out after looking like it was struggling with some raw motor oil ( lifting about four feet and pushing through 25 lbs on the filters ) then quit no smoke no grinding halt, just quit. I drove it home with the tank power switched off and it started up with a huge puff of smoke when I tried it again, now it runs but at a reduced rate. My bet is I fried the converter and its now just sending 12 volt. Gotta take it apart, figure out what I fried and see if I cant replace it.

Any electrical wiz kids out there, I'm generally not bad myself but I'll post picts of what I find inside the unit and could use all the help I can get.

cheers
B

oh
I had just checked it to see if it was getting hot ( put my hand on the motor the gear head and the converter and all were running cool when it cut out. Fuse didn't blow and the motor seems to be fine, definitely got a ball of smoke out of the converter tho ;-)

 

I guess what you have now is a 12V to 12V converter, the equivalent of a piece of wire.

There sure is an overload protection circuit inside, but it didn't work. That is not unusual: the inverter survives a short circuit but the dissipation from a small overload over a long time kills it. The overload usually is insufficient to blow a fuse.

One way to avoid it in the future is to install a cheap Klixon thermostat on the heat sink and wire it to interrupt operation above a safe temp, say 70 C. or 150 F.

 

thanks
the motor is definitely running slower but running

I think you nailed it, it had a ten amp 24 volt capacity supplying a 240 watt motor which was running a gearhead hydraulic pump I'd a bought a slightly heavier one but after a few days of looking I thought I'd try that it and see.

there was a diagram of how to wire a parallel system into a series system using a switch and a couple of like pole loads ( headlamps ), so both batteries charge and discharge evenly, over on another thread, I'm going to try next. I'm not to impressed with this converter and I'm not so sure its worth trying to fix it for this application although if its not to much of a pain I'd like to get it working again, maybe I can find another use for it down the road sometime.

cheers
B

 

Just to kinda get things back on track the whole purpose of my fiddling with alternative fuels is to see if I can't find a way to retire back to the water some day. So I scored an old beat up truck with a great diesel engine in it, dead, out of a friends backyard. Cost me a shot of Whiskey.

( Never did repair the converter, I got stuck at the point where I was ready to buy some new schlotsky diodes but there's an associated transistor or something like that I couldn't figure out, so I'm kinda in limbo on that one )

The truck became my summer project ( had to take precedent over the boat build ) is just about done. And I'm just in the process of doing the cosmetics to finalize the body work. Still need the fender repair pieces.

Some folks might be wondering if you really can get any power out of waste oils, OK check out this engine I just put together and tell me you don't think this would work in a boat just fine as well. Ok on a smaller scale but still the theory is working out just fine. Eventually, I'll apply what I've learned to the boats power plant.

http://s29.photobucket.com/albums/c262/bostonpyramidbuilder/?action=view&current=DSCN0256.mp4

Anyway runs on waste oils, and once I get it tuned should run like a bat outa hell on waste oils

finally built my heat exchanger for preheating the fuel prior to filtering it.





and then there's the big tank

 

Have you tried WVO on Facebook? They have a centrifuge whicch works quite well. For heaters you canget the plastic 500 gal pipe framed chemical tanks and put a 110 heater in them to keep it wrm. There are many tanks out there which have a heater and go in the bed. If you are pulling with a commercially registered truck over 26000 you must stop at scales & POE's. You can be fined for running Veggie oul that is untaxed because each state have a tax on fuel you must pay. It gets ridiculous at times. You can't run pure veggie in Tier engines that require Urea additive. They stop. Look on the Veggie sites, Ford Cummins or Chevy Duramax sites and read read read. It is a hassle to work with, messy, greasy, if you spill it it is not a hazardous spill but you must clean it up.

 

Boston, Nice Setup! Our biggest expense has been filters and the cost is running about 1.25/gal. Not bad because we fill with diesel in the 2 truck tanks (37 ga and 100 WVO in the bed.) We put the filters closer together and use 4 in dia truck filters on the r side and fuel mileage has averaged well over 20 ety and 19 loaded. Runs quieter and a little less power but smells good and no real problems. On 7.3l ran around 440,000 here before it quit.

 

Boston, better put a headache rack in the rear to protect those filters. You'll be mad when you stop quick and the spare slides up and smashses themall over
.

 

There's a cage over the whole thing at this point. No worries I foresaw that disaster right off.

OK so I guess they're still working on artificial photosynthesis and apparently its yielding pretty good results

http://news.yahoo.com/artificial-leaf-eyed-holy-grail-energy-research-041602273.html

 

nicely done..... i was looking into this venture when diesel hit 5 bucks a gallon a while back in california...... was experimenting with yellow grease .... problem was cold temps and overall fuel efficiency ..... i'd love to figure out a way to do that here on a marine engine since cold temps aren't an issue.... but am a little afraid getting stranded out in the middle of the pacific..... technology will catch up here one day maybe.....

 

its more of an issue of getting creative with the fuels, Used motor oil works, as does hydrolic fluid. Or you could always just run diesel through it. the difference in the fuels are so minor that its really no big deal to switch back and forth between them.

 

except that dont the cleaner fuels wreak havok when used after fossil fuels? it's my understanding they dislodge carbon build up and create problems with fuel lines?

 

Are you processing biodiesel on your truck or just filtering and heating ?

 

If you run bio-diesel, which is processed veggie oil. Then you'll need to start with a relatively clean system. The stuff does tend to dissolve residues in the system, and clock up filters with it. But only if the system wasn't cleaned before you started running the stuff. If you run bio sometimes and dino sometimes then the crud doesn't really get a chance to build up and its not a problem.

I could process with the system I have but heating it enough and to a consistent temp with the heat exchanger would be a pain in the ***. So I make small batches of Bio in the back yard and use it to thin the other oils. Works like a charm. The heat exchanger is just to heat the oil enough to get it to filter properly.

 

I have an 7.3 f250 myself. I would love to do something like you have. I don't understand all your doing, do you have a diagram?

 

the system is very interchangeable, different fuels work best with it switched around for whatever it is. With motor oil it gets heated then water separated first. After a few go rounds through the separator then I start filtering it as well. Veggie oil just gets filtered after an initial sieve through cheese cloth to take out the big stuff. Transmission fluid just gets filtered, depends on how confident I am if its got water in it or anything. Bio diesel is already pretty clean so it just gets filtered.

the filters run orange white gold. The pump can push or pull fluid through the filters, the water separator can be before or after any of the rest and the centrifuge I took off cause it uses such high pressure and nothing else does. So why bother. It wasn't really doing much anyway after six filters and a water separator. That and it was kinda a target. I've got a short vid of the latest set up here

http://s29.photobucket.com/albums/c262/bostonpyramidbuilder/?action=view&current=DSCN0257.mp4