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Messages - olscout99

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1
Waste Motor Oil / Re: Relay help needed!
« on: December 26, 2017, 02:18:52 pm »
It WAS dialed in pretty well, until Saturday when it quit working. I'm pretty sure the solid state Beckett ignitor (replaces the big heavy box coil) died on it. I cleaned the diffuser of a pretty good build up near the nozzle, which I suspect was caused by a combination of things to include not enough reflected heat at the beginning, and improper air adjustment, and also cleaned the nozzle (which was open). Put it all back together, and I'm getting oil spray on the target but no fire, so I suspect the ignitor.  Local hardware wants $$$$ for one, so I have one coming from Amazon tomorrow and we'll see then if it's the problem. I have heard people say the new type solid state ignitors are problematic, but unless I can find a smaller iron version it's what I'm stuck with due to the physical constraints of my furnace. The box for the chimney outlet is directly above the gun, and one of the large transformers either won't fit (a really really big one I have here) or will sit against the chimney outlet box (probably not optimal for long life either).  I might do some shopping to see if I can find a smaller iron version to have a spare on hand, waiting four or five days for a new one is not optimal. I have spares of most other parts excepting the ignitor, and I thought I was OK there too until I found the large iron versions I have won't fit.

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Waste Motor Oil / Re: Transfer Pumps?
« on: December 22, 2017, 10:40:15 am »
That is a good question, it seems like maybe it does because most of the high torque applications like pumps and larger air compressors are driven by slower RPM motors. Maybe because it takes less starting current to start lower rpms? 

3
Waste Motor Oil / Re: Relay help needed!
« on: December 21, 2017, 01:21:29 pm »
Well, regarding my last post about moving the gun so it's sloped into the furnace rather than out of the furnace, I just finished that. Harder than it should be, one of the set screws holding the flange to the blast tube was stripped....of course, it can never be easy. Got it done, put it back together and fired it up, and what a difference! The main flame cone is now hitting the masonry target and the 'shelf' on top causes it to roll in the combustion chamber. Before a lot of the heat was going over the target wall; above the main burn chamber are three or four tubes that conduct the hot exhaust to the chimney to gain more heat. The top of the furnace would get very hot before the fan would ever kick on, and then the air output was not as warm as I thought it should be. When I cranked it back up after moving the gun, it took half the time or less for the limit to kick on the fan, and the air temperature blowing out is noticeably warmer than it was before.  All of that should translate to less on time, quicker warm up in the shop, and me being happy. The small things make a difference!

4
Waste Motor Oil / Re: Transfer Pumps?
« on: December 20, 2017, 07:48:45 pm »
I have one of the modified small block Chevy oil pumps, but it's messy and I never got around to properly mounting it. I think if you had a slower motor of less HP you'd be better off. I have run mine with a half inch drill many times, and although it's tough on the drill it does work. I bet a good 1/2 hp motor at 1725 rpm would turn it alright. Cold oil is always going to be tough to pump no matter how you do it.

5
Waste Motor Oil / Re: Waste Oil Boiler install
« on: December 20, 2017, 05:10:31 pm »
I'm a newbie at this stuff too, so I can't comment too much on nozzle size. I think it's probably a good idea to have at least one spare hanging around, just in case, because you aren't likely to find one locally in a pinch. As for the heater, I currently have mine set at 195 target temperature with waste motor oil, which most people say is high, but it starts and fires great. I also don't have a preheater before the nozzle, or a heated constant level tank, so the oil going into the heater block is whatever temp the room air is in the shop, which is usually cold. My PID alarm function comes on at 175, and at 175 it fires fine, but since the advice is to set the alarm temp 20 degrees under the target temp, I don't want to go much lower on the target temp for fear of the oil getting too cold to burn reliably. I know I have read of people who have the best luck at 225 on WMO, I think it might be a function of your particular setup as to what works best. I may try to back mine down a little, but since it's running so well I'm leery of changing too much right now.

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Waste Motor Oil / Re: Relay help needed!
« on: December 20, 2017, 10:51:31 am »
It really is pretty simple when you get down to it. I just needed to wrap my head around the whole 'PID programming', relay activating, thermostat does this instead of going to the TT terminals on the primary, etc.  It's pretty well set now I think, other than with warmer weather this week I think I'm going to move the gun to where it's sloped into the furnace instead of back out of the furnace, which should eliminate my oil drainback problems from the nozzle dripping. It also should put more heat where it needs to be, the Lanair furnace I'm using has a round burn chamber with a refractory 'wall' with a ledge on top that is about six inches tall. The flame pattern is hitting more on the 'ledge' and not so much on the flat of the wall, and some of the flame pattern is over the top of the ledge which means that heat is going pretty much right up the chimney. The fan switch is at the bottom of the burner on the end where the gun is, and I think it depends on that reflected heat off of the wall to warm up the chamber and turn on the fan, which seems to take longer and get hotter than it should, so hopefully that will solve two problems at once.

7
Waste Motor Oil / Re: Transfer Pumps?
« on: December 20, 2017, 10:42:47 am »
That looks like a good pump for what you want to do, and that is a great price compared to what I have seen for those type pumps. I have one similar to this, only because I got a steal of a deal on it on Ebay.  It works great but is noisy. I plumbed it with a spin on filter adaptor on the outlet so the oil is somewhat filtered as I pump from one tank to the next. My 'burner' tank is a 120 gallon aluminum truck saddle tank with the pump, a Goldenrod water block filter, and pressure regulators mounted on top, so the oil is filtered before it gets to the burner also. I think the water block is around 17 microns, so the oil going to the gun should be pretty clean which hopefully results in a better burn and less clean up. I'd say go for that deal, you probably won't get that GPM in cold weather but it will still move oil.
Link to similar pump I have- https://www.northerntool.com/shop/tools/product_200685591_200685591?cm_mmc=Google-pla&utm_source=Google_PLA&utm_medium=Fuel%20Transfer%20%2B%20Lubrication%20%3E%20Oil%20Pumps&utm_campaign=Ingersoll%20Rand%20ARO&utm_content=60399&gclid=EAIaIQobChMInLrGrYOZ2AIVVrXACh3l2QRxEAYYBCABEgK-RfD_BwE

8
Waste Motor Oil / Re: Relay help needed!
« on: December 19, 2017, 02:18:26 pm »
Russ, that's how it worked. I'm learning one step at a time, it's intimidating at first but not that bad once you get into it. I bought an entire 'working' setup, but trying to hook up everything according to the diagrams and photos the guy gave me of it was impossible. I started from scratch and did it my way, and it works, with the upside that I know what does what and how, so if I have an issue I know where to look.

9
Waste Motor Oil / Re: Relay help needed!
« on: December 17, 2017, 04:38:51 pm »
Got it, I found a website that explains 'relay symbols'. A and B are the coil activators (AC, I ran wires from the primary that go to the oil solenoid),  and terminals 4 and 7 are my output. Wired it up that way, crossed my fingers, and it works. I now have a functional waste oil furnace in the shop.

10
Waste Motor Oil / Relay help needed!
« on: December 17, 2017, 12:38:55 pm »
I will admit defeat, I am a total loser when it comes to electronics. Wiring I can do, simple stuff I can do, but reading an electronic schematic I cannot do, at least without a good chance of electrocuting myself. What I have here is a relay I need to wire up to power the 1/4 hp electric motor that runs my pump for my waste oil burner. The relay is a Potter and Brumfield KUP-14A15-120. From the detail I found on the website it has a 120 volt coil (which I can power off of my oil solenoid wires) and the contacts are rated at 1/3 hp (which is more than enough for my electric motor). The problem is, I have NO idea of what the schematic means in plain english.  I need somebody to say 'wire the two 'trigger' wires to the coil here, wire the input hot here, wire the output hot here, and your motor will run'.  Hopefully somebody here has some electronics experience and can help me out here, I ran across these and thought they might be a better choice than an
SSR for the pump motor. I have attached the wiring diagram for the relay, I realize that it's a 3 pole and I only need one, I just need to know which terminals to wire what to for that one pole. Thanks!

11
Waste Motor Oil / Re: Waste Oil Boiler install
« on: December 17, 2017, 10:47:03 am »
That Cleanburn 4000 is a big unit, with the factory nozzle it's rated at 280,000 btu and 2.0 gallons per hour fuel consumption. Did you get the pump with it? The manual I saw calls for around 7 psi oil pressure, and 26 psi air, which is way above and beyond what most of us are running in our kit furnaces. I'm not a furnace or boiler expert and I don't even play one on TV, but do you need that much BTU for your setup? Depending on the size of the burn chamber and how much water you're heating, you might be able to drop down in nozzle size, oil psi and air psi and still do what you need to do. One clue might be cycle time, if the unit cycles on and just runs a short time and cycles off, then does it again shortly after, that may indicate that it's oversized for what you're heating. It's more efficient, or at least that's what I understand, for the unit to run longer cycles less often.

12
Waste Motor Oil / Re: Clave Waste Oil burner vs CKBurners
« on: December 17, 2017, 10:34:02 am »
Other than about $800? Just kidding, I'm going to guess that the pump is the main difference. As far as I can tell, and I'm pretty much a newbie to waste oil heating, there really isn't much 'new under the sun' in burning waste oil. Most all of the designs that work use a siphon feed, either from a constant level tank or a pump. Physical layout of where you want to use it will have a bearing on what you want to use, for me a tank wasn't really handy. Most people on here and on altfuelfurnace on yahoo groups seem to think the metering pump is the best way to go if you can afford it. The nice thing about the Clave pump is that it's adjustable, and with a metering pump the temperature or makeup of the oil doesn't effect the flow rate. I'm currently using a pump but with pressure regulators, and it does require a little tweaking during the day as the oil flow rate changes as it warms up and thins out. I'll likely go with a metering pump eventually myself, but a lot of the 'factory' waste oil burners do use the pressure regulated pump like I'm using now (mine is from a Lanair furnace).  From reading the Clave advertisement on Ebay, I do like the fact that the oil is not heating when it's on standby, but right now my setup is the same way, more by accident than design. That should make for less buildup in the block, although again, there are factory furnaces out there (my buddy's Cleanburn for example) that run the block heater anytime the furnace is powered. He doesn't seem to have any problems with his, and he bought it well used and has used it hard for three years now.

I suggest you talk to Craig and the Clave people, and explain exactly what you're looking for and see what they say. They each will know their products better than anyone, and that will give you an idea on what is best for your application.

13
Fuel Oil Furnaces / Re: Do I need some sort of valve inbetween (switching from below to above ground tan
« on: December 03, 2017, 10:57:57 pm »
Most furnace controls have provisions for oil solenoids that will turn on to allow oil flow to the gun when it starts to fire, and turn off when the control turns off.  Look at the wiring diagram on your main control and you should see terminals for the solenoid.

14
Metering Pumps / Re: More pump information needed
« on: November 26, 2017, 02:21:22 pm »
One more time, two steps forward and one back.  I put it all back together, using different leads to the heater, and I tried them with an extension cord with the heater in the block before I reassembled, and it works. I did notice a frayed looking spot in the cover of the thermocouple, and made a mental note to be careful that I don't mess it up because it looked like it had been pinched or something. Nothing like being a psychic, I got it all back together and no thermocouple action. Evidently moving it around was enough to separate the wires or something at that bad spot I noticed, so I'm dead in the water until my new thermocouple arrives on Tuesday. For good luck I ordered a complete set of new PID and thermocouple also, so I don't have to wait for parts if something goes south in the future. I did get work done on the tank and pump set up today, for lack of a couple little fittings that I need to get from a hardware store (and that I thought I had, but didn't) the pump and tank are ready to go with a new pickup with screen and check valve, and a Goldenrod water block filter in line.  Getting closer, not quite there yet.

15
Metering Pumps / Re: More pump information needed
« on: November 25, 2017, 01:36:01 pm »
OK, I got the PID situation figured out. My PID only has a relay, as I thought, so I ran the 24 volts through it to the relay and it works fine. However, I'm getting no heat action from the heater!  I pulled the gun and tore it down, thinking I needed a new heater cartridge, and I needed to see which version of CK block it was. After I got it out, I pulled the cartridge (the older long one) and just for grins shoved the bare leads into a wall socket. That thing got hot, fast! So now I'm puzzled and more than a little PO'd that tore the gun apart when the heater works. I have no idea of the issue, but I'm going to rewire with different leads tied to the heater leads and go from there. The PID and thermocouple seem to be working fine, it reads in Celsius, it's showing a target temp of 90 C, and an actual temp of 8C (about 46F, which is what ambient was in the shop). So I have no reason to think the thermocouple is not responding, since as the shop heats up it responds appropriately.  About to head out and reassemble it all and try it again.....

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