Waste Vegetable Oil Fuels

NOTICE - 11/20/05: It has come to my attention that you can die, burn your house down, get hurt real bad, and other nefarious and awful things. I am also aware that some people blindly follow instructions without using common sense, and then sue. This post details a “hacked”, non-standard use, out of code, not mother approved, professional driver on a closed course, application. If you mess with this stuff and don’t understand it, bad things can happen. I will not be party to your death, maiming, etc., so if you can’t figure out that this whole process is dangerous. Please don’t read this or come back. Otherwise enjoy, be safe and happy brewing.

**Note** I started this post almost a year ago and am finally getting around to finishing it and adding the fancy diagram. If the timing seems off, that is why!

After viewing Graydon’s finished wash tank, and seeing his plans I was inspired to copy him. My wash tank is almost the same as his (plans here) but I made a few different modifications. The heated mist wash was one. Automatic mister shutoff was another.

Automatic Shutoff Heated Mist Wash

Necessity:
I’ve been getting all of this processor stuff put together and testing my first biodiesel batches in the dead of Utah winter. Luckily now it is getting a bit warmer, despite todays snow. As I got things set up in the original version of my wash tank, Jack Jones, the local guru, mentioned that it would be a good thing to wash with warm water. I’m in my garage and am a ways from a hose tap that is warm. It would mean me running a hose out a window and across a family room. So that idea was out. I needed another way. My first idea was the portable air pressured deliver drum. I scrapped that after seeing what hose pressure did with my mist heads. That much pressure made them work! [Drop kick port-a-drum, after patting myself on the back again for the original concept.] So, now I needed to get the hose water heated, and thanks to a previous idea to use our wash tank drain bung additionally as a heater element port, and some re-remembering of that same idea as viewed on the Scott McLeod & Crew’s processor, it clicked. I could run the hose water through a T with heater element core to heat it.

A mini Exxon Valdez spill in my garage prompted the completion of the “I don’t want to wait until this slow misting process finally finishes up” fix. I had always known I didn’t want to be chained to my garage during brew times. Timers and auto shutoffs have been my plan all along. Originally I had thought that a toilet float valve or swamp cooler float would work to shut off the flow when it reached the top, but both of these are too specific towards their intended purpose to fit my needs. I needed threaded in and out with a valve in the middle. The Po, that’s Home Depot to you Lowes folks, also had some sump float switches but only ones that turn off at the bottom after draining the sump and on after floating to the top to turn on the pump. I needed the exact opposite. House of Pumps to the rescue. They had the other version with 110V piggy back plug to boot. With a sprinkler valve on a 110 to 24 V transformer… Can you see the pieces coming together? Now I can stop the misting at a certain set level as well as turn off the heating element to prevent meltdown after the flow passed the element stops. Throw in a dimmer switch and a new heating element after burning the first one out, and it all falls together.

Description
Faucet to mist heads here is a description. Faucet with a quick couple attachment to easily switch out my garden hose with the mist feed hose. A separate hose from the house to the garage that I’ve hard coupled to my heating apparatus. A fixed connection afrom the hose to the heater to prevent leakage and connection/reconnection spillage. The 1″ T on it’s side with the hose connected to the trunk and the upper side of the cross member used to install the heating element. The heating element is a 240V. I figured it might work better after burning out a 110V. The lower side of the cross memeber is a 12″ nipple that creates the heating chamber. I’ve attached a 24V Toro sprinkler valve that is wired to a 110V transformer. This transformer and the a powered dimmer switch to the heating element run piggybacked of the float switch out outlet. After the valve the piping is reduced down from 1″ to 1/2″ where a 1/2″ to 3/8″ FIP to Compression fitting seals the heater to the mist hose line. From there is Orbit Arizona Mister Kit hose and brass mist heads that make the business end.

Parts List

• Garden hose
• Male male brass hose to 3/4″ NPT
• Female female black iron pipe 1″ to 3/4″ reducer
• 2 - 1″ back iron pipe close nipple
• Heating element
• 1″ back iron pipe “T”
• 1″ back iron pipe 12″ nipple
• Electric sprinkler valve
• Female female black iron pipe 1″ to 3/4″ reducer
• Male female brass 3/4″ NPT to 3/8″ compression fitting
• Orbit 3/8″ Arizona Mist Kit
• 110 to 24 V inverter for sprinkler valves
• Dimmer switch (to adjust the power to the heating element)
• Pig tail (to power the heating element)
• Float switch with piggy back outlet (up off - turns power of when float is up)