Recent content by Toymaker

You're almost right, except I only have the top half of the sphere to use as the centrifugal vortex separator because the bottom half is filled with oil, and the center section is where the pump sits. Edit: added more detail to drawing.

I hope we can all agree that centrifugal force plays a major role in separating the oil particles from the air, so lets look at the math used to find centrifugal (or centripetal) force: The air-oil mixture is injected near the equator of my sphere where the radius, r is greatest; the velocity...

If you start with accepting that the oil-laden air enters the sphere with relatively high kinetic energy, (ie, it enters with fairly high sub-sonic velocity) then it might help to think of the air as oil coated BBs. As the BBs rub against the sphere's inner wall, some of the oil rubs off onto...

I believe this is where Bernoulli's equation comes into play; If you think of pressure energy and kinetic energy as being inversely proportional then it begins to make sense. In the picture below, the decreased area section would be the nozzle inside the sphere. The pressure energy at the...

I'm fairly certain that a few seconds after the compressor has been running, and filling the sphere with compressed air, the pressure of air entering the sphere will be nearly the same as the pressure inside the sphere, resulting in minimal expansion of the air sent swirling around the inside of...

What you've shown & described is very close to what I've done. As shown in the photo labeled "90 Degree Air Nozzle" in post #419, the brass fitting directs the air flow tangentially along the inside walls of the sphere, just above the sphere's "equator", which is also just above the oil pool...

The fuel nozzle I use is sold for use in waste-oil burners, so no worries about whether the oil might clog the nozzle, it should not. The tiny amount of oil left in the compressed air feeding the fuel nozzle will be mixed in with the B7 Diesel fuel and promptly burned in the combustion...

I finally took a video of the Air-Oil separator. The first silicone tube shown in the video is from the compressor and shows the suspended oil moving through the yellowed tube. The second tube shown is the output from the Air-Oil separator, and as the video shows, very little oil is present...

I'm pretty much limited to what I can find on eBay, AliExpress, etc. and at the moment the only ceramic discs I can find are Alumina ceramic, aka: aluminum oxide (Al2O3). A few Google searches say it's a good choice for my restrictor disc/plate as it's max temp can go up to 2000 C and can only...

I did a little more internet searching: I can buy Alumina Ceramic discs in the size I need (75mm OD, 2mm thick) on eBay where they're sold as Alumina Ceramic Gasket Disc. $15.46 for two discs. 3mm diamond drill bits are less than $1 each. After watching a few YouTube videos on how to drill...

I'm guessing what you are all calling the "radiation plate/disk of the burner" is what I call the "restrictor plate"; ie, the stainless plate in this photo ?? I consider this plate to be "sacrificial". As K2 mentioned, it will deteriorate with time,...how much life I get out of it is still...

A closer exam of the impact of blue-flames on metal. I wanted to touch on this subject again because I find it very interesting and hopefully informative for forum members. The last two photos show the aluminum disk after being exposed to extended, direct contact with blue flames as seen in the...

I should have taken your aluminum casting classes 30 years ago,... I was not aware of nitrogen degassing pellets or using aluminum flux. :)

About 30+ years ago, while living in humid Florida USA, I poured a few aluminum castings using the lost wax technique. I used automotive pistons purchased from scrap yards for the aluminum and melted them in an electric furnace. My castings always had pits and voids, most likely caused by the...

You're not alone in not fully understanding the math needed to predict where a given working fluid will change state from liquid to vapor; I know I don't, and I suspect there are only a few people in the industry that actually do fully understand the math. I believe what's needed is a software...