Babington Burner

[Ivan]

Tombo, I've just done some reading on dioxins. Seems like the two things that help produce dioxins are 1)presence of chlorine-containing chemicals 2)presence of some metals in close proximity to the exhaust especially copper (as well as 3. low combustion temperatures.)

[Tombo]

Ivan, We stopped testing shortly after we discovered the dioxin formation, the risk wasn't really worth it.
Personally I think they could have been reduced by achieving a higher combustion temperature and retaining the combustion products within the combustion chamber for a longer time. However this is just an assumption. It could have equally been something present in the original oil that caused the problem or the glycerine itself.
I would proceed with caution and perhaps a very high level exhaust. I personally would get it tested once your up and running. There is no point in poisoning oneself in the name of saving money / the planet.
Sorry to sound like an health and safety badger.

[Ivan]

No, please don't apologies - I'm very happy to listen. Indeed, it may have been in the oil - from what I read, the dioxin concentrates in oily things in the food chain, so no surprise if the crop had absorbed dioxin from contaminated land, and nothing to do with your burner.....but of course, the risks are still there, where-ever it came from.

Let me know how you tested for dioxin. I understood it to be very expensive - if it's possible for me to get it tested, I'm more than happy to do so.

[Ivan]

First pictures of the babington burner running on WVO.

It's very crude, and needs a lot of development, but it proves the principle. Surprisingly blue flame behind the yellow that is much more obvious. I had a lot of trouble photographing it, but the first photo does show it reasonably well.

The flame would not stay lit without a blowlamp with a bare burner, but as soon as I added a 'flame retention tube' (another tin can with top and bottom removed), it stayed lit very consistently until the air pressure exceeded 60psi (we fiddled around with air pressure) or the fuel supply tank ran dry.

[KenB]

Nice one Ivan,

You won't freeze this winter ;-)

Interested to hear all future developments.


Ken

[iann41]

It all looks pretty impressive.

I remember having a lot of run off oil that kind of thickened and turned to a tar like substance.

Never fully got round this.

One of the reasons i gave it up.

If you can achieve full combustion then it a great way to use veg oil. Tonnes of heat produced and that noise alone puts a grin on everyones face (apart from our lass who thought the house would burn down).

I wanted to make a potters kiln using my babington but ran out of space, the kiln would have been 10'x10'x6' when built.

[jotec]

Respect
D ick

[PSSSSD]

I'd just like to say hi and nice work, from a new member with an interest in (or an addiction to ) burning waste oil

[Ivan]

Thanks for the encouragement (as if I needed it!).

Well it's getting colder, and I'm sure you're all wondering whether I've been doing any work on the babington burner recently. Well actually,...... no.

This evening I decide to catch up, so I've got a few new photos.

Firstly, I've decided to retro-convert an existing oil burner from an old oil boiler to run on a babington. I figured I can probably replace the jet with a ball, and use the original oil pipe to feed the air to the ball, and the original oil pump to recirculate the veg oil from the run-off tank back to the top of the ball. Sounds simple enough doesn't it, and the best bit is that I can retain the electronic ignition and the flame detect sensor (which looks like a ORP12 sensor, incidentally). I can also take advantage of the fanned air - so it will be room-sealed, and I'm hoping I can tune the mixture by using a high temperature K-temperature probe.

The Ball

I found the ideal babington burner ball on the framework of our bed, but my wife wasn't keen on it being removed, so had to look around for an alternative. SteveB came up with the solution - a brass finial from a Burley fire surround. Unfortunately for me, this wasn't a flimsy brass balloon but a solid lump of brass with a threaded hole drilled in the base. Somehow, I didn't fancy drilling the 0.35mm hole through 3/4" thickness of brass, so the first thing I did was to drill the hole in the base of the ball much deeper, so I only had 4 or 5mm of brass to drill through with the tiny drillbit. If I had the right adaptor or a lathe to make one up, I would have used a threaded connector to screw the ball directly in place of the original oil jet. As I don't have, I decided on an alternative.

Modifying the ball
1)Drilled the base hole out to  6mm
2)Drilled a hole in the curved front of the ball - 0.35mm (Several people have pointed out that 0.25mm would have been better, but I'd already purchased the drillbits by then. Incidentally, my technique of dremel jubilee-clipped to the pillar drill works extremely well - didn't have any trouble drill several millimetres - more like 7 or 8mm
3)Remove lacquer from base of ball, and clean up metal until shiny. Insert length of 6mm copper pipe to feed ball with air. Solder 6mm pipe into base of ball.
 
Now I've got to fix the ball rigidly to the metal ring that used to hold the oil jet. I spent about an hour looking at different methods, but in the end gave up. Instead I dismantled what was already there, and drilled a 6mm hole right through the brass bodied fitting that originally held the oil jet (which has been removed). As the copper pipe is 6mm, it took some effort to force it through this fitting (about 4" long). But that means it's rigid and secure. I needed to grind of a little of the finial base to allow the spark-ignition unit to be refitted in it's original place. I've also had to saw off about 3/4" from the original fitting, so that the ball resides in the same location as the original jet (the ball is quite a lot bigger than the jet, so has to be mounted further back, in order to do this). The spark ignition electrodes needed to be bent slightly to clear the ball, but I'll worry about this once we're ready to test things.

Next on the list is something to feed oil onto the ball, and something to catch the residue. I've seen some really nice ideas for this - use a stop-end and mount the bab ball right inside the fitting....neat, but it needs to be at least 35mm to suit my ball, and I haven't got any 35mm fittings. I tried a 28mm fitting  but it was too small. I'd hoped an elbow might be a good option, but it needs to be at least 22mm to catch everything, and 22mm is too big to fit. So I tried a 22mm stop end on it's side, drilled in the side to take a 10mm drain pipe. Looks ok. Just need to work out how to fix it there.

[Ivan]

three more

[frotter]

Awesomely nifty adaptification there, bud! Have an applaud. Really hope it works....


 

[Ivan]

Praise indeed, from the mighty Frotter!

I'm trying to keep it so that it's a standard burner fitment. That way it can be fitted and removed at will. Which means I've got to find three holes for copper pipes to go through 1- air 2-oil feed 3-oil return.

[homebrewpower]

Hi to everyone here.

Couple of hints and tips that may help you guys out here.

1. The 0.0135" hole needs to be drilled at high speed 15,000RPM+ to get a clean hole. Pillar drill and professional high speed drill is a must here.
2. Forget using standard solder for jointing the brass sphere to the compression valves you need 55% Sure Silver M25T Rods 680 Degrees Celsius Melting Point which is really expensive but essential.
3. The Spheres I use a spun brass and NOT cast brass, they are way too thick for the application and are very difficult to drill out accurately.
4. Cost and profits, for anyone who is interested.

a) The Brass knobs are imported from the USA (You can not source them this side of the atlantic TRUST ME!) + Air Freight & Tax £7.00 per unit
b) Brass compression fitting £2.00
c) Silver Solder Rods @ £2.00 per rod (I use 1 per 2 units) so £1.00 per completed unit.
d) Micro drills @ £2.00 each (2 per ball and replace) so £1.00 per completed unit.
e) Acetic Acid, Polish, propane, butane @ £1.00 per completed unit
f) Postage and packaging @ £3.00 my cost
g) Advertising, Adwords, Promotion @ approx £5.00 per completed unit would be very fair (Ebay / Paypal / Adsense)
h) Manufacturing time approx 1.5 Hours per unit @ £12.00 per hour = £18.00 labour costs

So lets add up some figures.

07.00
02.00
01.00
01.00
01.00
03.00
05.00
18.00
*******
£38.00 per completed unit assuming no damaged components, failed holes, dents or poor quality workmanship.

So I take for my labour £18.00 per Babington Burner Nozzle + £2.00 towards materials for future purchases. I run my own business and have to pay for the upkeep of all my Electrical tools, transit van, workshop and maintenance.

For those who are wanting to make their own the above should give you a fair idea of what is in store.

 

[Tombo]

Air Freight for a brass knob 

[homebrewpower]

Yes I purchase them in batches and get them within 1 week. Tried having the shipped and they take 6-8 weeks, way too long for me to wait. These are part of my core business not just a hobby item.