Above 1200 Sq/FT 86's 20HP shop

[matt_i]

This is a fantastic development project! The burner is looking great, don't be afraid to put heat into the welds on thicker material. I've been hand-grinding the tungstens my whole life, just spin them around in my fingertips. I also suffer from middle age "loss of vision depth" and go without glasses and get close enough to where I can see. One bugaboo is to make sure that glasses go back on before grinding the tungsten again. I missed that step once in a hurry and got rewarded with a trip to the ophthalmologist......little flying pieces of metal come off the grinding wheel at supersonic speeds!

I hope you get the burner sorted out and get some heat flowing. Its been a wonderous (ly warm) winter so far in Michigan and I've tried to make the most of it. Ironically been cutting and fitting bags and bags of roxul (rockwool) and I like the stuff.

 

[86turbodsl]

Thank you Matt! High praise from you! I've admired and respected you for many years and appreciate your input.

I am happy to report that my tank relocation and burner feed / needle valve concept works fine! I am now heating oil, circulating with the pump, and feeding into the old burner through the needle valve, heating the space again. Which is good, it's 40F out there, 20F outside and howling wind. I would have been flirting with 32F in another day i think, even with the thermal mass of the concrete.

I found that the oil takes quite a while longer to preheat with the added thermal mass of the pump and extra lines. I'll probably insulate the lines once i approach a more finished iteration of the design.

I like the roxul ok, but i did a little coughing and noticed the stuff hanging in the air a bit. At least it's not itchy.

 

[86turbodsl]

Made this inner tube today. 304ss. It goes inside the main burner tube. The theory is it gets super hot and the radiant heat coming off it vaporizes the oil as it sprays through it. We shall see if it lives. I might have to make one out of thicker stainless.

Shop is running about 60f. A little more heat in here and I might try swapping burners and test a bit.
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[86turbodsl]

Today i installed the new burner in the boiler, made new high voltage wires to connect the oil burner transformer to the electrodes, and setup the rest of the lines and hookups. I made the test burn attempt and it pretty much didn't fire. I'd get some burps, but not much of anything. I then got out the propane wand, and preheated the tube from inside the boiler, basically firing into the end. After that, i was able to get it to start a bit, but firing was very very lazy. Lots of spitting oil too. Then i thought that there might not be enough air for good combustion, and took the supplied air hose and blew into the end of the tube. THEN it took off and pretty much blew a flame jet.
Restarts were iffy, due to oil fouling the electrodes. I managed to break an insulator on the electrodes. Had one left to salvage.

So i have some lessons learned

1. Need to supply combustion air. Unsure where to bring it in, will research it.
2. Need to preheat the assembly to fire it well. Maybe feed the doorknob with propane to start and take over with air after.
3. Thinking i might have too much oil flow over the ball, due to how much oil was dripping off the end of the tube, even after heating up.
4. The high voltage lines that are exposed need to be covered. I got ONE HELL OF A SHOCK when i touched by mistake. Felt it in my heart. I'm blessed to be alive.
5. I might have to table this development for a while, i can't spend all winter switching back and forth on burners, it's taking up too much time. We shall see.

Hope you're all having a better weekend than i am. Lot of stuff going on here. My daughter backed into the pole barn and made a mess of the lease car. $500 deductible. More drama at work. Dreading going back tomorrow. And there's a big cold snap coming that will test my old burner sorely. 3F next week!

 

[Strouty]

Sorry about your troubles, your tenacity with this project is inspiring, seriously.

Hope work drama settles down, maybe you can hide out in the machine shop again?

 

[86turbodsl]

Thanks. I probably won't hide in the machine shop, the drama IS in the machine shop.

 

[86turbodsl]

The drama is resolved. One less headache to think about. Back to my burner conundrums. I am thinking i might try to bring in the outside air tangentially towards the rear of the pipe so i give it some mix time. Also, i may drill some admittance holes into the inner pipe to allow air in, and i will most likely be restricting the oil flow rate with an overflow and needle valve, i think i'm getting way too much flow. Since i don't have a good way to slow down the flow rate without changing the motor, i think i need to just bypass some of it.

 

[Strouty]

Glad at least one thing got better, sounds like you have a few directions to go with the burner. How thick is the oil after it leaves the pump? I know they make bypass flow thingys for carbs when using an electric pump, I think I have seen them able to take 50 psi and turn it into 4 using a bypass return line setup.

 

[86turbodsl]

It's fairly thin. I have a system planned that will work I think. A tee, a ball valve and a needle valve, i should be able to thin the stuff down. Also, i have another oil burner motor that's half speed, and the pump fits that chassis. I would have to make an adapter plate though. No big deal.

I got a wild hair today i wanted to test the syncros. It has been a couple months and no work on them, so it's time. I cleaned a pile of stuff up, organized and pitched some stuff, and cleared a path. Moved the syncros over to the door where the plugs are.



The area cleaned up nice.



And after moving the syncros, i noticed that the oil tank is leaking more. Its full of waste veggie oil. I really need to move it over to the boiler area and pump it out, so i can get rid of the tank. Maybe i'll work on that this weekend. It takes about a full day to heat up the tank with the heater element. I try not to move oil unless it's at least 80-90F. It takes too long otherwise.

I also switched over to the other burner and ran it pretty hard tonight, got the temp up from 43F to 53F by 1030pm. About 3 hrs burning. I think i'm going to focus on automatic controls this week, if i get that setup, with a little programming, i can set the boiler to shutdown automatically and probably get the shop up to 60 to 65 consistently.

Most nights i can't stay out there long enough to get it that warm.


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[86turbodsl]

Got the $100 Syncrowave300 hooked up tonight. The cleaner looking one with the sp4 programmer.

Pulled the side cover to check voltage. Set to 230V. It looks like BRAND NEW INSIDE.
Like ZERO use.

Hooked up the cord, added welder plug. Turned on.
Welded 7018 DCEN, 6011 AC, current control works. high freqency works. Reset the points to .008in.

Everything appears to work 100pct.

Total cost $100 + ohio tax + fuel.

I am beyond giddy. I think she's a keeper. BEAUTIFUL arc. Beastly power.
Still have to build the foot pedal since it's a 5 pin and uses a different plug than my other one.

What ***** is having so many excellent welders, i want to use em all the time...



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[Strouty]

Sweet deal!

 

[Perrorojo]

That's an awesome feeling when you take a chance and it works out.

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[86turbodsl]

Agreed. Sometimes i get burned, but thankfully not this time.

 

[1Garageman]

You got one hell of a deal on that! Nice job!

 

[jbmatth]

Okay you've talked me into it, I'll give you 100% profit on your investment and come up this weekend to pick it up. Great score on that machine, happy this one worked out for you.

JB

 

[86turbodsl]

Ha ha! Thanks guys. JB, come on up, you can use it anytime you want, but i think i'm more attached to it than you are!

 

[Strouty]

When I was looking at adapting things, I ran across this thread, but honestly I would just buy a new socket (14 pin) and never have to worry about an adapter again.

https://forum.millerwelds.com/forum/welding-discussions/14659-14-pin-to-5-pin

 

[sberry]

The synch looks good. I got one for 100$ too but had a problem on the board. I am sure someone worked on it, came with real service manuals. It was on the AC side and my bud repaired it with resistor, some little 50 cent part.
Yours looks newer. I used it quite a little on a couple jobs I had but havnt turned it on in 10/15 years since I got spool gun. Its a good place to set plasma and feeder.

 

[86turbodsl]

When I was looking at adapting things, I ran across this thread, but honestly I would just buy a new socket (14 pin) and never have to worry about an adapter again.

https://forum.millerwelds.com/forum/welding-discussions/14659-14-pin-to-5-pin

I don't have anything 14pin at the moment. My other pedals are all the old 2 and 3 pin for the 330 type machines. I've got 3 pedals.

But i hear ya.


Sberry, thanks. I am tigging quite a lot, but haven't moved into aluminum yet, so i expect i will be enjoying it for a long time.

 

[86turbodsl]

I hooked up the other sync 300, it fires up as long as the contactor control is remote. As soon as it goes to panel, it blows the breaker. I'm betting as long as the contactor stays disengaged, it's fine.
So i have to wonder what's going on there. Glad i bought the big one too, the small broken one was the first one i bought. It cost more too... $150.

Edit: I'm betting it's a shorted SCR. I don't see an actual contactor in the diagram. I might pull all the leads to test my theory.

 

[86turbodsl]

Digging around inside seems to indicate a pair of shorted scrs. Pull any two control lines and it doesn't blow.

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[fergus]

Man... big ol Syncrowave for $100!!! You **** man. Noice score. Everyone wants at least $1k locally for something like that.


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[86turbodsl]

Thank you!

 

[86turbodsl]

Working on the automatic controls for the boiler now. Hoping for less babysitting.



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[86turbodsl]

The weather man keeps dropping the overnight temp on Sunday night! It started out around zero, then went to -4F, Then -5F, and this morning has been updated to -10F~!

I might have to burn through the night to keep it warm out there!

 

[OldSoldier]

I say do it as a test of extreme conditions!

 

[86turbodsl]

I just might if I can get some controls going.

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[86turbodsl]

Burned until 1am last night, then shut it off. It was 51f at 1am and 47f at 8am in spite of all the wind and leakage. I am busy working on wiring up controls. Neg 10 tonight and I want to be ready.

Only been zapped a half dozen times so far.

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[86turbodsl]

There, that's better. All cleaned up. Now to add temp sensors and control logic to the plc.

It's 61f in the space. About to shut her down for the night.

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[jbmatth]

Interested to see how it went with the low temps last night.

JB

 

[Strouty]

Looks really good, I too am interested in the updated report with the really cold temps.

 

[86turbodsl]

49f at 1030am. Pretty good, it hit 11 below and was shut off for 13hrs.

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[86turbodsl]

Filling up the oil tanks again. 500gals + in storage, and getting rid of this tank:

Leaky #1.

Any suggestions for a use?

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[rmalkow2]

Google:
old oil tank ideas

It will come up with links and pictures of all kinds of creative re-use ideas for tanks like that.

 

[86turbodsl]

Nice! Thank you!

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[86turbodsl]

Smoker and fire pits seem to be the typical uses. Maybe. We will see.

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[86turbodsl]

I emptied out the last of the tank (well that wasn't sludge anyway) and threw it out of the shop. Gained a lot of space getting rid of that thing! I managed to dump some oil out on the ground in front of the shop, and shoveled up some of it into the burn barrel. I tried to burn it in place, but the snow wasn't helping any.

I have 600+ gallons up in storage at the moment, and another 55 gallons of motor oil and 55 of veggie oil left to put up that's inside. Thousands more outside. Good to finally be burning it.

I have also decided i have more gaps in my insulation than i care for, but at least i can get the building nice and toasty, even in the super low temps. And with free oil, i probably won't spend too much time thinking about it.

Burner development is halted due to the cold temps, i don't need to be shut off for days while i swap things around. Time in the evening is limited.

I pulled the ceiling in the bathroom and ran the thermostat wire and mounted the tstat in the permanent spot. On the wall of the bathroom away from the boiler. So no radiant heating from the boiler and on an interior wall, so should be somewhat representative of interior temps. It's not a slab sensor, i haven't felt the need to put in that sort of tstat. It works fine based on air temp. Floors seem to be pretty comfortable around 60F air temp.
PLC is wired for all outputs, need to add temp sensing and start adding shutdown controls. I won't add full automation until i have a working burner 2.0.

For now, running the boiler and cleaning shop is priority.

 

[jbmatth]

Great to hear things are looking up on this project and it will be nice to have a convenient fuel source at the ready all winter long.

JB

 

[86turbodsl]

Agreed. Thank you. It's a good feeling to be able to work out there when it's well below freezing. If I had been Able I would have done it a long time ago.

Cleaning the Ash out is a pita but it's better than the alternative.
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[86turbodsl]

Working on getting the PLC sorted out. It's been slow, i have to haul a computer out there to do it. Hoping to automate shutdown by this weekend, we have a SUPER cold week coming up. Wed is supposed to be -3F for a HIGH temp. The boiler will be needed to keep from freezing. Another thing i have noticed is when it's super cold outside, the burner air tube carbons up a lot faster as it cools the flame so much. I wish i could preheat, but that isn't possible with this design i think.