Please tell me what you think before I splash the cash

Plastic and hot oil do not go well together.

having worked my way down the forums I see now that it is cheaper and more efficient to get the tools out and get busy - good job my pa in law is a metal technologist/blacksmith - thanks for opening my eyes guys.

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Originally posted by Kelpie
having worked my way down the forums I see now that it is cheaper and more efficient to get the tools out and get busy - good job my pa in law is a metal technologist/blacksmith - thanks for opening my eyes guys.

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People here have a high opinion of the appleseed design. Look for posts by girl Mark - I think there is more discussions of specifics on her website. Unfortunately I don't have the URL handy, but it shouldn't be too hard to find. A thought just came to mind. Over at TDIClub there are videos people can watch that explain how to do various types of things to the car. Would girl Mark be interested in doing a video on the construction and use of the appleseed design?

so here we have yet another example of the corporate world shafting us

Fuelmeister is hardly an icon of corporate conduct unless you consider the Ford Pinto case as an icon. More accurately both might be icons of greed and disregard for lives endangered. Fuelmeister having been crafted by a con man who arguably is in line to become the greatest traitor Biofuels have ever known. When not if- someone is maimed or killed by that abomination our whole movement will take the hit on our collective chins! The truest test of honesty in this game is the person who tells you to freely investigate what others say about their product. An active warning of even only potential customers to NOT look at other information speaks for itself. Oren "Opposing America's energy independence is treason"

I'm making this topic sticky since it's an important one for all new people to the site (and to biodiesel production) to read. If you do a search here, you'll find that most people here do NOT like the fuelmeister approach - in particular the use of a plastic mixing tank, and the associated heating system. Combining heating, oil, methanol, and plastic is in general not a good idea. On a similar note - people should also be very wary about the processing "instructions" in the well known book, From the Fryer to the Fuel Tank. While that book has greatly helped raise awareness about biodiesel, probably being the most widely read book on the topic, the section on processing should NOT be followed. There are many problems with the processors recommended in the book (open top processors, potential for explosions, etc.). If you want to get into homebrew, a much, much, much, much, much, much better source is Girl Mark's (Maria Alovert's) book, to be purchased through www.localb100.com, or to attend one of her workshops (or both if possible). For information on workshops, get-togethers, etc. in your area, see both the appropriate regional forum and also the new Workshop/GTG (Get-together) forum.

With respect to plastic drums: What about storing WVO in plastic? Does THIS cause any problems? Also, what about FINISHED Product (B100)? Can I store this in Plastic drums? I'm thinking of STORAGE here, not the PROCESSING. Thanks to anyone in advance.

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Originally posted by Hounds
With respect to plastic drums: What about storing WVO in plastic? Does THIS cause any problems? Also, what about FINISHED Product (B100)? Can I store this in Plastic drums? I'm thinking of STORAGE here, not the PROCESSING. Thanks to anyone in advance.

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Plastic is fine for room temperature storage of either. Oil is delivered in PETE (#1) plastic, and HDPE (#2) drums are standard for B100 storage. Methanol is also storable in plastic.

I went to a Fuelmeister 'seminar' and the only heat involved in their process was the guy recommending that the oil be preheated to no more than 150F (which is luke warm) before transferring to the 'reactor'. And of course the exothermic reaction of the mixing - but this did not heat up the HDPE container much more above that. (I do question the efficiency of the reactor since it is not heated, however.) I think they have done a fair job of putting together a "kit" from what I see. A possibly less efficient kit, and certainly a wildly expensive one. But for people who are not 'do-it-thereselfers' by their nature, it IS an option where one did not exist before. I did not see anything inherently dangerous with the design. Certainly if you take any design and modify it without considering the logical ramifications it can be dangerous (ie: adding a heater to the reactor vessel). But a heater in the reactor vessel was never mentioned as necessary, or an option - so I am at a loss why this product is being criticized for that... There are several other things to criticize it for that are valid - why make stuff up? (Sorry if I am missing something here) Regards - David

I dont' think you're missing somethign, I think some people here are confusing a couple of issues with another past reactor made by someone else which caught fire 4 or 5 times- but some of the same safety criticism applies to the Fuelmeister because of plastic and heat, regardless of whether the heat comes from an internal heater or from an external one (we've seen fires with plastic reactors which were caused by leaks and external sources of ignition) The tanks are polyethylene. Polyethylene threading tends to stretch especially when any heat at all is involved (yes, even if it's coming from hot oil from an external barrel heater). This makes plastic tanks leak over time. The stuff that leaks contains methanol. You'll never see polyethylene tanks used for flammable mixtures in a chemical plant because they're simply unsafe. Fuelmeister and others have used them only because they're the lightest tank to ship that can be bought cheap. Speaking of cheap, all the components are incredibly cheap. The fuelmeister instructions also suggest that you open the reactor after the reaction and let the methanol vent into the air in your shop space. This is of course going to be suicidal in some garages/rooms. If they have eliminated this recommendation from their user manual I'd like to hear about it. A bunch of people have had bad experiences with sparks and methanol fumes. Sparks can come from static, or other power tools or pumps being on in your space, or a flame from a gas furnace in the shop, or you turning on the lights, or the Fuelmeister's Home Depot timer turning on or off, etc, all of which can set methanol fumes alight. If you have a methanol vapor flash explosion and there's nothing around for the flash to set on fire (ie you're working in metal tanks), then it puts itself out (and maybe singes someone's eyebrows if they're unlucky enough to be standing right there). If there's a leaky biodiesel/methanol mixture around like can happen with plastic tanks, you've suddenly got a much bigger problem because that mixture catches fire (ask me how I know) and then the plastic tank catches fire and then the contents spill and catch fire (again, ask me how I know), which can set your entire building on fire. Of course you've also got a 15 gallon tank of methanol vapor right there in that case as well from the methoxide tank. There are various fire safety regulations which prohibit storing large amounts (40 gallons is a large amount) of flammable mixtures (which biodiesel with methanol still in it is considered to be) in plastic tanks (the regulations are going to vary a little depending on the zoning). They do this out of a concern for the same reason I'm describing above. Plastic + flammables are considered a no-no in all industrial applications, including in amounts like we're describing. The bigger issues with the Fuelmeister are that it does not make high-quality fuel, there's a really poor 'method' for dissolving lye into methanol, the methanol pump ($40 at Northern Tool) tends to leak badly, they teach deeply flawed directions for how to make biodiesel (following the methods from Josh Tickell's old book), they recommend you vent the methanol into your room after you're done, they claim there's a methanol 'filter' on the methanol tank when no such thing is scientifically possible, thus promoting false sense of security in users. There are ways in which, at least in past versions, people have sprayed themselves and the whole room with methanol-filled biodiesel because it was possible for a hose to burst if the operator made a simple mistake (they may have fixed this problem since it was very widely criticised here), the machine had no check valve (not sure if this is still true for the same reason- our public criticism) so the 40 gallons of oil often tried to back up and overflow into the 15 gallon methanol tank (also not sure if they've fixed this)- the last couple of features were completely preventable but the Fuelmeister folks somehow didn't get around to spending the $10 in parts to prevent them until at least a year into their sales. The barrel heater wastes huge amounts of energy even with the tiny amount of insulation they sell, they claim unrealistic heat times on the website in order to sell it (ie 1500 watts takes a whole day to do what they claim is done in 2 hours, which is physically impossible), there's no way to clean out hardened glycerol without exposing yourself to methanol fumes. A big criticism I've heard from several people who've bought fuel from FUelmeister users, is that the stuff is cloudy and their cars run badly. I think that's becauuse the Fuelmeister users dont' dry their fuel after washing (water is deadly to fuel systems). In their rush to promote a '24 hour' turnaround on batches, they leave out a few details which make better fuel (such as drying). Mistwashing alone without bubblewashing wastes insane amounts of water. Due to the poor methanol/lye mixing, the methanol/lye tube sometimes clogs. Due to them buying a cheap Home Depot timer as the only 'control' on the system, they only recommend an hour of mixing (those timers only go up to one hour) which is probably insufficient with heated oil, and is DEFINITELY absolutely insufficient at room temperature (you'd need something like 8-12 hours of mixing if you don't heat) The system with a wash tank costs $4,300. By the way, they were not the first system to sell a kit for non-do-it-yourselfers- Biodieselgear.com has cheaper and better-built, more industrial processors, with safer heating, and safer electrical, which eliminates many of the problems I described above. Even cheaper systems are marketed by www.biodieselwarehouse.com, www.b100supply.com, and utahbiodieselsupply.com Mark

Sadly, this system just got huge national exposure on an episode of SpikeTV's "Trucks". Hopefully the cost will make the viewers do a little research before purchasing...

All hail the appleseed. Far better, far cheaper.

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Originally posted by LilTimmy
Sadly, this system just got huge national exposure on an episode of SpikeTV's "Trucks". Hopefully the cost will make the viewers do a little research before purchasing...

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I made a [url="http://blog.myarchive.us/?p=36"]few comments[/url] on it ... as politely as I could. [:)] [img]http://www.myarchive.us/richc/trucks_staceydavid.jpg[/img]

Hey! Why you dissin' Billy Bass in that blog?! [;)] I bought one of those several years ago as a present for my dad. [:D]

Girl Mark, Thanks for that thorough rundown. You brought to light some things that are not readily apparent (like the stretching of PE). And it was handy to have it all in one place. Thanks for taking the time. - kDavid

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Originally posted by Mike Briggs
Hey! Why you dissin' Billy Bass in that blog?! [;)] I bought one of those several years ago as a present for my dad. [:D]

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Hmm ... and I work hard to pick an 'over marketed product' that wouldn't offend someone. [:)] I started with the Ronco pocket fisherman, po-peel (or whatever it was call) and ended up with 'Billy Bass' ... nevering guessing that Mike Briggs was a 'redneck' at heart. You learn something new each day? [:D][;)][:p] -------- moderator Mike ----- Edit the items below as necessary [}:)] I really debated on posting this but know it was done with deserved 'respect' and 'humor' at heart. No offense intended. [img]http://www.myarchive.us/richc/redneck_mikebriggs.jpg[/img] I really should have resisted my immature instinct to include Mike's photo ... hopefully 'humor' is one of his better traits?

Heh heh - hadn't stopped back by this thread for a while, so I didn't see this post.

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Originally posted by Rich

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Originally posted by Mike Briggs
Hey! Why you dissin' Billy Bass in that blog?! [;)] I bought one of those several years ago as a present for my dad. [:D]

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Hmm ... and I work hard to pick an 'over marketed product' that wouldn't offend someone. [:)] I started with the Ronco pocket fisherman, po-peel (or whatever it was call) and ended up with 'Billy Bass' ... nevering guessing that Mike Briggs was a 'redneck' at heart. You learn something new each day? [:D][;)][:p]

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Hey, it's not on MY wall. [:D] It was a present for my dad (I think it's gathering dust somewhere in their basement). I bet at least 90% of those that have been sold were bought as presents by people for their fathers - since most fathers are impossible to shop for (at least by the time you're in your 30s or so, by when you've bought every conceivable tool you can find for your dad, so you have to resort to buying little trinkets like Billy Bass).

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-------- moderator Mike ----- Edit the items below as necessary [}:)] I really debated on posting this but know it was done with deserved 'respect' and 'humor' at heart. No offense intended. [img]http://www.myarchive.us/richc/redneck_mikebriggs.jpg[/img]

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Hey, I thought I had more teeth than that.... maybe the dolphin knocked 'em out....

you should see what we did with that picture in the 'biofuels photo caption thread' at infopop!: http://biodiesel.infopop.cc/eve/ubb.x/a/tpc/f/419605551/m/123106049 mark

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Originally posted by girl Mark
you should see what we did with that picture in the 'biofuels photo caption thread' at infopop!: http://biodiesel.infopop.cc/eve/ubb.x/a/tpc/f/419605551/m/123106049 mark

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Hee hee [:D] I had forgotten about that entertaining thread after my post way back on page 3 or so. hmmm.... dolphin biodiesel.... [:D] isn't that what Dick Cheney's truck runs on?