On the Road Episode #1

Posted: October 07, 2010

Comments: 26

WVO Designs goes out to Roberts Creek, British Columbia to meet up with Ross Muirhead. Ross runs a small WVO co-op on the sunshine coast and gives us a tour of his collection and cleaning systems as well as a look under the hood of his Mercedes.

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26 Comment(s)

Kevin Andrew McLean

May 02, 2011 16:45

Nice setup. Do you pre filter the wvo before putting into the first tank that feeds into the centrifuge? Or, can the centrifuge handle most anything short of chunks of food?

How is the flow controlled?

Ross Muirhead

Nov 25, 2011 13:29

Kevin: Yes I pre-filter the waste oil before sending it through the centrifuge. I pour the oil from the 16L containers I get from the restaurents into a pail that has a screen attached which removes the large particles. Then the oil is poured from the bucket, into a 1,000L tote that has a 200 micron filter bag attached. Then it gets pumped into the top stacked 1,000 tote for processing through the centrifuge. Before it gets pumped into a vehicle's tank the oil passes through a 1 micron filter.

John Webster

Nov 22, 2010 13:19

When I centriguge oil, I regulate flow, so there is no oil coming out the overflow. Maybe I'm doing it wrong, but I've gotten very good results, time between truck filter changes. I can run a filter 10-12 months, w/o changing. I drive 40-50 thousand miles a year, on wvo. My experience shows the large white spiral discharge hose, like Ross was using, will get brittle and break over time. WVO is hard on gray plastic, and other types of plastic pipe. You need to be careful, or you'll end up w/ a nice big mess. I have! lol I've learned by doing, the hard way. Most of my oil comes from restraunts, which have 4-5 fryelators. They change oil weekly in the winter, and twice weekly in the summer months. It is drained into the basement, into a 275 gallong oil tank. I suck the oil out every 6-8 weeks, and transfer it to a 275 gal. plastic tote, w/ the big gear pump. The big gear pump is very nice, but there is a trade off, between big volume pumps, and smaller pumps. The bigger pumps need bigger hoses, and bigger plastic hose is bulky. Overall I enjoy using wvo. Best part is driving past gas stations, and not stopping. lol

yt,

John Webster

Tracy P

Nov 09, 2010 16:58

Great Leon. I like it. Please do more of these. I immagine I'd learn something from every one I could watch.

Gary

Oct 25, 2010 15:15

Great video. Please do more. I would like more "how to" style videos. Such as things that can go wrong, what to watch out for, etc. Like the previous comment I would like to know the temperature setting of the heating element. I'm finding the hotter the temperature the better the flow but you do sacrifice filtering quality. Running it with the heater off the solids are filtered out and there are fewer floating particles. I'm considering a two pass method. One pass cold and the second pass hot.

Jim Lange

Oct 25, 2010 10:45

Very nice and informative enough for those of us who are already using WVO Designs. And I must agree that it is good to see others set-ups.

Thinking of converting to WVO.. - Ford Powerstroke Diesel Forum

Oct 23, 2010 19:50

[...] more simple than i am making it out but i was reading that heating before the* is a good deal.. On the Road Episode #1 ANy thing else i should be looking [...]

Otis

Oct 22, 2010 12:15

Very Nice - I enjoy seeing other peoples setups

Mike Amaral

Oct 22, 2010 11:51

Ross is a man after my own heart! I use WVO to run my 02 Ford F250 7.3L diesel and also for heating/domestic hot water in a building.

I have a couple of questions for Ross.

1. He didn't describe whether or not he heats the oil at the input to the centrifuge. Does he run the centrifuge at room temperature?

2. He described running the centrifuge unattended overnight for 1000L batches. Does he have a method for the centrifuge to shutdown automatically upon emptying the input tote, filling the output tote, or perhaps, whichever occurs first?

Best regards,
Mike

Ross Muirhead

Nov 22, 2010 12:10

Mike:

First patch ran with heater on during summer ambient temperatures and the flow was coming out 'fast' through the centrifuge which suggests that the oil is leaving the inner bowl faster than maybe it should be for a cleaner product. I think Gary's comments addresses this issue as he seems to have examined the end product more closely, ie: oil quality run through without heater and with heater. Gary did you filter the two patches to compare? Have you completed the two pass system?

It seem that when I had the heater on there was way more 'waste' oil coming out of the drain, vs another patch when the heater wasn't on. 3rd patch I didn't put the heater on, less waste oil coming out, so my intuition is that running without is slower processing time, however cleans the oil better.

On the subject of running patches I make sure that the top 1,000L tote has 1/4 less volume in it, so when I leave the machine running overnight I can rest assured that the bottom tote doesn't over fill. There is no auto shut-off, but letting the centrifuge run with no oil processing is not an issue. If Leon could set up a sensor of some type to switch off the machine when the oil has been processed that would be a nice feature.

John Webster

Nov 22, 2010 13:06

Mike:

I've run oil through my centriguge at room temp. It seems to work fine. Can you give me any info on using wvo in a oil fired hot water boiler. I haven't run across a fool proof setup yet. I'm running two F-350s on centrifuged oil, and I get 10-12 months out of the big filter on my trucks. I have a Dino Design system. They went out of business, but system is great. Anyother info, just ask me.

yt,

John Webster, Maine

deejaaa

Oct 21, 2010 23:18

The video was great. Whoever did the editing needs to be commended. I really liked the music when he was walking into the restaurant. I was hoping to see a before and after use of the CF, a side by side clarity comparison in a small amount, such as a one liter jar. I hope you can keep the vids coming and I will stay subscribed to see them. Thanx Leon, you are very intuitive.

Gabriel Forezli

Oct 23, 2010 17:28

Thanks for the comments!

I do the shooting and editing for these episodes and I'm glad everyone is enjoying them!

Stay tunes, there is more to come!

andrew neaville

Oct 21, 2010 23:16

great video. Its great to see videos of other people's set ups. Way easier than reading descriptions. can't wait for more

craig hall

Oct 21, 2010 22:15

This is great a place to find others that are running vegetable oil as a fuel

Thanks for doing this Leon

Craig Hall
Billings Montana

Donald

Oct 21, 2010 20:27

I have the centrifuge but have not had much success from it. I need to see a more detailed explanation of it. How does one know how fast to feed oil, which port is the out port for the cleaned oil and which is the wast?

Big Vern

Oct 21, 2010 22:27

Hey Donald

The 2 ports on the bottom of the centrifuge body are the clean and waste ports. The clean oil comes out of the port furthest from the motor. The inner port is the waste water and fine particulate that is spun out. We gravity feed our RPC units within the same atmosphere and find with the 240V optional heater from WVO Designs we can flow reasonably settled oil with the feedstock valve (after the heater attached to the feed port on the top of the unit) about 3/4 open. Experiment. Our temps are around 165 degrees C. Run a sample of oil, fill a mason jar 3/4 full, and let it settle. With the RPC, we achieve a water content of 350 PPM which is quite a suprise considering it is a single pass (or spin) process. Good Luck and keep asking questions.

Frank

Oct 21, 2010 18:36

Good job! Keep 'em coming!

Dennis

Oct 21, 2010 16:17

Loved the video! More please. Seeing how others do things only improves the WVO community knowledge.

Aaron Wall

Oct 21, 2010 16:10

Awesome video! Keep 'em coming. I love seeing what other people are doing so that I can improve my own system.

Simone0414

Oct 21, 2010 15:36

I think this a great idea & look forward to viewing more.

Very nice setup!!

Tom Hamlin

Oct 21, 2010 15:12

Thanks Leon, Always great to see how the other guys are doing it.
Looking forward to more.

Bernth Alex

Oct 21, 2010 15:06

I like to see more of this. first e-mail adress was wrong

Bernth Alex

Oct 21, 2010 15:05

I like to see more of this.

Ward Lormand

Oct 21, 2010 13:29

Great video! I really like my centrifuge,
to date I have 110,000 miles on WVO. Keep up the good work. Let's see more videos.

Graydon Blair

Oct 15, 2010 19:34

That was great to see! It's so cool to see all the ingenuity that people have to put something like his oil coop together.

Seeing the centrifuge "in the field" was awesome! I'm looking forward to seeing more!

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On the Road Episode #1

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