I have a crazy idea. If the actual problem is that ash is generated but not removed, and then oil collects in the ash, which then clumps or burns and leaves a hard residue, thus clogging the system, if that is the problem, how about attaching an ultrasonic head to the heater, like the one found in a cheap ultrasound device, and shaking off the ash at regular intervals during operation? Ash seems to be the root cause of the issue after all.
That's a very interesting idea... Will ultrasonic waves travel through air gaps ? ... I thought it had to be it had to be filled with fluid to transmit properly. It would be really cool if this worked.
@@loweredexpectations4927 I think, even if you manage to make the whole thing shake with 40 000 Hz - that's not a healthy emission source, one want to have around. Will make a lot of animals deaf and most likely drive us insane too - because, whether we're able to hear the noise or not, we'll receive it and it does something with us too. And i really want to mention my concern - always the same, i know - electricity is either expensive or limited or both - add all your stuff together and then add 100 or 200 watt for ultrasound - its getting too energy hungry and that's the wrong direction. If you'd even need an air gap, you'll reach energy ranges of long wave radio stations and then we're at a point, where it's cheaper to heat directly with this amount of electricity. I'd really stay focused on the goal - cheap heat. That's, what people are here for, i assume. But then - reading all these viewer suggestions, which more often than not suggest the most expensive ideas one can imagine - i'm not so sure about anything.
@@werner.x I think it's a fun idea... I like to consider all things, but I see what you are saying. Here is an idea that could work, but is a little silly. I'm not sure if YT will allow me to day this... If you could inject something that would detonate at higher temperatures, inject that in every hour or so so there was a small detonation to blast all the junk free... It would certainly blow the flame out, so it would have to be hot enough to restart, right away. I think a slightly more practical method would be to have a mechanical cleaning device. If it was automated so that it cleaned every hour, the debris could be blown out the exhaust. The exhaust would have to exit at a downward slope to allow ash to be blown out.
@@loweredexpectations4927 Not a completely bad idea. Maybe a bit unsafe, though. Nothing to sell to customers. And the pressure will find it's way in all directions, through the fresh air inlet and through this little flame initiation hole. And it might pop the two rubber gaskets (or grommets), which keep the exhaust smell away from the clean air. Couldn't have that inside the caravan. But i wouldn't buy a waste oil burner of this design anyhow, because simplicity and reliability is king for me. Not just for a shtf situation, but in daily life. That's most of the time - shtf situations are good to be prepared for, but the real work happens in daily life. Kiss-principle ! Very important ! Don't go into the trap, German car engineers trapped themselves happily in from 1980 onward. See, where the German car industry is now ! Devastated ! Since 2 decades now.
@@werner.x It may be possible to do it in a safe, controlled way, with the right engineering... I think probably if it was built in Germany 👍. I have had my heater backfire and shake soot loose, and keep running for a while longer. The footage is at the start of one of my video intros, and I say "yes ! Ha haaa !" I have plans for something that is pretty simple and I believe could work really well... but it may require some exotic metal for longevity. There are a few different ways to implement my idea... but like you say ... KISS.
We have been installing diesel heaters for years and the simple truth is waste engine oil is not great over the long term and we stick with plain diesel or home heating oil.
Yeah... that is good advice. My heater is far from original. I have done 3 months strait of testing with waste oil, learning from the mess and failures. From these experiments, I have found the two main reasons these heaters can't burn waste oils, and I am now tackling those issues.
@@zacharymorris9917 1. The area where the diesel flashes off is not hot enough to flash off engine oil. 2. The design of the chamber only allows for a very small amount of build up before the performance is negatively impacted. Even if the heater runs very well for a few hours, a few hours of ash has a negative impact on how the heater runs, so it quickly deteriorates.
@@zacharymorris9917 I will do my best to answer this question, but there is no real answer, as far as I can tell. To have stoich combustion, the fuel would need to be hot enough to flash off completely, right ? To answer your question, I have to assume that the fuel is vaporized, and to do that it has to be hot enough... It's not hot enough. Based on what I have seen, the issue with the chamber being too cool is for two reasons. 1. The main reason being how the combustion air is fed into the back of the chamber. This has a substantial cooling effect, and not helping the matter is the veins that are intended to cause a vortex. I realize combustion air always has a cooling effect, but this air passes directly over the exterior of the area where the fuel is injected. 2. Less of an effect, is that the flange of the burh chamber is a heat sink attached, not only cooled by the passing air, but bolted to the heat exchanger. As for the stoich combustion having an effect size and design of the chamber... no. On the amount of ash. I suspect that a stoich combustion would produce different compounds or different oxides. If it runs really rich, it makes a lot of soot / carbon.
I'm sure you will get this , little more tinkering an tweaking .... looking forward to you cracking this nut , as all gear heads seem to have waste oil around , that we too want to burn off in exchange for cheap heat ... Cheers thanks for all your efforts and sharing.
Thanks for your support / comment ! As it is now, would be good enough for me, as I don't mind tinkering with stuff, haha... but I will keep improving it and collecting data in hopes to make it something that can run for much longer without tinkering. My current test has been going for about 36 horus now. I plan on taking it apart at 50, if it lasts that long.
Great vid! From all the test you have done, I’m not sure this heater will ever burn waste oil. I do however think you may be smart enough to design your own heater from the ground up that could. If you do I would be the first one to buy one! Just my $.02. As always hope the best for you!
Thanks for the comment ! This test is not necessarily to have a finalized design, but to see "what happens when" ... In my mind, this is pretty promising as there is very little bard black coke / carbon. We are left with some ash, but that ash crumbles apart pretty easily. When I started this test, I wanted it to go for 40 hours... now that I have been running it for over 30 hours, I will probably push it to 50 before looking inside. My two next steps are 1. Provide fuel and air in a more precise way to a more precise location and 2. Make the heater so that it can be cleaned (to some extent) without taking it apart. I can see myself totally redesigning my own heater... but this is a great platform that is available to everyone.
Yeah... That is one of the things on my list of things to do. I have a CAD design of what I eventually want to do, but we will get there slowly. With the two holes in the exchanger that I now have, I can likely do enough cleaning to keep it going for a long long time, but I do want to work on mods to make it run cleaner.
Thankyou Joel for your efforts. Personally I prefer the longer videos you make. You do an excellent job of showing the difficulties of what you are doing. This lends us viewers to an understanding that can not be gained from the 10 to 30 second video s that most people are fond of . I appreciate your genuineness. One thing that you mentioned you would do back in the first few diesel heater episodes was a brakedown of the cost of running a diesel heater compared to your Mr.Heater unit. Now we know the fuel consumption of the diesel heater. What about the Mr.Heater? Looking forward to seeing the comparison.
Thanks for your comment ! I have thought about the Mr Heater comparison, and it would be difficult for a few reasons. At the time I made that claim, I hadn't used the diesel heater much. The diesel heater can run at max heat level, almost non stop, when heating my garage... If not non stop, then for 8 hours strait, while the Mr Heater will warm it up fairly quickly (Mr Heater being about 23kw) Since my garage heater is on the same gas meter as my house, and I don't have access to real time gas flow, the only way to collect data would be to heat my shop with the Mr Heater for 12 hours and sit there with a stopwatch, recording the total run time. On top of that, I used rough numbers to calculate a few times, and the natural gas wins every time, compared to diesel. My entire heating bill for my house and garage is at most $400, on the coldest, nastiest month. The cost of diesel just for the garage, would be around $380 in the same conditions.
th-cam.com/video/Ytbo8OsyH3c/w-d-xo.htmlsi=-FBlRJdAiCK2tZ5g The oil is is used like a paint base / thinner. The ink is conductive and the oil an Insulator.. the ink particles are suspended in the oil.. The link above explains the process. The ink can be filtered . I think we use 10 micron filters. Printers usually pay to have it taken away. Find someone willing to let you have the waste and you'll be onto a plentiful supply. It's viscosity is pretty similar to diesel.
Hi Joel😎 6:42 - 7:43 while listening to this portion I had an idea spring up. Can I suggest you change where / what the oil drips onto. I suggest it drip onto a series of round / circular stainless mesh mantles that reside around the present drip area . The first mantle could be 1/4 " below the oil port / delivery hole. Have 1 or 2 more mantles within the first one. With the oil coming in contact with the glowing red meshes, the burn / flash takes place before the oil ever has a chance to pool-up / insulate on the bottom where it's creating ash. 🤔
It's an interesting idea... the problem is (I think) that the ash will gather wherever the oil flashes off. If you see the mesh at 5:32 you can see around the main clump of ash, there is ash built up in the mesh. If the air flow was aggressive enough, maybe this ash would get blown away🤷♂️ or perhaps a device that rubbed the surface of the mesh every 10 minutes would dislodge the ash and it would blow out the exhaust.
@@loweredexpectations4927 if the oil was incinerated as it falls down around the mesh mantles and not allowed to land / gather at the same drip site I feel there will be little to no ash. Also, if a high temp Teflon / silicon spray could be used on the mesh, the ash might not stick and would likely exhaust as fast as it were created. Another advantage of multiple mesh is it would enlarge the burn surface area as gravity would have the oil traveling from the top of the mesh down along it's sides before ever reaching the bottom where it might start to insulate the incoming drips. Maybe I'm just a tad kookie 😜 🤪
Teflon industrial coatings can operate continuously at temperatures up to 260 °C (500 °F) and be used for intermittent service up to 316 °C (600 °F), with adequate ventilation, without affecting other properties.
@@DanDan-yy8sf It would be nice if it worked like that, but I don't think it would. It would flash off instantly at the top of the mesh and only move down if oil or ash had pooled on the part above. In my testing last year, I ended up with long pieces of ash that look like stalactites. The particles of ash will start forming on anything and grow like magic crystals, haha. The enlarged surface would be a huge advantage for sure. The temp in that area is hot enough to melt copper (1100C 2000F). Stainless mesh will not hold up as it will fall apart. Perhaps inconel or Nichrome... or some sort of fancy ceramic mesh. Teflon temp limit is only about 240-260C (400-500F).
One thing to remember is high CO readings mean incomplete combustion, that can happen both on excess or insufficient fuel or too little or too much air. Both due to incomplete combustion will cause soot build up. Ash though is a different problem, waste oil has a high ash content, there is nothing you can do to stop this in this type of heater unfortunately.
Yes... a lot of people seem to think adding more air is always the answer. No so. Also, yes... Oil (waste oil) will always produce ash and this is a problem in these little heaters.
Have you thought about checking if the carbon you crushed contained ferrous metal particles? The second observation is that after 3 days of operation, you have an accumulation of carbon in the combustion chamber and if we consider that you are going to use it for more than 9 days without dismantling, I will let you imagine the accumulation of carbon. Thank you for all this information which is valuable and greetings from Switzerland where it is abnormally hot for the season
I have thought about having the deposits analized, but would need a lot cost option, as I'm pretty poor, haha. I have tried testing them myself and have ruled some things out ... putting them in acid and witnessing no reaction. There was very little carbon and mostly ash. ( know some people use the words interchangeably) Carbon is an indication of an incomplete burn. It can build up as hard and stubborn as concrete and this is why the ash is such good news. This design is not intended to be a final product but to collect information, and the information I'm seeing looks really promising. While I do expect this to continue to build up, it crumbles apart, and this build up occurred without injecting air. The benefit of injecting the air is not only that the oil will burn more readily, but the ash is less likely to collect in one spot. If it spreads out, it will take much longer to build up to the point where it causes issues. What was shown at the first of the video was probably a total of 13 hours of total run time, and I have now been running the heater for about 34 hours and it is still working fine. I plan to run it for 50 hours, take it apart and see what the results are, and makes some changes based on that. I already have a few things in mind.
Your waste motor videos are always interesting. What would it take to make it burn like an oil furnace? Oil furnaces seem to work so why not this type of heater. Would be interesting to combine some parts of a furnace and keep the ECU fan exhaust. Maybe have an injector?
There are a few differences between this and an oil furnace. The first big difference is that home heating oil is basically diesel. Altho diesel is an oil, it is more refined. The stuff that they refine out of diesel, and heating oil, is the stuff that gets left behind when burning "heavy fuel oils" or engine oil. The difference with the heater itself is that these little heaters are basically fancy candles. Candles that have fuel delivered to a wick with a pump, instead of the wick sitting in a pool of fuel. Any debris that comes in with the fuel will gather in one very small space on the wick, until the build up causes major issues. An oil furnace, or waste oil burner always has system that injects the fuel as a mist, and then a secondary source of air. Misting the fuel not only means that it is atomized and burns more readily, but also that it is airborne / suspended in the air. This make it WAY more likely for crud to flow out the exhaust instead of building up, and if it does build up, it won't be all in one spot, like the little Chinese Diesel Heaters. What a rant. Hope that answers your question.
I would question if it could be done and stay practical to work with. Actual used oil-burning heating systems have large burn chambers to handle large flames and large amounts of ash/soot buildup for a reason. Despite initially looking like fairly simple systems the actual physics behind them is extremely complex and seems to have a practical lower limit of scalability due to the ash/soot buildup problem that goes with the oil. The process can be made smaller but the tradeoff is the cleaning and general maintenance cycles become annoyingly frequent to where burning some other near-free solid fuel like wood becomes more practical.
@@tcmtech7515 I totally agree... that's kinda what my response said. These heaters have the extra challenge of flashing off the fuel on a hot surface... that is only hot enough to flash off diesel and not any heavy oils.
So what if you occasionally inject sea foam to burn out carbon deposits? You can buy a 12v peristaltic pump for $5. Just “T” it into the pump suction and pulse it on a timer circuit. Also I’m not sure if sea foam can evenly mix with waste oil on agitation. But I do know auto dealers will use sea foam to decarbonize air intakes fouled by emissions line return from the crankcase to the carb inlet (they even make “catch cans” to collect the crankcase exhaust to the carburetor to stop fouling deposits and upper end carbon deposits)
Thanks for the comment ! Seafoam and other cleaners work pretty well at cleaning carbon, however, ash and carbon are not the same thing. Carbon can be burned up pretty easily, in the right conditions, but the ash that is left behind is not combustible. I have even tried dissolving it in acid, and it does not react. I have been looking at peristaltic pumps ... I'm not sure if the $5 ones will stand up to diesel... I haven't done much research. I have also been looking at pulse generators, as another way to possibly control the dosing fuel pumps.
@@loweredexpectations4927 I worked in coal and oil generation plants. Fuel oils can contain given amounts of contaminants (Fe, Co, Mn, Mg etc) to a certain parts per million. Once they reach saturation in the oil any additional ions will actually precipitate out. I also worked in nuclear generation and worked in radioactive waste where occasionally we encountered radiologically contaminated turbine lube oils and used salts of the contaminated ions of metal to precipitate out the contaminated ions. So when you burn oil what is left behind are trace metal oxides of the metals dissolved into the oils. If you burnt valvoline 10W30 you can get the oil report that shows metals content content. Also we dealt with used sulzer hydraulic oil and had banks of paper filters 6’ long to remove all that can be in suspension. Centrifugal separation got the larger chunks before filtration and reuse. Wear products exist in suspension as well as carbon wiped from piston walls from combustion. In college chem lab there were mechanisms to determine the cross sections of contaminants in ash. Various oxides will go into solution with certain acids and can be precipitated out with additional chemicals then the precipitates can be filtered rinsed and weighed to determine percentages. I just shoveled 30 pounds of metals that “condensed” on the oil burner furnace flue. It wasn’t ash but metals like vanadium, manganese, tin, cobalt. And it was only a 2 gallon bucket. Pretty dense metals suspended in oils. Steam lances and automatic rappers clear boiler tube surfaces of metal oxides and ash.
I do love your videos.. i think you will have more problems burning fully synthetic oil than normal oil.. as synthetic oil don't really burn well. and probably give off more smoke and Ash..
I’m building a greenhouse for starting garden plants. Have one of these heaters and definitely going to try reclaim exhaust heat in water as supplementary night heat.
I would think a good way to do this would be to use a fairly large container of water.... depending on your climate. I'm not sure how effective it would be if your water was ice most of the time.
In regards to your end comment on playing with the exhaust, I love the idea about reclaimed waste heat but if the exhaust is cooled to the point of condensation you have a good chance of making acidic liquid. I'm trying to find what that temper limit is but it seems to very around 60°C
Thanks for your comment. I have heard people talk about acidic condensate, and while this is 100% true, it is only really an issue if it is running back into your heat exchanger, as it can cause corrosion. Exhaust condensate is generally between 2 and 4 on the PH scale, and for comparison, orange juice is 3.5, vinegar being 2-3. If it collects in one spot, it may kill a patch of grass, but it is no real hazzard 👍 Ideally, you want to have a condensing exhaust, as you can collect substantially more energy this way. If you have water dripping out the end of your exhaust, you know you're doing well.
Hey... I tried connecting with bluetooth and got nothing... Also, my heater got up over 260C today haha (with the MaxPeedingRods ECU) I'm pretty sure the Max turns the fan quite a bit faster. Maybe it's not exactly the same as yours 🤷♂️ On mine... settings 1-7 seem normal, andthen setting 8 kinda goes ape shit.
That's awesome, if the price stays the same I'm going to order another next week. They are 119.00 right now. It's nice that you can hit the higher temps with that ECU. My controller has settings 1-10. Same as the Vevor.
I have 3 way motorcycle gas switch wich is feeded from two tanks,one inside the heater is with pure diesel and one with 30l of mix 70/30 oil and gasoline. Start and end with diesel and at 200-210°c i swith on oil,full speed and seems to be clear burning. Thanks for all your informational videos. Cheers
Thanks for the comment. I have done that exact same thing... how long have you been doing this? Sorry to say, but it will probably run fine for a few gallons, maybe 20 litres if you are lucky, then you will likely notice hard starting or several attempts to start. Maybe funny noises from the inlet and exhaust when starting. Eventually it will either overheat and shut down or start making a lot of smoke and flame out. Your exhaust may glow red hot and even shoot flames out, so you do not want to leave it unattended.
@@loweredexpectations4927 It runs with this mix since1 1/2 month ago without problem,every day since 9 pm to 9 am( on my garage) on p9 from 10.Start with diesel,end with diesel. I dont know what mess is in my burning chamber,i will see,hope not soon
@@carlos_sacalul Good to hear. I see your other comment that you say "hydraulic oil". I have heard of a few people having success with that... I have not tried it myself, but I suspect that it is much lower ash content. Hopefully you do not have any problems !
The problem is you had an overheat issue and the fuel could not be shut off as you were drip feeding. So assume you were not around....... That could have been a disaster. Tinkering is all very well but remember that some may try this and might not be aware of the consequences, I'm not too comfortable when you remove something that can be fail safe or at least will shut the machine down in a safe way. You wouldn't like a law suite form someone that might cause you grief........ Just saying!
Thanks for your comment and concern, however, It is quite unreasonable to think that someone could watch my video and not realize that what I am doing is dangerous. I mention this in my video about the fuel not stopping... I had a timer set for every 10 minutes, and that is why I noticed when it happened. The thumbnail of the video says "catastrophic fail" with the photo of a burnt / melted fan, the video starts with a written warning not to do what I do, my intro has glowing red exhaust with flames shooting out the end, and in the video I talk about what happened as a result. If people chose to do what they see in my videos, they can expect to get the same results... with the exception that I don't panic when things go wrong, I just take care of business.
Hi. Sorry you think it's unreasonable, I unfortunately have come across those that jump into things without thought and any knowledge of what they are doing and land up with dire consequences, it just takes one idiot. Cover your self with a disclaimer that's all I'm trying to say. Your channel is excellent and I'd not like to think you would land up in trouble or the channel shut down. Good luck.
@@trev8932 You are right... there are people who will do things that they shouldn't be doing. I understand what I am doing is a little different, but if I made a video of myself making a sandwich, someone could hurt themselves using a knife, and then blame me. If someone watches my video and does what I'm doing, they are ignoring all of the safety warnings in their owners manual and bypassing safety systems, as you said. I realize that there are a lot of people out there who want to blame others, anyone but themselves, for anything that goes wrong. This is unfortunate. I do a lot of stupid stuff and accept responsibility for the outcome.
Can you vary the fan speed to change your fuel air mixture? If the fan is dc then all you would need is the Vevor power supply. Just crank up the voltage.
For sure. I am taking a slightly different approach to this, for a few reasons. The air flow is ultimately limited by the size / restriction of the inlet and exhaust ports (about 19mm 3/4 inch ID) Turning the fan faster than I am now would have little effect on air flow in the combustion chamber. What I have chosen to do is turn the fan as fast as practical, and modulate fuel flow to change AFR. Based on the CO numbers that I am seeing, I definitely do not need less air, so the only thing I can really do is reduce fuel. I have heard people say that they use variable speed air mattress blowers to increase air flow... Haven't tried it myself... Maybe that would work.
You end up having condensation problems with the exhaust since it is pushing upwards. Condensate will flow down to the bend. Have you ever tested gasoline or spirits?
Yeah... the potential for condensate is there if you run the exhaust up. My exhaust is staying hot enough that it is not a problem... I have been monitoring it. I tested pure gasoline, but never released the video... It didn't work very well. I have videos of testing 50/50 gas and oil, paint thinner and Varsol. I will try to link them below. 50/50 th-cam.com/video/oC_ao35UfR4/w-d-xo.html Paint thinner th-cam.com/video/xPk3Xuin2Z4/w-d-xo.html Varsol th-cam.com/video/b-PT02_F6Is/w-d-xo.html
Hey Joel, What CO meter do you use, what's the price, and where can it be bought? Are you happy with it, or would you buy something different if you had to do it again? Also, where did you get the stainless mesh you used in the secondary burn chamber? Thanks, Philip
It is a Smart Sensor ST9700 ... I am really happy with mine but apparently there are a lot of fakes out there. Mine says "Smart sensor" over the power button, but in the ad photo it just says "ST9700 carbon monoxide detector" under the buttons. I have been attacked by a few TH-camrs saying that I'm going to get people 😵 by promoting fake meters simply for showing real ones on my channel. My meter appeared to be a fake in the add on Amazon, but when I got it, it looked different (has the name on it) appears to read properly. Fake or not good ones, will sometimes read temp as CO... I have seen videos of this a few times. After testing my meter for a few months, I can say that it reacts to CO and not to heat. The Amazon ad reads "Handheld Carbon Monoxide Meter LCD Color Display CO Detector High Precision Carbon Monoxide Tester CO Gas Leak Tester 0-1000ppm" and it is $59.99 CAD
Hi again Joel, Thanks for the information about the CO meter you use. Where did you get the stainless mesh you used in the secondary burner? Thanks, Philip
I was lucky enough to have a viewer send me that mesh. I have purchased much finer stuff from Amazon before.... I'm guessing they have all different stuff.
Hello great Videos and best greetings from Austria ✌️ I have two heaters same size,controler and kw. But one of them runs permanent at 200c and the other only on 160c do you know why or what i can do to run both at 200c? They are both clean and assembled the same way😅
Hello. There could be several different reasons for the temperature differences. The one that is running at 160 does seem low. Are they both 5kw units ? Have they always run at these temperatures? If they are not the same units, with the same controller and ECU, this could just be a difference in tuning or programming of the ECU. If possible, check to see if the pumps are clicking at the same rate. You can hold your fingers on the pump or listen for the sound. You could set the heaters at setting 5 and used a stopwatch to see how many clicks in 30 seconds. If they are not the same one may have an ECU of a 2kw. If the pumps have lettering on them, they should say 12v 22ml Or something like that. The important bit being "22ml" If they are clicking at the same rate, but one has a smaller pump (18ml) it will get less fuel and make less heat.
I think that these heaters simply wont burn waste motor oil because they don't get hot enough. For me, I burn 100% wmo in a chinese diesel engine that I loaded to its nuts with a grid tie generator. I just put the exhaust out the side of my building and leave the generator in an insulated box to keep the noise down. It heats my shop and pays my electricity bill so for me it's win win.
Yeah, I don't know if you have been following my videos, but I have addressed the issue with not enough heat. The second issue is not enough space for crud to build up. My hater has now been modified to help with both of these issues. I currently have 41 hours of run time on my heater and it is still working fine. I am going to pull it apart at 50 hours and access the situation and decide what further modifications to make. Since I was a kid, I've always wanted to have a big V8 engine, turning a generator and use the cooling system and exhaust to heat my house. We burned wood to heat an old house, and my dad was a mechanic... so I put two and two together, haha. I would need a pretty substantial generator to meet my power demands and I'm not sure that paying for fuel would be any cheaper than electricity and natural gas, where I am.
Cleaner rod as in a cleaning device, or a consumable product ? I do have plans to try to make this self cleaning or to install a cleaning device that can be used once a day or something.
Great vid as usual sir. Have you tried running a wide band afr guage? It might help if for nothing else with information. I really am just mostly thinking for the air fuel injection. Thanks for another great vid.👍
Thanks for the comment and suggestion. A wide band may work, and I may take that route in the future. I can do similar testing with CO, as it CO generally goes up as O2 goes down. Enough oxygen and a clean burn will produce little CO. I believe, I would benefit from collecting data from both. This would give me a better idea of what's happening in the burn chamber.
Curious if you'll have condensate build up in your new exhaust setup. I tried to run mine out of the top of a door and it did not go well. Ended up smoking the garage out due to incomplete combustion of diesel.... I ended up running my exhaust into a 1 inch copper pipe that goes up and over the exterior wall. I started the copper below where I have the heater mounted and put a T in the copper line with a short piece a cap on the end before it goes up the wall - that way if there is condensation build up in the pipe it has somewhere to go. It's worked fine for 3 years now.
Thanks for the comment. I haven't had any issues so far... in fact, I was just outside and put an icicle into the end of the exhaust, to see what would happen, haha. It didn't seem to care. My exhaust is still pretty hot even at the end of the seconds pipe, outside in the cold. Sounds like a cool set up !
@@loweredexpectations4927 Sure, your setup will work as long as the exhaust is hot enough. Problems start, if you want to harvest this energy or when outside temperature is so low, that the outside pipe will cool down to condensation point of whatever falls out first.
@@werner.x Yeah.... When I start trying to pull heat from my exhaust, I will run it down... as of now I am just concerned with getting the fumes away from my window. I would not try to collect heat from the exhaust on this heater as the exhaust is too dirty. I am now at 50 hours of run time, and it is still working well and making lots of heat. I'm going to take it apart this evening and have a look inside.
Absolutely... My next version ideas are 1. inject fuel and oil in a more precise way and 2. make a cleaning device. I have a Fusion 360 design of a self cleaning heater... that's sort of what I'm working towards, but I need to know what the consistency of the ash will be, where it will form, how I can make it disperse and so on... then I will tackle the other stuff.
@@loweredexpectations4927 that's cool. I love these heater videos. You're always trying out stuff until it works better. I remember last year when you finally managed to get the heater up to temperature on waste oil. You've come a long way from there and there's still a long way to go, and a lot of good content to make.
Do you preheat the fuel by passing the line through the air coming out of it? Or close to the exhaust? That would massively help iff you can do it safely.
I have done this in the past... and I think that it would be beneficial now that I am blowing it in. What I did last time was run the fuel through a tune that went through the fins on the heat exchanger. An easy way to limit the temp.
TH-cam has deleted my comment 3 times now.... I was trying to make a joke about just heating the whole heater by melting it down... but apparently what I said was misunderstood my the TY overlord algorithm. The level of censorship has become ridiculous lately.
I'd consider it irrelevant to pay for metal content analysis in this case. Several reasons: the amount of metal in additives can be easily found in companies datasheets - and the metal wear carried into the used oil varies from engine to engine. No use spending money in something, you could already sufficiently know by doing the rule of thumb math. Letting the oil settle down changes the amount of metal and sometimes even the amount of metal salts (additives) - as you know, letting fresh oil sit for a long while often produces a kind of gel layer at the bottom of the can or inside the oil pan, so, the heavier additives are sunken down. Stirring up your used oil changes the mixture - but letting it settle for a while and just use the thinner upper part may indeed reduce ashes. So - whatever you got analyzed - the next batch you're burning, will have another mixture.
I had something VERY interesting happen to me this evening somewhat related to this.... I took my heater apart, removed all the ash from burning 6L of oil (and 8L of diesel), and weighed the as at 31 grams.. As I was poking at the ash with my screwdriver, I noticed magnetic flakes sticking to it. I crushed the ash up into a powder, put it in water and stirred it around with a magnet on the side of the bottle, and a lot of stuff stuck to the magnet. I don't know if this has always been the case, or if it is just this batch of oil... I also don't know if it is from my oil, or oxides from the inside of the chamber. It seems like a LOT to be oxides from the chamber. Most of the engines that I work on do not have cast iron sleeves... they don't have sleeves, just aluminum bores. That is about 5 grams per litre of oil or about 2.5 grams of metal from each oil change. I remember putting a clump of ash into acid and it didn't seem to have a reaction, so I think that this may be from this particular test...
@@loweredexpectations4927 Keep in mind, that oxygen is very heavy and ferrous oxide takes several times the volume of the steel before oxidation. In two stroke engines you at least will have steel piston rings and, different to four strokers, also ferrous crankshaft bearings.
@@werner.x Ah yes..... The volume does increase significantly ... I hadn't considered that. So are you saying that the oxides of the iron take on extra mass from the oxygen.... I hadn't considered that either... I guess that just makes sense. All of my oil is from the crank cases of 4 cycle engines, and most of them do not have any bearings at all. The only thing that is steel or iron is the crankshaft and piston rings. The crank runs in the aluminum case without any bearing. Some new Chinese engines do use ball bearings on their crank shafts....At least one of my containers of waste oil has oil from my truck engine though.
@loweredexpectations4927 also, we're all cheering you on. This stuff isn't a waste of time. I feel like you're getting closer, and making progress. Keep on keeping on!
Why not mmmm make a fan that u can run on a poti meter like not run by the ecu but by a seperate controller that u can turn from like 1000 to 65000 rpm seperate from the ecu....Just add a restistor between the original fan wires so the ecu thinks the fan is running.....
I may try this in the future, but there are a few reasons. These heaters are very sensitive to how much air is being fed to them... I have injected compressed air in the past, th-cam.com/video/O-GeZvgJnO8/w-d-xo.html and it was really easy to make it flame out. It is also really nice to have the heat fan and combustion fan connect together. That way when you increase the heat energy, you also carry more heat away, so it is less likely to overheat... altho... as we have seen that happens, haha. I have heard of people injecting extra air into their inlet with air mattress blowers... so maybe this would work totally fine and the compressed air was going to the wrong spot...
Yes, it does, by a few percent from full to empty. If you are already running hot and top it up, you can get into an overheat situation. I need a better control system, but this is what I have for now.
Running a waste oil mix in the primary will eventually lead to the same build up seen in at the start of this video, but in a spot that is WAY less enjoyable to clean, haha. It's not an exact science, but basically, the amount of ash that was seen is from about 1.5 litres of my nasty oil. If I mix it 50/50 with diesel, it will take twice as long to happen, as you are burning half as much oil. In the end, when the 3 litres of diesel and waste oil mix are gone, you will be left with that much ash.
You guys in Canada must get a 28 hour day or you never sleep 😉. Good luck for the big changes your going to have to deal with 🤞you'll find a smooth path to follow that leads you to some where truly special. PS go to bed lol
Well you have tried very hard and shown to the world that it can burn waste motor oil but it's not your job to fine tune it to the point where CO reading is per with #1 diesel or kerosene. Let's say you succeeded that. One problem solved another problem arrives! How are you going to convince people that they will have to take apart their sacred diesel heater every 48h to clean the sooth and replace the fan 😅? On the other hand, I truly believe that you can achieve it but you need more time to experiment. If a blowtorch or rocket stove can do it, you can do it but you're at the mercy of many factors such as ECU, fan speed, atomizaiton rate, method, efficiency, mesh design, burn chamber volume, the way the fuel burns inside it (aerodynamics), exhaust pipe length, etc. When you do the exhaust heat recovery experiment, please bear in mind that one circular loop is considered as 360°, that is whooping 90° more than the recommended 270° total bends. I believe you're going to violate this restriction more than the length restriction. Having said that, you may try several downward spiral loops like in a hot water cylinder heating coil, or just one loop, or half a loop in a curved L shape, aka, tangent graph shape. Be slow and gentle when you bend or straighten the pipes. They can crack if you do it fast.
Haha... I did manage to tun it to 40 ppm ... but it would have taken way too long to consume 4-6 litres... and consumed too much diesel, so I cranked it up a little. I suspect the CO levels are largely due to my archaic "chamber" ... I knew going into this that it wasn't ideal. I mentioned in my last video, or the one before that the air is passing through, and not directed out to the walls of the chamber. LOL... Yeah... replacing a fan once a week isn't ideal... On the plus side, burning plastic does create more heat ! You are very right... there is a lot happening and a lot to tinker with to get it right. I expect that looping the exhaust will cause a lot of restriction... however, not all 270 bends are created equally. A few tight 90s are way worse than a gentle sweeping 900... or at least, this is what I believe, haha. Let the games begin.
I do wonder why you haven't created an exhaust mount that just goes into your open window yet? I get a lot of it is testing, but if its testing this much, why not make a dedicated outlet 🙂
My garage window is an side awning style ... swing open, not slide open. It is a little more tricky to seal the window, when it is open.... but I should have dome something a long time ago, regardless.
@@loweredexpectations4927 Ha ha I hear that! I see some of the stuff you make and figured it wouldn't be too terribly hard to make something that would compress in that opening, but then again, not doing something is easier 🙂
can you do videa to confirm whether the 8 kw heater is a real thing or not ? using your link for the heaters ( canada ) i see they have 2kw 5kw and 8kw and iev been reading ( over the passed year ) that the 8kw is just a 5kw and basically they are lieing to us.... anyhow id like to know once and for all with some hard data
Yes... I have a video talking about this ... one of my last ones of the heating seasons 2024. I'll see if I can find it. Here it is th-cam.com/video/nv8lrjAqu7M/w-d-xo.html The short answer is, no... they don't' make an 8kw heater. The math is pretty simple(ish.) Manufacturers will almost always post how many litres their heater burns in an hour. Diesel has about 10 kw per litre. So... unless you are burning 800 ml of diesel in an hour, you're not making 8kw. The pumps are almost always 22ml, meaning 22ml per 1000 cycles (or .022 per cycle) These heaters run between 5 and 7 cycles per second. At 7 per second, that's 7x.022 = .154 ml per second. x60 = per minute x60 again per hour... and the grand total is 554 ml . The maximum amount of heat, at 100% efficiency, that much diesel can make, is 5.54kw. If you cycle the pump faster than this, or use a larger pump, the heaters can not supply enough air, or exhaust enough exhaust, and they start burning with a lot of CO and making soot.
So i tried burning waste oil in mine before i found these videos, and my burn chamber is full of that rock hard soot stuff, do you know of any way to get it out without cutting it open and chiseling it out? i tried with a flat tip screwdriver but its in there really good.
I have been in your boots so many times. I try to explain that carbon to people, and I think they think I'm over exaggerating. It's so hard in some spots I thought it was metal. I dont' know of anything for sure. I have recently had someone tell me that soaking it in acetone could work. You can google search chemicals that dissolve carbon... I always chipped it out... and then cut it apart.
@@loweredexpectations4927 well i have acetone on hand so i guess ill try that, and see how it goes, and yeah its crazy how hard this stuff is, i set the burn chamber down flat on my work bench and was chipping it away with a hammer and a flat head like it was stone
@@loweredexpectations4927 soi have some news on the acetone, its been soaking in a can under the acetone for about a day now, and it definitely seems to be doing something, its super discolored, and i got some picks to pick at it with and the top layers are definitely easier to remove, so it seems to sort of dissolve it, it is by no means quick, but it is working, ive been shaking it around every few hours to make sure new acetone gets in there in the impossible to reach spots, gonna let it sit another day and see if it keeps getting better
I have a new video idea maybe you experiment with a hydronic heater they have 5kw and saw some 16kw ones from vevor A stronger burner could help burn waste engine oil
the water/exhaust heat-exchanger videos are not very lucrative research wise since that has been done so many times before. all the waste-heat always collects completely in the water. but its great for heating your shop.
Thanks for the comment. I have never seen a video with the exhaust submerged in water. I suspect it will be uneventful and just work, if all of my joints are sealed well. I looked for videos to see how people seal the exhaust joints and couldn't' find anything.
here are some v=m6chyDrsHaA exhaust to air. not really a shop style video but has a built in grill ^^ v=xIouPCqeVsk some kind of sand heat battery v=yqoTBUiRhiU easiest method v=zXskfEt2X08 most complicated method v=BEXkTxd3ee4 possible for drinkwater v=dQw4w9WgXcQ @@loweredexpectations4927
@@AtimatikArmy 50 hours now... I'm going to pull it apart this evening. It's working well enough that I have actually been using it as a heater, and working in my garage, instead of working on the heater, haha.
@loweredexpectations4927 I'm stoked you're doing all the work to figure this out. because once it's all dialed in will be when I get one of my own! Haha thanks Joel!
@@AtimatikArmy Haha... I think a lot of people are waiting on me to figure it out. I think it will eventually take a better control system (better than a guy standing there looking at it) to make adjustments and maintain the same level of safety. The good news is, that I am using pretty nasty oil, so just about anything is better. I think, out of curiosity, I am going to try atf next, and compare it to my waste oil... I have been told that it is much better. I'd like to try for myself.
Joel, I love your experimental mind! For us simple folk, what about dumping 1L of used oil in 10L or 20L of diesel, give it a mix up with a stick or a drill? Will that work? I know I might need to have a controller that can 'tweak' the fuel\air ratios (perhaps), what do you think?
Thanks for the comment. You might get away with 1L to 10 or 20L ... That would be 10 percent and 5 percent. I have tried 30% oil and that was too much. If you do this, you are saying 5% or 10% at most, and still taking a risk. The determining factor, I believe, is if the percent of junk is small enough so that it gets / stays suspended in the air. If it is suspended in the gas vapours, and flows out the exhaust, then you won't have build up... Otherwise, it's just a matter of time. WIth 5% I don't think you would have to tweak anything, if your heater is already running well. You may have to burn a total of 60 or 80 litres of fuel before you have any issues at all.
Save those pennies ! ... To buy my lathe several years ago, I think I sold my drum kit and some other stuff. The lathe turns out to be the most affordable part of owning a lathe, however... Once you have the lathe, you need lathe tools. That stuff is much better and cheaper than it used to be, but by the time you buy cutting tools, a drill chuck, quick change tool post and all the other goodies, it really adds up. I have been collecting lathe tools for 10 years and still don't have everything I'd like to have.
I’ve watched many videos and there’s so many problems with trying to burn waste oil in one of these heaters that I only watch for amusement. Nothing good in life is free😂
@@melissasmess2773 Haha... what about hugs... hugs are sometimes free. Other than that, I agree. I have a whole series of videos with all sorts of experiments with waste oil. My current tests are pretty promising, but this is all relative. I have seen my chamber filled with concrete like carbon . coke/ so a little as that crumbles away is a pretty big win. In the end, if this is amusing and never anything more, then I am okay with that as well, haha.
@@loweredexpectations4927 my heater just shut off I had about 1000 hours on it running diesel and the additive not to bad of run time I only run it on as low as it will go ,Cleaned it up running again.
Tu pourra pas rouler plus que 1/4 waist oil et 3/4 diesel. De n’importe quel manière ou experimentation. 1/4-3/4 est la clé Je t’ai écris sur messenger btw
This may work with some oils, but I have tried with my engine oil, and didn't have luck with that either. From my experience, diluting the oil prolongs how long it will run for, before cleaning, but it does not solve the problem. Once I consume a few litres of oil, the heater gets clogged up. Messenger 🤔 I have a messenger account ? ... is that Facebook ?
@@zacharymorris9917 I have two heaters that run on natural gas. 200,000 btu of floor heating and 80,000 btu from a hanging heater. I tinker with heaters because I'm curious ... and because I'm obsessive, but mostly the curious thing... so yes. I would like to know. Based on how this is calculated in a lab, burning off oil in a dish in a controlled environment, I assume it would be done by weight ... but that could be wrong.
Haven't watched the video yet, but I can assure any viewer that the result was failure. The author of the video has already claimed success, which makes no sense considering he's still attempting to succeed. The author also has absolutely no clue how many orders of magnitude away from success he is.
@@zacharymorris9917 I'm sure that at some point, I foolishly thought that this might be achievable, but I am open minded and have learned from a lot of testing... I doubt you will... but if you watch the first 2 minutes of this video th-cam.com/video/pvudJ-SiKzc/w-d-xo.html ... you will see that is not my goal... and I have been stating that for almost a year now. I'm more than happy to try all sorts of tests knowing that they will fail, and I often say "lets see what will happen" when I'm 90% sure what the results will be ... I know it is incredibly arrogant of me to not assume that I know everything and actually test things... 🤔 but these videos are fun for me, and enjoyable for many.
@@zacharymorris9917 First off... I'm not afraid of being wrong, or afraid of learning.... So I don't see anything to be afraid of. If I had a livestream, people in the comments would very likely say a lot of things that would bruise your ego, and I would be trying to tell them to be nice. Im sorry for whatever happened, or is happening in your life to make you this way. I hope it gets better.
"What I do is": use a ridiculously high AFR fuel, burn up most of the available oxygen burning diesel fuel and then think that I'm a god-like genius by erroneously trying to burn fuel with no oxygen. Just following along with all the other TH-camrs. 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂p
@@zacharymorris9917 People who claim the earth is flat, typically make the argument "the earth is flat". PS. Excuse me while I go check on my heater that has been running now for 43 hours burn 40 to 50% waste engine oil.
@loweredexpectations4927 why are you pretending that you didn't learn that from me. Case in point, previously you SPECIFICALLY said that running 50/50 was a reason you were failing. Do I need to dig up the exact video and timestamp? For the 30th time, what's the stoichiometric AFR for waste motor oil. I'll take any answer for any blend for any chemistry within 50 points.
@@zacharymorris9917 I said that running 50/50 was why I was failing ? Recently ? I have no idea what the answer to that question is... Feel free to tell me. It won't make any difference, because I don't' have a way to measure MAP or MAF. My testing is and will likely continue to be like tuning an old carbureted car, and not like tuning EFI.
I do love your videos.. i think you will have more problems burning fully synthetic oil than normal oil.. as synthetic oil don't really burn well. and probably give off more smoke and Ash..
I have a crazy idea. If the actual problem is that ash is generated but not removed, and then oil collects in the ash, which then clumps or burns and leaves a hard residue, thus clogging the system, if that is the problem, how about attaching an ultrasonic head to the heater, like the one found in a cheap ultrasound device, and shaking off the ash at regular intervals during operation? Ash seems to be the root cause of the issue after all.
That's a very interesting idea... Will ultrasonic waves travel through air gaps ? ... I thought it had to be it had to be filled with fluid to transmit properly. It would be really cool if this worked.
@@loweredexpectations4927 I think, even if you manage to make the whole thing shake with 40 000 Hz - that's not a healthy emission source, one want to have around. Will make a lot of animals deaf and most likely drive us insane too - because, whether we're able to hear the noise or not, we'll receive it and it does something with us too.
And i really want to mention my concern - always the same, i know - electricity is either expensive or limited or both - add all your stuff together and then add 100 or 200 watt for ultrasound - its getting too energy hungry and that's the wrong direction.
If you'd even need an air gap, you'll reach energy ranges of long wave radio stations and then we're at a point, where it's cheaper to heat directly with this amount of electricity.
I'd really stay focused on the goal - cheap heat. That's, what people are here for, i assume.
But then - reading all these viewer suggestions, which more often than not suggest the most expensive ideas one can imagine - i'm not so sure about anything.
@@werner.x I think it's a fun idea... I like to consider all things, but I see what you are saying.
Here is an idea that could work, but is a little silly. I'm not sure if YT will allow me to day this... If you could inject something that would detonate at higher temperatures, inject that in every hour or so so there was a small detonation to blast all the junk free... It would certainly blow the flame out, so it would have to be hot enough to restart, right away.
I think a slightly more practical method would be to have a mechanical cleaning device. If it was automated so that it cleaned every hour, the debris could be blown out the exhaust. The exhaust would have to exit at a downward slope to allow ash to be blown out.
@@loweredexpectations4927 Not a completely bad idea. Maybe a bit unsafe, though. Nothing to sell to customers.
And the pressure will find it's way in all directions, through the fresh air inlet and through this little flame initiation hole.
And it might pop the two rubber gaskets (or grommets), which keep the exhaust smell away from the clean air.
Couldn't have that inside the caravan.
But i wouldn't buy a waste oil burner of this design anyhow, because simplicity and reliability is king for me. Not just for a shtf situation, but in daily life. That's most of the time - shtf situations are good to be prepared for, but the real work happens in daily life. Kiss-principle ! Very important !
Don't go into the trap, German car engineers trapped themselves happily in from 1980 onward. See, where the German car industry is now ! Devastated ! Since 2 decades now.
@@werner.x It may be possible to do it in a safe, controlled way, with the right engineering... I think probably if it was built in Germany 👍. I have had my heater backfire and shake soot loose, and keep running for a while longer. The footage is at the start of one of my video intros, and I say "yes ! Ha haaa !"
I have plans for something that is pretty simple and I believe could work really well... but it may require some exotic metal for longevity. There are a few different ways to implement my idea... but like you say ... KISS.
We have been installing diesel heaters for years and the simple truth is waste engine oil is not great over the long term and we stick with plain diesel or home heating oil.
Yeah... that is good advice.
My heater is far from original. I have done 3 months strait of testing with waste oil, learning from the mess and failures.
From these experiments, I have found the two main reasons these heaters can't burn waste oils, and I am now tackling those issues.
@@loweredexpectations4927 what are the two main reasons?
@@zacharymorris9917 1. The area where the diesel flashes off is not hot enough to flash off engine oil. 2. The design of the chamber only allows for a very small amount of build up before the performance is negatively impacted.
Even if the heater runs very well for a few hours, a few hours of ash has a negative impact on how the heater runs, so it quickly deteriorates.
@@loweredexpectations4927 would either of those problems exist with stoich or near stoich combustion?
@@zacharymorris9917 I will do my best to answer this question, but there is no real answer, as far as I can tell. To have stoich combustion, the fuel would need to be hot enough to flash off completely, right ? To answer your question, I have to assume that the fuel is vaporized, and to do that it has to be hot enough... It's not hot enough.
Based on what I have seen, the issue with the chamber being too cool is for two reasons. 1. The main reason being how the combustion air is fed into the back of the chamber. This has a substantial cooling effect, and not helping the matter is the veins that are intended to cause a vortex. I realize combustion air always has a cooling effect, but this air passes directly over the exterior of the area where the fuel is injected. 2. Less of an effect, is that the flange of the burh chamber is a heat sink attached, not only cooled by the passing air, but bolted to the heat exchanger.
As for the stoich combustion having an effect size and design of the chamber... no. On the amount of ash. I suspect that a stoich combustion would produce different compounds or different oxides. If it runs really rich, it makes a lot of soot / carbon.
I'm sure you will get this , little more tinkering an tweaking .... looking forward to you cracking this nut , as all gear heads seem to have waste oil around , that we too want to burn off in exchange for cheap heat ... Cheers thanks for all your efforts and sharing.
Thanks for your support / comment !
As it is now, would be good enough for me, as I don't mind tinkering with stuff, haha... but I will keep improving it and collecting data in hopes to make it something that can run for much longer without tinkering.
My current test has been going for about 36 horus now. I plan on taking it apart at 50, if it lasts that long.
Great vid! From all the test you have done, I’m not sure this heater will ever burn waste oil. I do however think you may be smart enough to design your own heater from the ground up that could. If you do I would be the first one to buy one! Just my $.02. As always hope the best for you!
Thanks for the comment !
This test is not necessarily to have a finalized design, but to see "what happens when" ... In my mind, this is pretty promising as there is very little bard black coke / carbon. We are left with some ash, but that ash crumbles apart pretty easily.
When I started this test, I wanted it to go for 40 hours... now that I have been running it for over 30 hours, I will probably push it to 50 before looking inside. My two next steps are 1. Provide fuel and air in a more precise way to a more precise location and 2. Make the heater so that it can be cleaned (to some extent) without taking it apart.
I can see myself totally redesigning my own heater... but this is a great platform that is available to everyone.
@@loweredexpectations4927 Me 2, I would get the upgrade... BTW where u going to get the new fan, and glow plugs and burn chambers and other parts ? TY
@@autojohn-pu1vf I have been getting most of my parts from Aliexpress, tho I did get my glow plugs on Amazon.
You need like a turn bar. Wich you can stick into the hole in the end and turn inside the camber to clean it out without taking apart
Yeah... That is one of the things on my list of things to do. I have a CAD design of what I eventually want to do, but we will get there slowly.
With the two holes in the exchanger that I now have, I can likely do enough cleaning to keep it going for a long long time, but I do want to work on mods to make it run cleaner.
Thankyou Joel for your efforts. Personally I prefer the longer videos you make. You do an excellent job of showing the difficulties of what you are doing. This lends us viewers to an understanding that can not be gained from the 10 to 30 second video s that most people are fond of .
I appreciate your genuineness.
One thing that you mentioned you would do back in the first few diesel heater episodes was a brakedown of the cost of running a diesel heater compared to your Mr.Heater unit.
Now we know the fuel consumption of the diesel heater. What about the Mr.Heater?
Looking forward to seeing the comparison.
Thanks for your comment !
I have thought about the Mr Heater comparison, and it would be difficult for a few reasons. At the time I made that claim, I hadn't used the diesel heater much.
The diesel heater can run at max heat level, almost non stop, when heating my garage... If not non stop, then for 8 hours strait, while the Mr Heater will warm it up fairly quickly (Mr Heater being about 23kw)
Since my garage heater is on the same gas meter as my house, and I don't have access to real time gas flow, the only way to collect data would be to heat my shop with the Mr Heater for 12 hours and sit there with a stopwatch, recording the total run time.
On top of that, I used rough numbers to calculate a few times, and the natural gas wins every time, compared to diesel. My entire heating bill for my house and garage is at most $400, on the coldest, nastiest month. The cost of diesel just for the garage, would be around $380 in the same conditions.
If anyone on here works with HP indigo digital printers , Filtered waste imaging oil burns great. Heater fires up with no issues or smoke.
Haha... I didn't even know that was a thing ... what does the oil do in the machine ?
th-cam.com/video/Ytbo8OsyH3c/w-d-xo.htmlsi=-FBlRJdAiCK2tZ5g
The oil is is used like a paint base / thinner.
The ink is conductive and the oil an Insulator.. the ink particles are suspended in the oil..
The link above explains the process.
The ink can be filtered . I think we use 10 micron filters.
Printers usually pay to have it taken away.
Find someone willing to let you have the waste and you'll be onto a plentiful supply.
It's viscosity is pretty similar to diesel.
@@Deano_77 Wow, that's crazy... I had no idea this is how they worked...that's intense. What sort of industry uses these ?
@loweredexpectations4927
There used for printing self-adhesive labels.
@@Deano_77 Aaaah. Cool.
Hi Joel😎 6:42 - 7:43 while listening to this portion I had an idea spring up. Can I suggest you change where / what the oil drips onto. I suggest it drip onto a series of round / circular stainless mesh mantles that reside around the present drip area . The first mantle could be 1/4 " below the oil port / delivery hole. Have 1 or 2 more mantles within the first one.
With the oil coming in contact with the glowing red meshes, the burn / flash takes place before the oil ever has a chance to pool-up / insulate on the bottom where it's creating ash. 🤔
It's an interesting idea... the problem is (I think) that the ash will gather wherever the oil flashes off. If you see the mesh at 5:32 you can see around the main clump of ash, there is ash built up in the mesh.
If the air flow was aggressive enough, maybe this ash would get blown away🤷♂️ or perhaps a device that rubbed the surface of the mesh every 10 minutes would dislodge the ash and it would blow out the exhaust.
@@loweredexpectations4927 if the oil was incinerated as it falls down around the mesh mantles and not allowed to land / gather at the same drip site I feel there will be little to no ash. Also, if a high temp Teflon / silicon spray could be used on the mesh, the ash might not stick and would likely exhaust as fast as it were created. Another advantage of multiple mesh is it would enlarge the burn surface area as gravity would have the oil traveling from the top of the mesh down along it's sides before ever reaching the bottom where it might start to insulate the incoming drips.
Maybe I'm just a tad kookie 😜 🤪
Teflon industrial coatings can operate continuously at temperatures up to 260 °C (500 °F) and be used for intermittent service up to 316 °C (600 °F), with adequate ventilation, without affecting other properties.
@@DanDan-yy8sf It would be nice if it worked like that, but I don't think it would. It would flash off instantly at the top of the mesh and only move down if oil or ash had pooled on the part above. In my testing last year, I ended up with long pieces of ash that look like stalactites. The particles of ash will start forming on anything and grow like magic crystals, haha.
The enlarged surface would be a huge advantage for sure. The temp in that area is hot enough to melt copper (1100C 2000F). Stainless mesh will not hold up as it will fall apart. Perhaps inconel or Nichrome... or some sort of fancy ceramic mesh. Teflon temp limit is only about 240-260C (400-500F).
@@DanDan-yy8sf Check out this video, where I melted copper ... haha. 1100C or hotter.
th-cam.com/video/OMzzxQg6ndo/w-d-xo.html
One thing to remember is high CO readings mean incomplete combustion, that can happen both on excess or insufficient fuel or too little or too much air. Both due to incomplete combustion will cause soot build up.
Ash though is a different problem, waste oil has a high ash content, there is nothing you can do to stop this in this type of heater unfortunately.
Yes... a lot of people seem to think adding more air is always the answer. No so.
Also, yes... Oil (waste oil) will always produce ash and this is a problem in these little heaters.
Have you thought about checking if the carbon you crushed contained ferrous metal particles?
The second observation is that after 3 days of operation, you have an accumulation of carbon in the combustion chamber and if we consider that you are going to use it for more than 9 days without dismantling, I will let you imagine the accumulation of carbon.
Thank you for all this information which is valuable and greetings from Switzerland where it is abnormally hot for the season
I have thought about having the deposits analized, but would need a lot cost option, as I'm pretty poor, haha. I have tried testing them myself and have ruled some things out ... putting them in acid and witnessing no reaction.
There was very little carbon and mostly ash. ( know some people use the words interchangeably) Carbon is an indication of an incomplete burn. It can build up as hard and stubborn as concrete and this is why the ash is such good news.
This design is not intended to be a final product but to collect information, and the information I'm seeing looks really promising. While I do expect this to continue to build up, it crumbles apart, and this build up occurred without injecting air.
The benefit of injecting the air is not only that the oil will burn more readily, but the ash is less likely to collect in one spot. If it spreads out, it will take much longer to build up to the point where it causes issues.
What was shown at the first of the video was probably a total of 13 hours of total run time, and I have now been running the heater for about 34 hours and it is still working fine.
I plan to run it for 50 hours, take it apart and see what the results are, and makes some changes based on that. I already have a few things in mind.
Your waste motor videos are always interesting. What would it take to make it burn like an oil furnace? Oil furnaces seem to work so why not this type of heater. Would be interesting to combine some parts of a furnace and keep the ECU fan exhaust. Maybe have an injector?
There are a few differences between this and an oil furnace.
The first big difference is that home heating oil is basically diesel. Altho diesel is an oil, it is more refined. The stuff that they refine out of diesel, and heating oil, is the stuff that gets left behind when burning "heavy fuel oils" or engine oil.
The difference with the heater itself is that these little heaters are basically fancy candles. Candles that have fuel delivered to a wick with a pump, instead of the wick sitting in a pool of fuel. Any debris that comes in with the fuel will gather in one very small space on the wick, until the build up causes major issues.
An oil furnace, or waste oil burner always has system that injects the fuel as a mist, and then a secondary source of air. Misting the fuel not only means that it is atomized and burns more readily, but also that it is airborne / suspended in the air. This make it WAY more likely for crud to flow out the exhaust instead of building up, and if it does build up, it won't be all in one spot, like the little Chinese Diesel Heaters.
What a rant. Hope that answers your question.
I would question if it could be done and stay practical to work with. Actual used oil-burning heating systems have large burn chambers to handle large flames and large amounts of ash/soot buildup for a reason.
Despite initially looking like fairly simple systems the actual physics behind them is extremely complex and seems to have a practical lower limit of scalability due to the ash/soot buildup problem that goes with the oil.
The process can be made smaller but the tradeoff is the cleaning and general maintenance cycles become annoyingly frequent to where burning some other near-free solid fuel like wood becomes more practical.
@@tcmtech7515 I totally agree... that's kinda what my response said.
These heaters have the extra challenge of flashing off the fuel on a hot surface... that is only hot enough to flash off diesel and not any heavy oils.
@loweredexpectations4927 Thanks Joel 😊!
So what if you occasionally inject sea foam to burn out carbon deposits? You can buy a 12v peristaltic pump for $5. Just “T” it into the pump suction and pulse it on a timer circuit. Also I’m not sure if sea foam can evenly mix with waste oil on agitation. But I do know auto dealers will use sea foam to decarbonize air intakes fouled by emissions line return from the crankcase to the carb inlet (they even make “catch cans” to collect the crankcase exhaust to the carburetor to stop fouling deposits and upper end carbon deposits)
Thanks for the comment !
Seafoam and other cleaners work pretty well at cleaning carbon, however, ash and carbon are not the same thing. Carbon can be burned up pretty easily, in the right conditions, but the ash that is left behind is not combustible. I have even tried dissolving it in acid, and it does not react.
I have been looking at peristaltic pumps ... I'm not sure if the $5 ones will stand up to diesel... I haven't done much research. I have also been looking at pulse generators, as another way to possibly control the dosing fuel pumps.
@@loweredexpectations4927 I worked in coal and oil generation plants. Fuel oils can contain given amounts of contaminants (Fe, Co, Mn, Mg etc) to a certain parts per million. Once they reach saturation in the oil any additional ions will actually precipitate out. I also worked in nuclear generation and worked in radioactive waste where occasionally we encountered radiologically contaminated turbine lube oils and used salts of the contaminated ions of metal to precipitate out the contaminated ions. So when you burn oil what is left behind are trace metal oxides of the metals dissolved into the oils. If you burnt valvoline 10W30 you can get the oil report that shows metals content content. Also we dealt with used sulzer hydraulic oil and had banks of paper filters 6’ long to remove all that can be in suspension. Centrifugal separation got the larger chunks before filtration and reuse. Wear products exist in suspension as well as carbon wiped from piston walls from combustion. In college chem lab there were mechanisms to determine the cross sections of contaminants in ash. Various oxides will go into solution with certain acids and can be precipitated out with additional chemicals then the precipitates can be filtered rinsed and weighed to determine percentages. I just shoveled 30 pounds of metals that “condensed” on the oil burner furnace flue. It wasn’t ash but metals like vanadium, manganese, tin, cobalt. And it was only a 2 gallon bucket. Pretty dense metals suspended in oils. Steam lances and automatic rappers clear boiler tube surfaces of metal oxides and ash.
I do love your videos.. i think you will have more problems burning fully synthetic oil than normal oil.. as synthetic oil don't really burn well. and probably give off more smoke and Ash..
I think you could be right there. Normal oil is problematic enough, as is.
fantastic video, thank you.
Thanks !
I’m building a greenhouse for starting garden plants. Have one of these heaters and definitely going to try reclaim exhaust heat in water as supplementary night heat.
I would think a good way to do this would be to use a fairly large container of water.... depending on your climate. I'm not sure how effective it would be if your water was ice most of the time.
@@loweredexpectations4927 midwestern Ontario. We can get down to minus 20 Celsius. I was thinking a barrel of RV antifreeze to protect from freezing.
@@draganarc0131 Yeah.. that would work better. Your heater may struggle at -20C, but it's sure better than nothing.
In regards to your end comment on playing with the exhaust, I love the idea about reclaimed waste heat but if the exhaust is cooled to the point of condensation you have a good chance of making acidic liquid. I'm trying to find what that temper limit is but it seems to very around 60°C
Thanks for your comment.
I have heard people talk about acidic condensate, and while this is 100% true, it is only really an issue if it is running back into your heat exchanger, as it can cause corrosion.
Exhaust condensate is generally between 2 and 4 on the PH scale, and for comparison, orange juice is 3.5, vinegar being 2-3. If it collects in one spot, it may kill a patch of grass, but it is no real hazzard 👍
Ideally, you want to have a condensing exhaust, as you can collect substantially more energy this way. If you have water dripping out the end of your exhaust, you know you're doing well.
60°C should be about right. That's also the cylinder wall temperature you have to reach to get rid of the condensation inside an combustion engine.
I think your Vevor 8kw Bluetooth ECU has the same fan speeds when on high. Then you can monitor the casing temp remotely.
Hey...
I tried connecting with bluetooth and got nothing... Also, my heater got up over 260C today haha (with the MaxPeedingRods ECU)
I'm pretty sure the Max turns the fan quite a bit faster. Maybe it's not exactly the same as yours 🤷♂️ On mine... settings 1-7 seem normal, andthen setting 8 kinda goes ape shit.
That's awesome, if the price stays the same I'm going to order another next week. They are 119.00 right now. It's nice that you can hit the higher temps with that ECU.
My controller has settings 1-10. Same as the Vevor.
@@kirkwalsh1932 Why can't they just make like 2 different ECUs haha.
@@loweredexpectations4927 just make one and have it fully adjustable by the user.
@@loweredexpectations4927 hows the running temps looking today?
I have 3 way motorcycle gas switch wich is feeded from two tanks,one inside the heater is with pure diesel and one with 30l of mix 70/30 oil and gasoline. Start and end with diesel and at 200-210°c i swith on oil,full speed and seems to be clear burning. Thanks for all your informational videos. Cheers
Thanks for the comment.
I have done that exact same thing... how long have you been doing this? Sorry to say, but it will probably run fine for a few gallons, maybe 20 litres if you are lucky, then you will likely notice hard starting or several attempts to start. Maybe funny noises from the inlet and exhaust when starting.
Eventually it will either overheat and shut down or start making a lot of smoke and flame out. Your exhaust may glow red hot and even shoot flames out, so you do not want to leave it unattended.
You should have a spare burn chamber on hand, just in case it quits.
@@loweredexpectations4927 It runs with this mix since1 1/2 month ago without problem,every day since 9 pm to 9 am( on my garage) on p9 from 10.Start with diesel,end with diesel. I dont know what mess is in my burning chamber,i will see,hope not soon
I forget to say,i use mix 70/30 used hydraulic oil and gasoline,if had any importance,anyway,it works very good to me, i will keep on watch her
@@carlos_sacalul Good to hear. I see your other comment that you say "hydraulic oil". I have heard of a few people having success with that... I have not tried it myself, but I suspect that it is much lower ash content. Hopefully you do not have any problems !
The problem is you had an overheat issue and the fuel could not be shut off as you were drip feeding. So assume you were not around....... That could have been a disaster. Tinkering is all very well but remember that some may try this and might not be aware of the consequences, I'm not too comfortable when you remove something that can be fail safe or at least will shut the machine down in a safe way. You wouldn't like a law suite form someone that might cause you grief........ Just saying!
Thanks for your comment and concern, however, It is quite unreasonable to think that someone could watch my video and not realize that what I am doing is dangerous.
I mention this in my video about the fuel not stopping... I had a timer set for every 10 minutes, and that is why I noticed when it happened.
The thumbnail of the video says "catastrophic fail" with the photo of a burnt / melted fan, the video starts with a written warning not to do what I do, my intro has glowing red exhaust with flames shooting out the end, and in the video I talk about what happened as a result.
If people chose to do what they see in my videos, they can expect to get the same results... with the exception that I don't panic when things go wrong, I just take care of business.
Hi.
Sorry you think it's unreasonable, I unfortunately have come across those that jump into things without thought and any knowledge of what they are doing and land up with dire consequences, it just takes one idiot. Cover your self with a disclaimer that's all I'm trying to say. Your channel is excellent and I'd not like to think you would land up in trouble or the channel shut down. Good luck.
@@trev8932 You are right... there are people who will do things that they shouldn't be doing. I understand what I am doing is a little different, but if I made a video of myself making a sandwich, someone could hurt themselves using a knife, and then blame me.
If someone watches my video and does what I'm doing, they are ignoring all of the safety warnings in their owners manual and bypassing safety systems, as you said.
I realize that there are a lot of people out there who want to blame others, anyone but themselves, for anything that goes wrong. This is unfortunate. I do a lot of stupid stuff and accept responsibility for the outcome.
Can you vary the fan speed to change your fuel air mixture? If the fan is dc then all you would need is the Vevor power supply. Just crank up the voltage.
For sure. I am taking a slightly different approach to this, for a few reasons.
The air flow is ultimately limited by the size / restriction of the inlet and exhaust ports (about 19mm 3/4 inch ID) Turning the fan faster than I am now would have little effect on air flow in the combustion chamber.
What I have chosen to do is turn the fan as fast as practical, and modulate fuel flow to change AFR. Based on the CO numbers that I am seeing, I definitely do not need less air, so the only thing I can really do is reduce fuel.
I have heard people say that they use variable speed air mattress blowers to increase air flow... Haven't tried it myself... Maybe that would work.
@@loweredexpectations4927 liking your experiments!
@@gordon6029 Good to hear.
You end up having condensation problems with the exhaust since it is pushing upwards. Condensate will flow down to the bend.
Have you ever tested gasoline or spirits?
Yeah... the potential for condensate is there if you run the exhaust up. My exhaust is staying hot enough that it is not a problem... I have been monitoring it.
I tested pure gasoline, but never released the video... It didn't work very well. I have videos of testing 50/50 gas and oil, paint thinner and Varsol. I will try to link them below.
50/50 th-cam.com/video/oC_ao35UfR4/w-d-xo.html
Paint thinner th-cam.com/video/xPk3Xuin2Z4/w-d-xo.html
Varsol th-cam.com/video/b-PT02_F6Is/w-d-xo.html
@@loweredexpectations4927 Thanks mate
Hey Joel,
What CO meter do you use, what's the price, and where can it be bought?
Are you happy with it, or would you buy something different if you had to do it again?
Also, where did you get the stainless mesh you used in the secondary burn chamber?
Thanks,
Philip
It is a Smart Sensor ST9700 ... I am really happy with mine but apparently there are a lot of fakes out there. Mine says "Smart sensor" over the power button, but in the ad photo it just says "ST9700 carbon monoxide detector" under the buttons.
I have been attacked by a few TH-camrs saying that I'm going to get people 😵 by promoting fake meters simply for showing real ones on my channel.
My meter appeared to be a fake in the add on Amazon, but when I got it, it looked different (has the name on it) appears to read properly. Fake or not good ones, will sometimes read temp as CO... I have seen videos of this a few times. After testing my meter for a few months, I can say that it reacts to CO and not to heat.
The Amazon ad reads "Handheld Carbon Monoxide Meter LCD Color Display CO Detector High Precision Carbon Monoxide Tester CO Gas Leak Tester 0-1000ppm" and it is $59.99 CAD
Yes, oil has more potential heat energy in it than diesel and diesel more than petrol and petrol more than ethanol. Per volume.
I was pretty sure of this... I did know diesel had more than gas and alcohol is way down the list.
Hi again Joel,
Thanks for the information about the CO meter you use.
Where did you get the stainless mesh you used in the secondary burner?
Thanks,
Philip
I was lucky enough to have a viewer send me that mesh. I have purchased much finer stuff from Amazon before.... I'm guessing they have all different stuff.
Hello great Videos and best greetings from Austria ✌️
I have two heaters same size,controler and kw. But one of them runs permanent at 200c and the other only on 160c do you know why or what i can do to run both at 200c?
They are both clean and assembled the same way😅
Hello.
There could be several different reasons for the temperature differences. The one that is running at 160 does seem low. Are they both 5kw units ? Have they always run at these temperatures?
If they are not the same units, with the same controller and ECU, this could just be a difference in tuning or programming of the ECU.
If possible, check to see if the pumps are clicking at the same rate. You can hold your fingers on the pump or listen for the sound. You could set the heaters at setting 5 and used a stopwatch to see how many clicks in 30 seconds. If they are not the same one may have an ECU of a 2kw.
If the pumps have lettering on them, they should say 12v 22ml Or something like that. The important bit being "22ml" If they are clicking at the same rate, but one has a smaller pump (18ml) it will get less fuel and make less heat.
I think that these heaters simply wont burn waste motor oil because they don't get hot enough. For me, I burn 100% wmo in a chinese diesel engine that I loaded to its nuts with a grid tie generator. I just put the exhaust out the side of my building and leave the generator in an insulated box to keep the noise down. It heats my shop and pays my electricity bill so for me it's win win.
Yeah, I don't know if you have been following my videos, but I have addressed the issue with not enough heat. The second issue is not enough space for crud to build up.
My hater has now been modified to help with both of these issues. I currently have 41 hours of run time on my heater and it is still working fine. I am going to pull it apart at 50 hours and access the situation and decide what further modifications to make.
Since I was a kid, I've always wanted to have a big V8 engine, turning a generator and use the cooling system and exhaust to heat my house. We burned wood to heat an old house, and my dad was a mechanic... so I put two and two together, haha.
I would need a pretty substantial generator to meet my power demands and I'm not sure that paying for fuel would be any cheaper than electricity and natural gas, where I am.
in Denmark we use these woodpellet stoves, in the smoke tube we have these cleaner rods for carbon build up that we push. Perhaps an idea ?
Cleaner rod as in a cleaning device, or a consumable product ? I do have plans to try to make this self cleaning or to install a cleaning device that can be used once a day or something.
its like a spring in the smoke tubes that we pull and it removes the carbon inside so its blown out@@loweredexpectations4927
Great vid as usual sir. Have you tried running a wide band afr guage? It might help if for nothing else with information. I really am just mostly thinking for the air fuel injection. Thanks for another great vid.👍
Thanks for the comment and suggestion.
A wide band may work, and I may take that route in the future. I can do similar testing with CO, as it CO generally goes up as O2 goes down. Enough oxygen and a clean burn will produce little CO.
I believe, I would benefit from collecting data from both. This would give me a better idea of what's happening in the burn chamber.
I would say it's a bust. Can't say I would even try to burn used oil now!!!😮
It is a real struggle ! That's for sure.
@@loweredexpectations4927never give up.
Curious if you'll have condensate build up in your new exhaust setup. I tried to run mine out of the top of a door and it did not go well. Ended up smoking the garage out due to incomplete combustion of diesel....
I ended up running my exhaust into a 1 inch copper pipe that goes up and over the exterior wall. I started the copper below where I have the heater mounted and put a T in the copper line with a short piece a cap on the end before it goes up the wall - that way if there is condensation build up in the pipe it has somewhere to go. It's worked fine for 3 years now.
Thanks for the comment.
I haven't had any issues so far... in fact, I was just outside and put an icicle into the end of the exhaust, to see what would happen, haha. It didn't seem to care. My exhaust is still pretty hot even at the end of the seconds pipe, outside in the cold.
Sounds like a cool set up !
@@loweredexpectations4927 Sure, your setup will work as long as the exhaust is hot enough. Problems start, if you want to harvest this energy or when outside temperature is so low, that the outside pipe will cool down to condensation point of whatever falls out first.
@@werner.x Yeah.... When I start trying to pull heat from my exhaust, I will run it down... as of now I am just concerned with getting the fumes away from my window. I would not try to collect heat from the exhaust on this heater as the exhaust is too dirty.
I am now at 50 hours of run time, and it is still working well and making lots of heat. I'm going to take it apart this evening and have a look inside.
Have you thought of making some kind of clean out mechanism so you can just break up the clump of ash without disassembling?
Absolutely... My next version ideas are 1. inject fuel and oil in a more precise way and 2. make a cleaning device.
I have a Fusion 360 design of a self cleaning heater... that's sort of what I'm working towards, but I need to know what the consistency of the ash will be, where it will form, how I can make it disperse and so on... then I will tackle the other stuff.
Oh... and in the current configuration, I can remove the fuel line and bolt on the end, and do some cleaning.... not sure how effectively though.
@@loweredexpectations4927 that's cool. I love these heater videos. You're always trying out stuff until it works better. I remember last year when you finally managed to get the heater up to temperature on waste oil. You've come a long way from there and there's still a long way to go, and a lot of good content to make.
@@bigfootandbananaman4746 Thanks for your support ! I appreciate it.
Do you preheat the fuel by passing the line through the air coming out of it? Or close to the exhaust? That would massively help iff you can do it safely.
I have done this in the past... and I think that it would be beneficial now that I am blowing it in. What I did last time was run the fuel through a tune that went through the fins on the heat exchanger. An easy way to limit the temp.
Ok, maybe if you stuck the diesel heater onto a custom burner in front of a dpf, get the temps up to dpf regen temp? Go on, be crazy 😉
TH-cam has deleted my comment 3 times now.... I was trying to make a joke about just heating the whole heater by melting it down... but apparently what I said was misunderstood my the TY overlord algorithm. The level of censorship has become ridiculous lately.
@@loweredexpectations4927 ha ha. Typical! The overlords have spoken, you must be silenced!
Anyhow, yeah, a smelting pot would deffo burn waste oil…
I'd consider it irrelevant to pay for metal content analysis in this case.
Several reasons: the amount of metal in additives can be easily found in companies datasheets - and the metal wear carried into the used oil varies from engine to engine.
No use spending money in something, you could already sufficiently know by doing the rule of thumb math.
Letting the oil settle down changes the amount of metal and sometimes even the amount of metal salts (additives) - as you know, letting fresh oil sit for a long while often produces a kind of gel layer at the bottom of the can or inside the oil pan, so, the heavier additives are sunken down. Stirring up your used oil changes the mixture - but letting it settle for a while and just use the thinner upper part may indeed reduce ashes.
So - whatever you got analyzed - the next batch you're burning, will have another mixture.
I had something VERY interesting happen to me this evening somewhat related to this.... I took my heater apart, removed all the ash from burning 6L of oil (and 8L of diesel), and weighed the as at 31 grams..
As I was poking at the ash with my screwdriver, I noticed magnetic flakes sticking to it. I crushed the ash up into a powder, put it in water and stirred it around with a magnet on the side of the bottle, and a lot of stuff stuck to the magnet.
I don't know if this has always been the case, or if it is just this batch of oil... I also don't know if it is from my oil, or oxides from the inside of the chamber. It seems like a LOT to be oxides from the chamber.
Most of the engines that I work on do not have cast iron sleeves... they don't have sleeves, just aluminum bores. That is about 5 grams per litre of oil or about 2.5 grams of metal from each oil change.
I remember putting a clump of ash into acid and it didn't seem to have a reaction, so I think that this may be from this particular test...
@@loweredexpectations4927 Keep in mind, that oxygen is very heavy and ferrous oxide takes several times the volume of the steel before oxidation.
In two stroke engines you at least will have steel piston rings and, different to four strokers, also ferrous crankshaft bearings.
@@werner.x Ah yes..... The volume does increase significantly ... I hadn't considered that. So are you saying that the oxides of the iron take on extra mass from the oxygen.... I hadn't considered that either... I guess that just makes sense.
All of my oil is from the crank cases of 4 cycle engines, and most of them do not have any bearings at all. The only thing that is steel or iron is the crankshaft and piston rings. The crank runs in the aluminum case without any bearing. Some new Chinese engines do use ball bearings on their crank shafts....At least one of my containers of waste oil has oil from my truck engine though.
Joel, I thought you were going goth 😆 🤣
HaHa ! Gotta do something to spice up my channel !
that shade of lipstick looks good on you bud! 🤣
I'm going for a new gothic look for my channel, haha...
@loweredexpectations4927 also, we're all cheering you on. This stuff isn't a waste of time. I feel like you're getting closer, and making progress. Keep on keeping on!
@@plainandsimple1 Yeah... It seems very promising. I've got 50 hours on it now and will be pulling it apart this evening.
Why not mmmm make a fan that u can run on a poti meter like not run by the ecu but by a seperate controller that u can turn from like 1000 to 65000 rpm seperate from the ecu....Just add a restistor between the original fan wires so the ecu thinks the fan is running.....
I may try this in the future, but there are a few reasons.
These heaters are very sensitive to how much air is being fed to them... I have injected compressed air in the past, th-cam.com/video/O-GeZvgJnO8/w-d-xo.html and it was really easy to make it flame out.
It is also really nice to have the heat fan and combustion fan connect together. That way when you increase the heat energy, you also carry more heat away, so it is less likely to overheat... altho... as we have seen that happens, haha.
I have heard of people injecting extra air into their inlet with air mattress blowers... so maybe this would work totally fine and the compressed air was going to the wrong spot...
Does the static height of the fuel not affect drip rate?
Yes, it does, by a few percent from full to empty. If you are already running hot and top it up, you can get into an overheat situation.
I need a better control system, but this is what I have for now.
So what happens if you run 50/50 diesel/waste oil in the "primary chamber", and leave the other "secondary chamber"(pure waste oil?) alone?
Running a waste oil mix in the primary will eventually lead to the same build up seen in at the start of this video, but in a spot that is WAY less enjoyable to clean, haha.
It's not an exact science, but basically, the amount of ash that was seen is from about 1.5 litres of my nasty oil. If I mix it 50/50 with diesel, it will take twice as long to happen, as you are burning half as much oil. In the end, when the 3 litres of diesel and waste oil mix are gone, you will be left with that much ash.
You guys in Canada must get a 28 hour day or you never sleep 😉. Good luck for the big changes your going to have to deal with 🤞you'll find a smooth path to follow that leads you to some where truly special. PS go to bed lol
Haha... Just very little sleep.
I'm sure it will work out for the best... but the next few months or a couple of years may really suck.
Well you have tried very hard and shown to the world that it can burn waste motor oil but it's not your job to fine tune it to the point where CO reading is per with #1 diesel or kerosene. Let's say you succeeded that. One problem solved another problem arrives! How are you going to convince people that they will have to take apart their sacred diesel heater every 48h to clean the sooth and replace the fan 😅?
On the other hand, I truly believe that you can achieve it but you need more time to experiment. If a blowtorch or rocket stove can do it, you can do it but you're at the mercy of many factors such as ECU, fan speed, atomizaiton rate, method, efficiency, mesh design, burn chamber volume, the way the fuel burns inside it (aerodynamics), exhaust pipe length, etc.
When you do the exhaust heat recovery experiment, please bear in mind that one circular loop is considered as 360°, that is whooping 90° more than the recommended 270° total bends. I believe you're going to violate this restriction more than the length restriction. Having said that, you may try several downward spiral loops like in a hot water cylinder heating coil, or just one loop, or half a loop in a curved L shape, aka, tangent graph shape. Be slow and gentle when you bend or straighten the pipes. They can crack if you do it fast.
Haha... I did manage to tun it to 40 ppm ... but it would have taken way too long to consume 4-6 litres... and consumed too much diesel, so I cranked it up a little.
I suspect the CO levels are largely due to my archaic "chamber" ... I knew going into this that it wasn't ideal. I mentioned in my last video, or the one before that the air is passing through, and not directed out to the walls of the chamber.
LOL... Yeah... replacing a fan once a week isn't ideal... On the plus side, burning plastic does create more heat ! You are very right... there is a lot happening and a lot to tinker with to get it right.
I expect that looping the exhaust will cause a lot of restriction... however, not all 270 bends are created equally. A few tight 90s are way worse than a gentle sweeping 900... or at least, this is what I believe, haha. Let the games begin.
Wahoo! Nice work
Thanks !
I do wonder why you haven't created an exhaust mount that just goes into your open window yet? I get a lot of it is testing, but if its testing this much, why not make a dedicated outlet 🙂
My garage window is an side awning style ... swing open, not slide open. It is a little more tricky to seal the window, when it is open.... but I should have dome something a long time ago, regardless.
@@loweredexpectations4927 Ha ha I hear that! I see some of the stuff you make and figured it wouldn't be too terribly hard to make something that would compress in that opening, but then again, not doing something is easier 🙂
@@reubenk7331 "not doing something is easier" haha... exactly.
@@loweredexpectations4927 😀
can you do videa to confirm whether the 8 kw heater is a real thing or not ? using your link for the heaters ( canada ) i see they have 2kw 5kw and 8kw and iev been reading ( over the passed year ) that the 8kw is just a 5kw and basically they are lieing to us.... anyhow id like to know once and for all with some hard data
Yes... I have a video talking about this ... one of my last ones of the heating seasons 2024. I'll see if I can find it.
Here it is th-cam.com/video/nv8lrjAqu7M/w-d-xo.html
The short answer is, no... they don't' make an 8kw heater. The math is pretty simple(ish.)
Manufacturers will almost always post how many litres their heater burns in an hour. Diesel has about 10 kw per litre. So... unless you are burning 800 ml of diesel in an hour, you're not making 8kw.
The pumps are almost always 22ml, meaning 22ml per 1000 cycles (or .022 per cycle) These heaters run between 5 and 7 cycles per second. At 7 per second, that's 7x.022 = .154 ml per second. x60 = per minute x60 again per hour... and the grand total is 554 ml .
The maximum amount of heat, at 100% efficiency, that much diesel can make, is 5.54kw. If you cycle the pump faster than this, or use a larger pump, the heaters can not supply enough air, or exhaust enough exhaust, and they start burning with a lot of CO and making soot.
So i tried burning waste oil in mine before i found these videos, and my burn chamber is full of that rock hard soot stuff, do you know of any way to get it out without cutting it open and chiseling it out? i tried with a flat tip screwdriver but its in there really good.
I have been in your boots so many times. I try to explain that carbon to people, and I think they think I'm over exaggerating. It's so hard in some spots I thought it was metal.
I dont' know of anything for sure. I have recently had someone tell me that soaking it in acetone could work.
You can google search chemicals that dissolve carbon... I always chipped it out... and then cut it apart.
@@loweredexpectations4927 well i have acetone on hand so i guess ill try that, and see how it goes, and yeah its crazy how hard this stuff is, i set the burn chamber down flat on my work bench and was chipping it away with a hammer and a flat head like it was stone
@@kidsalex13 I had a special set of tools to clean mine, including a sharpened long flat screwdriver and a pick with a 90º bend on the end.
@@loweredexpectations4927 soi have some news on the acetone, its been soaking in a can under the acetone for about a day now, and it definitely seems to be doing something, its super discolored, and i got some picks to pick at it with and the top layers are definitely easier to remove, so it seems to sort of dissolve it, it is by no means quick, but it is working, ive been shaking it around every few hours to make sure new acetone gets in there in the impossible to reach spots, gonna let it sit another day and see if it keeps getting better
Good thing you're crazy or you would have given up long ago. Keep up the good work.
This is the truth !
I have a new video idea maybe you experiment with a hydronic heater they have 5kw and saw some 16kw ones from vevor
A stronger burner could help burn waste engine oil
I have not seen these heaters available from Vevor... If you have links, maybe I can ask them for one.
@@loweredexpectations4927 yeah hang on a minute but it's on AliExpress though
I think TH-cam doesn't like links in the comments
@@JohannesBrotBaum Yeah... TH-cam can sometimes be idiots when it comes to links. You can email me if you want.
the.guys.repair at gmail dot com.
Love it joel.👍👍 my wife keeps telling me to stop saying gayrodge every time you do..😂 or graudge.
🤣 The wife comment made me LOL for real. Good stuff !
the water/exhaust heat-exchanger videos are not very lucrative research wise since that has been done so many times before. all the waste-heat always collects completely in the water. but its great for heating your shop.
Thanks for the comment. I have never seen a video with the exhaust submerged in water. I suspect it will be uneventful and just work, if all of my joints are sealed well.
I looked for videos to see how people seal the exhaust joints and couldn't' find anything.
here are some
v=m6chyDrsHaA exhaust to air. not really a shop style video but has a built in grill ^^
v=xIouPCqeVsk some kind of sand heat battery
v=yqoTBUiRhiU easiest method
v=zXskfEt2X08 most complicated method
v=BEXkTxd3ee4 possible for drinkwater
v=dQw4w9WgXcQ
@@loweredexpectations4927
Wow, this is totally showing promise, I likey!
Yes... Very cool ... trying to do the math, but I'm close to 40 hours on my latest test... over 36 now.
@loweredexpectations4927 Awesome! I believe this is definitely showing potential!
@@AtimatikArmy 50 hours now... I'm going to pull it apart this evening. It's working well enough that I have actually been using it as a heater, and working in my garage, instead of working on the heater, haha.
@loweredexpectations4927 I'm stoked you're doing all the work to figure this out. because once it's all dialed in will be when I get one of my own! Haha thanks Joel!
@@AtimatikArmy Haha... I think a lot of people are waiting on me to figure it out. I think it will eventually take a better control system (better than a guy standing there looking at it) to make adjustments and maintain the same level of safety.
The good news is, that I am using pretty nasty oil, so just about anything is better. I think, out of curiosity, I am going to try atf next, and compare it to my waste oil... I have been told that it is much better. I'd like to try for myself.
Joel, I love your experimental mind! For us simple folk, what about dumping 1L of used oil in 10L or 20L of diesel, give it a mix up with a stick or a drill? Will that work? I know I might need to have a controller that can 'tweak' the fuel\air ratios (perhaps), what do you think?
Thanks for the comment.
You might get away with 1L to 10 or 20L ... That would be 10 percent and 5 percent. I have tried 30% oil and that was too much. If you do this, you are saying 5% or 10% at most, and still taking a risk.
The determining factor, I believe, is if the percent of junk is small enough so that it gets / stays suspended in the air. If it is suspended in the gas vapours, and flows out the exhaust, then you won't have build up... Otherwise, it's just a matter of time.
WIth 5% I don't think you would have to tweak anything, if your heater is already running well. You may have to burn a total of 60 or 80 litres of fuel before you have any issues at all.
I wish had a mini Lathe!
Save those pennies ! ... To buy my lathe several years ago, I think I sold my drum kit and some other stuff. The lathe turns out to be the most affordable part of owning a lathe, however... Once you have the lathe, you need lathe tools.
That stuff is much better and cheaper than it used to be, but by the time you buy cutting tools, a drill chuck, quick change tool post and all the other goodies, it really adds up. I have been collecting lathe tools for 10 years and still don't have everything I'd like to have.
Progress 👍
For sure... especially when you see what my original tests looked like from a year ago, haha.
haha, starting out talking about carbon monoxide when you have blue lips
Never even thought of that, haha🤣
I’ve watched many videos and there’s so many problems with trying to burn waste oil in one of these heaters that I only watch for amusement.
Nothing good in life is free😂
@@melissasmess2773 Haha... what about hugs... hugs are sometimes free. Other than that, I agree. I have a whole series of videos with all sorts of experiments with waste oil.
My current tests are pretty promising, but this is all relative. I have seen my chamber filled with concrete like carbon . coke/ so a little as that crumbles away is a pretty big win.
In the end, if this is amusing and never anything more, then I am okay with that as well, haha.
Getting closer and closer you are.
It does seem that way.
@@loweredexpectations4927 my heater just shut off I had about 1000 hours on it running diesel and the additive not to bad of run time I only run it on as low as it will go ,Cleaned it up running again.
Awesome!
Thanks !
Bravo
Why thank you sir.
the question in the title is answered "yes". But it makes for good content......... So the answer is "no". .......... Wait, now I am confused.
OH NO... we broke your brain ! haha.
Are you surprised that an arrogant fool baited you and then switched?
Nice stuff
Thanks !
Tu pourra pas rouler plus que 1/4 waist oil et 3/4 diesel. De n’importe quel manière ou experimentation. 1/4-3/4 est la clé
Je t’ai écris sur messenger btw
This may work with some oils, but I have tried with my engine oil, and didn't have luck with that either.
From my experience, diluting the oil prolongs how long it will run for, before cleaning, but it does not solve the problem.
Once I consume a few litres of oil, the heater gets clogged up. Messenger 🤔 I have a messenger account ? ... is that Facebook ?
@@loweredexpectations4927 yes. I made a facebook freindship request and a facebook messenger message I really like tour work !
Awesome
No "Vevor" haha... Thanks Joe!
So like a kreasode fire kinda ?
No problem Joel 😄
What if you put the diesel in a soda streamer and carbonated it ... hahaha 😂
@@Joe-hj6pg Yes... exactly !
You are hard on the equipment.
That is an accurate statement, if I ever heard one.
Ash content of WMO: 0.05%
🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️
By weight of volume ... I'm curious.
@@loweredexpectations4927 irony. Do you really want the answer?
@@zacharymorris9917 I have two heaters that run on natural gas. 200,000 btu of floor heating and 80,000 btu from a hanging heater. I tinker with heaters because I'm curious ... and because I'm obsessive, but mostly the curious thing... so yes. I would like to know.
Based on how this is calculated in a lab, burning off oil in a dish in a controlled environment, I assume it would be done by weight ... but that could be wrong.
@loweredexpectations4927 what's the stoich for WMO??????
@loweredexpectations4927 what you should do, instead of publicly making a fool of yourself, is reach out to me privately.
Haven't watched the video yet, but I can assure any viewer that the result was failure. The author of the video has already claimed success, which makes no sense considering he's still attempting to succeed.
The author also has absolutely no clue how many orders of magnitude away from success he is.
🤣 Sounds about right... Out of curiosity, what exactly is "success" in your mind.
@@loweredexpectations4927 based on YOUR CRITERIA: burning waste motor oil without significant residuals.
@loweredexpectations4927 I'm still waiting on you to have me live so you can make a fool out of me. I'm really dumb so you shouldn't be scared.
@@zacharymorris9917 I'm sure that at some point, I foolishly thought that this might be achievable, but I am open minded and have learned from a lot of testing... I doubt you will... but if you watch the first 2 minutes of this video th-cam.com/video/pvudJ-SiKzc/w-d-xo.html ... you will see that is not my goal... and I have been stating that for almost a year now.
I'm more than happy to try all sorts of tests knowing that they will fail, and I often say "lets see what will happen" when I'm 90% sure what the results will be ... I know it is incredibly arrogant of me to not assume that I know everything and actually test things... 🤔 but these videos are fun for me, and enjoyable for many.
@@zacharymorris9917 First off... I'm not afraid of being wrong, or afraid of learning.... So I don't see anything to be afraid of. If I had a livestream, people in the comments would very likely say a lot of things that would bruise your ego, and I would be trying to tell them to be nice.
Im sorry for whatever happened, or is happening in your life to make you this way. I hope it gets better.
CATASTROPHIC spelling
Oops.... On display for the world to see.
"What I do is": use a ridiculously high AFR fuel, burn up most of the available oxygen burning diesel fuel and then think that I'm a god-like genius by erroneously trying to burn fuel with no oxygen. Just following along with all the other TH-camrs.
😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂p
Haha ! Not enough laughing heads... I'm disappointed.
@@loweredexpectations4927 your response is exactly the same as the folks who claimed the earth is flat.
@@zacharymorris9917 People who claim the earth is flat, typically make the argument "the earth is flat".
PS. Excuse me while I go check on my heater that has been running now for 43 hours burn 40 to 50% waste engine oil.
@loweredexpectations4927 why are you pretending that you didn't learn that from me. Case in point, previously you SPECIFICALLY said that running 50/50 was a reason you were failing. Do I need to dig up the exact video and timestamp?
For the 30th time, what's the stoichiometric AFR for waste motor oil. I'll take any answer for any blend for any chemistry within 50 points.
@@zacharymorris9917 I said that running 50/50 was why I was failing ? Recently ? I have no idea what the answer to that question is... Feel free to tell me. It won't make any difference, because I don't' have a way to measure MAP or MAF.
My testing is and will likely continue to be like tuning an old carbureted car, and not like tuning EFI.
Literally never listen to someone who has a legitimate comprehension of what's going on. 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
Duly noted.
I do love your videos.. i think you will have more problems burning fully synthetic oil than normal oil.. as synthetic oil don't really burn well. and probably give off more smoke and Ash..
I think you could be right there. Normal oil is problematic enough, as is.