Chinese Planer Heater

[dgs]

Hi David, here is a table which shows water/time using the turbo dryer. I would say if you have heated your batch 3x it will be more than dry enough.



Time      Bio temperature       r/h-sensor      temperature-sensor    water s/b

start              65degs                50%                      26.3                  860ppm

+1 hour          66degs                42%                     27.4                  400ppm

+2 hours         66degs                36%                     27.5                  180ppm

+3 hours         67degs                30%                     28.5                  130ppm

+4 hours         67degs                28%                     29.0                  120ppm

Remember that the drying works exponentially v time. Years ago I dried a batch to 50ppm, it took 13 hours to get down to that level.

Today I dried my latest batch. According to info from the net 200 litres of bio would heat up at 4degs per hour using 1kw. Using the Planer in conjunction with the 1kw immersion I got a rise in temperature of 10degs/hour which I suppose means the Planer is heating the bio at least as much as the immersion.

Not very scientific I know but if correct the saving on drying a 200 litre batch is something like 5kw hours. 

[dgs]

Day 29 and the heater is working faultlessly. It has used 40 litres of kerosene and been on around 7 hours per day at settings of around 50%. The bio room is now around 25degs during the day.

It heats the cone on the processor so to get to my usual 30degree process temperature I only need to use the immersion for 15mins.

When heating the wash tank to 50/60 degs the electric useage is only 50% of previous.

[Julian]

Sounds excellent ... but we're all waiting to find out if it runs on bio!


Go on, you know you want to.

[dgs]

Yes, I do want to but I'm going to take it carefully when I start when the weather gets a little warmer. If I got myself into a 'carboning up' situation I would rather have to clean it out when it was a little warmer.

[dgs]

RE- THINK, It's now been running fine for the last 4 hours on 1/3bio and 2/3 kero.

[Tony]

Heh couldn't resist the lure of testing it on bio?  How does the exhaust smell?

[dgs]

Correct Tony. couldn't resist. Switched off now so I'll have a sniff tomorrow.

Every time I top the tank up in future I will use 50/50 bio/kero. So after 10 or so days that will be the ratio. Using it today it responds just the same as on 100% kerosene.

[dgs]

Exhaust doesn't smell like a car on bio, still has that mineral/dino smell.

[dgs]

Well, i didn't even get to topping the tank up with the 1st lot of 50/50 as after 3 days of running on the 1/3 bio blend the unit carboned itself up!

Spent 2 hours yesterday (coldest day of the winter) stripping the heater and de carboning everything.

So there is the answer- it doesn't like bio! Now running fine again on just kero.

Looking on the net at better instructions than the ones as-supplied it does say 'Bio fuel forbidden'!

[Julian]

Shame … but well done for trying.

[photoman290]

when i inquired about the more expensive version, can't remember the make, i was told in no uncertain terms that it ran on diesel and nothing else. running on kero would invalidate the 4 year guarantee. didn't dare ask about bio!

[dgs]

I joined the air heater facebook group a few days ago. Apparently at least one member on there has been using a bio/kero blend for 4 months without problems.

Seems you can alter the fuel/air mix on them, I haven't learnt how to do this yet so maybe with a bit of 'tweaking' it will run on a blend.

It was down for 2 days last week again, totally my own fault- I will 'mess' with things, suppose it's learning the hard way.

Realizing how clean methanol burns I thought it could be a good idea to blend a little into the kero, so I added 15%. As soon as the mix hit the pump it stopped!

I cleaned out all the fuel lines, refilled the tank with kero but the pump wouldn't re-start. Ended up poking a piece of wire in both ends and it started?

Still can't understand how the pump stopped with only 15% methanol in the mix.

Anyway all back to normal at the moment.

[Julian]

... Apparently at least one member on there has been using a bio/kero blend for 4 months without problems.

He probably makes quality bio!

[dgs]

Ha ha.

[dgs]

Just an update, the heater is still working faultlessly. I wonder if twin tanking would work, trouble is would I remember to switch it back to kero after running on bio, probably not, so I would risk the thing sooting up again.

Watching a tube video of two blokes experimenting with trying their heater on various fuels. They aren't keen on any veg blend and even on bio have to be left on high settings.

Another video shows someone running one on petrol. It seemed to work ok, even for prolonged periods on minimum settings. So I remembered I had some misfuel. I mixed some 50/50 with kero and hey presto, it works. It's been running all day on the mix (misfuel is approx 50/50) at all settings. I have about 100 litres of this misfuel that someone gave me years ago so I will have to enquire if any of the local garages have any more.

At least this blend has reduced the ppl from about 50pence to 25 pence.