Waste Oil Heater Forum - Your definitive source for burning waste oil for heat.
Waste Oil Heater => User Projects & Pictures => Topic started by: cowkllr on December 16, 2014, 05:10:58 pm
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I am building my own waste oil burning heater. I have done a lot of research and I am using ideas from all different designs. I have an 80 gal air compressor tank. I have built an Ozzirt style burner and placed it inside the tank. I know the ozzirt burner isn't made to be inside the tank but I was going to ad a blower fan. The burner isn't burning as clean as have seen others burn clean. I left the vents in the rotor open and drilled 6 holes in the rotor. Should I weld the vents closed and keep just the drilled holes? Should I drill more holes in the secondary burn tube? Or should I scrap my idea and mount the burner on the bottom of the tank so it is outside the tank like the original ozzirt hetaer? Any help is appreciated.
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I've always thought the ozzirt heater was a good design. I'd go with the burner on the outside of the tank.
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Does the exhaust have to be larger than the secondary burner tube? My exhaust is a hair smaller.
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Is this what you were trying to build with the compressor tank? http://love2diy.com/category/waste-oil-ozzirt-burner/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQGtl87-x58
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Yeah kinda. I've watched all his videos. Mine don't have the steel plate at the top of the burner that seperates the burner from the heat chamber. That might be what I need. I was looking into the roger sanders version with the blower motor too. I would post pics but all my pics are too large of a file. I need to make them smaller.
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I believe that Russ can help with sizing your pic.
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I think I got it resize enough. Does the height of the secondary matter? This one is 12" tall
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http://youtu.be/RXwI1aAh2WU
Here's a video. I have to keep the rotor slid off the pot a little for it to get this hot when its inside the tank.
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Your primary burner, why does it have so many holes and why are they so big? I've never built an Ozzirt heater so I have no experience with one. I'm not sure if the length on the secondary burner makes any difference. From looking other Ozzirts heaters they have less and smaller holes in the primary and the secondary burners seem to have more.
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They are 1/2" holes. I could try blocking some off and see what that does. I did notice when I slid the rotor off the pan to get more air the smoke good t darker.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaUBYNiLs20
This guy has four vids of how he improved his Ozzirt heater.
Here's a plan of an Ozzirt. I was wrong this has six primary holes and they are 6mm.
http://i303.photobucket.com/albums/nn133/ozzirt/Heater.gif
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Good info. I'll do somemore testing. Thanks
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Yep, it is a tricky balance between airflow and fuel/gas produced. Not only is the volume of air important, where it is applied, and how it mixes with the fuel is also important. And of course more is not better as this can cool down the burner and effect how the gas is produced. One thing I figured out pretty quickly is you better have the finished flue in place to experiment with. Any changes to the flue mean that all that trial and error you did getting it to burn right probably just went out the window. That is one of the best parts the gentelman in the above linked videos points out. I think it is also good to plan on covering/enclosing the burner section in a box with a single air inlet that can be ducted to the outside. Depending on how well the building into which this is being installed is sealed, whether doors and windows are open and how far can really effect the draft in the flue. If you duct in the combustion air, the state of windows and doors will have no effect on the burn. It will also help keep the draft from one of these monsters from pulling cold air in thru evey leak in the envelope of the space you are trying to heat. IT is also safer, if you work on vehicles and accidently spill fuel, the vapors on the floor are going to be drawn to this heater and could possibly be ignited by the burn pan, blowing off the aformentioned doors and windows in a gross and viscious fashion:)
I have been playing with this type burner lately and it has been tricky to get it to burn consistently without adding forced air. The main advantage of the forced air is the turbulence it can be made to create. That is where the holes seem to work the best over other air inlet methods, They create more turbulence. Some swirl in the burn also helps, but too much dosn't:) What I found is the more noise it makes, the better it is usually running, but making changes is real hit and miss as it can be a lot of drilling just to find out it dosn't work any better, or works even worse...
One thing I found is that a curved bottom burn pan is usefull. Since the gas produced is a factor of the temperature and the size of the oil puddle in the pan. In a curved bottom pan, the size of the puddle can be varied by flow rate to help taylor the gas produced to the available airflow for a clean burn.
Fuel flow can also be a problem. Most of these I have seen have a jug feeding the burner from a shelf or bench. Gravity while readilly available is not very consistent when powering a fluid that changes viscosity and flows better as it gets warm... I ran into this when building my babbington. As it warmed up, it would run away and required constant throttle adjustments. I didn't want to use a fuel pump so I settled on a lightly pressurized fuel tank on the ground. It seems to give me much more consistent oil flow as the garage warms up.
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http://youtu.be/wdRF-j83A2k
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Waste oil burner test: http://youtu.be/wdRF-j83A2k
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The two videos above this post is some testing I did today. The primary burner in both videos has on 3 half inch holes and the half inch pipe thread hole that the oil drips in. One is with the secondary burner with hole and another without. Looks I got less smoke out of the tube without the holes.
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That video with the flame burning well above the pipe looks like you are making too much vapor for the ammount of air being admitted down at the bottom(running rich). Once the vapor leaves the top of the pipe, it has access to all kinds of fresh air. How can it be smoking when it has access to all the air it can possibly want? Answer: it is being overly cooled:) that and the air cannot reach into/mix with all the vapor before it cools below it's flame point. That is one of the reasons the Babbington burns so completely, it has air(and a lot of turbulence) inside and outside the fireball. That unburnt gas is just going to condense back into carbon in the exhaust and inside the main heat chamber.
Like any fluid that changes states, a tremendous ammount of heat energy is transfered in releasing the vapor(same as boiling water). As an example the ammount of heat lost from an open topped water tank thru evaporation is many many times greater per square foot compared to the heat lost thru the uninsulated wall of the tank for the same surface area. That oil vapor is carrying away a lot of heat before it burns to generate/release more heat. All That flame up there above the tube has nothing to catch or reflect the heat it is releasing from the gas, so that heat dosn't help to warm the incomming air and enhance combustion. Ideally you want all the visible flame to be below the top of the pipe. That way all the heat released helps power the process.
One way you can easilly reduce the fuel vapor produced in a flat bottom pan is to add structure to the bottom of the pan that is tall enough to break the surface of the oil puddle. A handfull of large nuts or ball bearings comes to mind. This will reduce the ammount of vapor produced so you can match it to the airflow.
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The two videos above this post is some testing I did today. The primary burner in both videos has on 3 half inch holes and the half inch pipe thread hole that the oil drips in. One is with the secondary burner with hole and another without. Looks I got less smoke out of the tube without the holes.
Those videos look the same(have the same address also:)).
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Got the burner mounted on the bottom gonna fire it up and drill some holes and try to get it tuned correctly.
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The two videos above this post is some testing I did today. The primary burner in both videos has on 3 half inch holes and the half inch pipe thread hole that the oil drips in. One is with the secondary burner with hole and another without. Looks I got less smoke out of the tube without the holes.
Those videos look the same(have the same address also:)).
Yeah it is. Her is the other one. Waste oil burner test: http://youtu.be/H2i0gkhDwBo
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Waste oil heater: http://youtu.be/NJfco0QHvCk
Fired it up today. Got the burner to 1000° without the oil pooling up in the pan. It was burning instantly. Seemed to have good draft but the smoke was still a Lil dark I think. It was so cold out that I had to heat the oil line with my map gas torch to get it to flow so the heater would take off.
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More testing today. I think I got it close. It is make much less black smoke. Waste oil heater testing: http://youtu.be/H1vzHq5vA_s