Are there better prices overseas?

[gamecock]

Xyzpdq0121;28890 wrote: Can Be done, it is called "Bio-Diesel". I modded my mom's old Mercades to run on Bio-diesel. She now gets 52 MPG of veggi oil and loves it. Granted her car smells lick McDonald's Fries when you drive behind her but it is well worth it. Seriously, if I had a Diesel car here, I would mod it in a hearbeat!

Best part is, if you run out of oil, you can use diesel till you can find a frier!

Andy, do you have the reactors and everything to clearify your own oil or do you use fresh?!?

Biodiesel is vegetable oil that has had the glycerin stripped out of it chemically through use of a still and heat. I dont do that. I put filtered waste vegetable oil into my car. You dont exactly back up to a fryer unless you want to damage your engine. My waste oil from a local Thai place is well settled and filtered down to 10 microns before it goes in my tank.

Cost to purify works out to like $.40 a gallon or less. I have not ran the numbers lately but it was cheap. Now you have to buy the reactor if you want to purify your own which is about $2000-$3000. You save that in your first year easy. Even for just one car it is well worth it.

I replace my onboard filters ($30) every 6000 miles. Of course there is my time to pump out the restaurant drum every three weeks. A biodiesel reactor (if I wanted to go that route) is expensive but I agree that you would recoup the cost. You also would have to factor in the chemicals to make biodiesel. Last year I drove 20,000 miles and spent a total of $208 in fuel. I have saved thousands in the 50,000 miles on my veggie system.

You get the oil for free because normally the restaurants have to pay to have it disposed, if you take it you save them money.

That is how I proposed it to my current restaurant. He was paying $100 a month to griffin Industries to haul the oil away. We both benefit. I worry that if more hobbyist like myself start to do this, it will no longer be free.

He has a small reserve tank of diesel to start the car and to purge the engine of vegie oil so its easier to start up. He looked into both but decided on the car conversion citing the presents of children and the dangers of the chemicals.

I start the car in the AM and shut it down in the evening on diesel so that veggie oil does not cool in the injectors and injection pump. It causes less wear and tear on the system. With biodiesel you modify the oil to the car. You can run biodiesel in any unmodified diesel. I chose to modify the car to the oil. I have inline heaters and filters to reduce the viscosity of the oil so that the engine is "fooled" into using it for combustion.

The at home refinery can get pretty messy but the chemicals are not dangerous (to my knowledge)

To make biodiesel you mix lye and methanol and mix it with vegetable oil and heat the mixture. If you splash the lye/methanol mixture in your eyes, you will be blinded. If it gets on your skin, you will get burned. The byproduct is biodiesel and glycerin (lye soap anyone?). Even though biodiesel is more popular, I was not keen on putting on arm length gloves and goggles and having to cook up a batch every time I needed fuel. Plus I have three children under the age of 14.

 

[xyzpdq0121]

I replace my onboard filters ($30) every 6000 miles. Of course there is my time to pump out the restaurant drum every three weeks. A biodiesel reactor (if I wanted to go that route) is expensive but I agree that you would recoup the cost. You also would have to factor in the chemicals to make biodiesel. Last year I drove 20,000 miles and spent a total of $208 in fuel. I have saved thousands in the 50,000 miles on my veggie system.

Wow, I did not know there was an onboard filter now. You are right, for the average user, I think that is a better option.

My "make me a billionaire" plan a few years ago was to talk to Wal-Mart and have them convert all their trucks to Bio-fuel. They would make money off the removal from the restaurants, could process it themselves, save on the gas costs of moving there cheap crap across the country, and improve the environment. They did not go for it. Chumps!

 

[matttvi]

Xyzpdq0121;29084 wrote: Wow, I did not know there was an onboard filter now. You are right, for the average user, I think that is a better option.

My "make me a billionaire" plan a few years ago was to talk to Wal-Mart and have them convert all their trucks to Bio-fuel. They would make money off the removal from the restaurants, could process it themselves, save on the gas costs of moving there cheap crap across the country, and improve the environment. They did not go for it. Chumps!

now pitch that to UPS and/or FedEx...

 

[mojo]

Or you could buy one from

 

[kwl1763]

Chris it depends on how sensitive your stuff is to phasing. 50Hz vz 60Hz is a big deal in some cases. For a pump it shouldn't matter much and most even say 50-60hz. If it's electronics though it could make a big difference.