Waste Oil Burner Using A Fuel Injector From A Car...?

[LSxPoweredSorento]

So i was cleaning up the garage...  By cleaning i mean looking at all the crap i have and thinking of cool things i can do with it....  I found the fuel rail assembly from my Kia Sorento. I don't need it and they really aren't worth enough on ebay to make it worth selling.
Well my brain started its normal ADD task of running through cool things to do...  Water mister for cooling off in summer came to mind, however its winter in Ohio. So i got to thinking about shooting waste oil out of it. I looked on Google but found nothing. So, an experiment was in order.
Filling the rail with room temp oil it fires out like a stream with compressed air behind it. No good for burning there. However, as the quantity in the rail diminished it started firing a super fine mist. Finer then what my siphon nozzle sprays.
I took my small torch and stuck it in front of the injector....  Freaking flamethrower!
i am working on a oil heater using an old propane tank and am immersion heater i robbed from my radiant oil filled heater. If i used that then pressurized the tank to equal the air behind the injector, i could drip the oil into the airstream to get the proper ratio.
Just a thought...
Anyone heard of this sort of craziness?

[Russ]

Cant say that I have ever heard of anyone trying that before, but good idea.  You never know if you don’t try.  That's what I love about this forum, hearing stories like this and seeing all of the great things people build.  Thanks for sharing and let us know if you make any progress with it.

[LSxPoweredSorento]

Will do!

I was going to use the gas tank that I had in the attic of my garage.  It is from the GEO Tracker that donated its frame and driveline to build my GEO Metro 4x4.  I have the submersion heater from my radiant oil heater that I was going to use to preheat the oil.  After some thinking though, I need to pressurize the oil supply and the fuel injector if I am going to drip into the injector flow via a needle valve.  Otherwise the air would just push the oil in the feed line back into the tank.
So I am going to use an old propane tank with a ball valve on top and a fitting welded into the side.
Some of the flux tank systems (for submerged arc welding) we make at work have 2 air tight hoppers. The lower hopper feeds the flux via air pressure while the top can be opened and filled.  Closing the ball valve between the 2 lets you fill the top while the bottom still feeds.  Close the fill neck lid on the top and you can open the ball valve.  This transfers the flux to the bottom tank without stopping the flux supply.
I am going to do the same thing but just with 2 propane tanks. I will also install the heater in the bottom tank and insulate it with some thermal wrap or thermal tape.  I have a sponsorship with DEi (Design Engineering) so I can try some different products to see what works the best.
I figure if I get the oil hot enough (even possibly using pre heat coil in the flame chamber) then it should vaporize with ease.
If it all goes awry then I still have the oil heat tank for a different setup....  Siphon nozzle or drip system.

[Oilburner]

I have had the thought of fuel injectors for a while now and the research I have done says they will be a hard task.

Firstly to get them to spray you want as much pressure behind them as possible. From what I looked up most operate in the 40-60 Lb range. I was thinking 500-1000 PSI from a power steering pump but maybe that's not necessary?

The other thing and the main reason to use them is flow rate. For the burners I make and I would think most heating applications, they don't flow all that much oil. That could be OK though, you could use multiples and click them in for low, medium high,  or now wer'e talkin!

It also seems you can't run the things permanently wide open or the coils burn out. they are designed to be pulsed. There are some schematics on different sites to build these things and can be done with aurdinos but that's a bit beyond me. The drivers allow the injectors to be controlled in frequency and pulse width, IE, how long each squirt cycle lasts.

If they can't spray oil, they could still be used with a blown air type burner to control the amount of fuel delivered.
Just set them to inject into the airstream and let the air carry the fuel along into the burner.

I was thinking to buy the highest pressure caravan type pulse pump I can find. I think I Have seen them 140/150 PSI and try an injector with one of those and see how it works..... and for how Long!  :0)