Oil conversion 2

[Chasefamily]

I'm not sure why my last thread got closed, although I have got my burner to fire, it starts smoothly and makes the transition to high fire well I believe. I have a 4.5 80 deg hollow in it. Although it only seems to boil in the back of the syrup pan. Not sure what to I need to do to fix this although I do have a few ideas such as angling the burner, spacing burner back, maybe some sort of fire wall, less fuel pressure, air adjustment, or something else. Anyone have any thoughts?

[wiam]

How long did you run it for. Mine takes a little while to get front of pan up to boiling.

[Mead Maple]

How long did you run it for. Mine takes a little while to get front of pan up to boiling.

I second that. What I have noticed with oil is that because the flame is horizontal versus vertical, you have to just let reflective heat do some of the work. I have a similar situation as you, rear of syrup pan tends to boil quickly but like wiam stated, it takes a while to get the front portion boiling. Fortunately with my pans you draw from the rear of the syrup pan which is ideal be it’s the hottest and the reason I had Thor design the pans that way. Let it run for a while and I think you will find that eventually the deflection will heat up the very front of the syrup pan as well.


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[Brian]

check stack temp, nozzle up and cut oil pressure back, this brings the flame back closer to the front. the front pan should boil with water in it.

[Chasefamily]

Yesterday I boiled for about 3 hours with fresh raw sap, the longer I went the more the front seemed to boil. Although it seemed like I was only getting about 70-80gph where with wood last year I touched 120. Today I'll check stack temp.

[Chasefamily]

check stack temp, nozzle up and cut oil pressure back, this brings the flame back closer to the front. the front pan should boil with water in it.

Stack temp was 705-715, fuel pressure is 300. The syrup pan starting to boil lil better as gets closer to syrup. Although my overall book rate appears to be way down compared to where I was with wood.

[BAP]

How far is the burner pushed into the firebox.

[Chasefamily]

21153
I'm not sure of the exact measurements I guess I forgot to write it down.

[Brian]

try to back off the pump psi back to 250 psi and see what happens.

[Chasefamily]

try to back off the pump psi back to 250 psi and see what happens.

I can try that. I'm also gonna try to install a barometric damper and the. Make a steeper ramp angle and make it flush with bottom of pan about 1/3 of way of flue pan. After monitoring it today seemed like stack was 725-735 ish

[Mead Maple]

Chase, another thing would be to make sure your insulation is up close to your flues. You will basically want to replicate the space under your flues to mimic the space between your flues so you are getting consistency with flame/heat/exhaust as it exits the arch


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[Brian]

A barometric damper is not what you want. you have to put the time in and get it adjusted right, and yes it is not as hot as wood but the heat is constant that makes up the difference. I have a 4x12 , 5-80A low fire, 7-80A high fire pump psi set at 140 psi that = about 15 gallons of fuel an hour on high fire. My stack temp changes a bit according to the barometric pressure from 550F to 610F, this rig is at a full boil in about 10 min with water. You need the front pan to boil because that is surface area that is not being used. The heat is by passing the front pan and up the stack it goes.

[Brian]

Remember heat travels the path of least resistance, so you have to steer the heat ware you want it to go. Also don't try to hold the heat in because this is also a restriction. I have been converting evaporators for atleast 20 yrs.I hope this helps.There was no information out there when i started doing this. I spent hours talking to Beckett, Carlin and a Nice guy at RE Mickles. That cheat sheet William found from leader also has helped alot of people with this problem. I use it now to get me in the ball park.Thank you William for that.

[Chasefamily]

alright. well tonight ill adjust the pressure down and see what that does to the stack temp. When i change to a new syrup pan here in the next couple days. i want to adjust my ramp angle and make it steeper. I will try to find a picture of my arch with the pans off. I did not change anything besides just putting ceramic wool in the fire box. other than that its same i ran when used wood. i was getting around 120 GPH with wood and so far with oil i dont think i have been even close to that yet.

[Chasefamily]

21168
I found this picture, and that ramp is what i want to fix im thinking. i want to make a steeper front ramp angle then fill in the rest to bring up close to the front the flue pan. Let me know your thoughts on that.

[Mead Maple]

From what I can see your heat is probably going immediately to the rear. Way too shallow of a ramp angle

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20200309/2ad09b187cecded9d742bf27c40d97dc.jpg

Notice how mine bumps up so the heat/fire gets pushed up. Syrup pan boils really well and the back of syrup pan where I draw is the hottest, then front of flue pan and slowly starts to cool leading to stack


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[Chasefamily]

From what I can see your heat is probably going immediately to the rear. Way too shallow of a ramp angle

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20200309/2ad09b187cecded9d742bf27c40d97dc.jpg

Notice how mine bumps up so the heat/fire gets pushed up. Syrup pan boils really well and the back of syrup pan where I draw is the hottest, then front of flue pan and slowly starts to cool leading to stack


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Thats a little different than what i was expecting to see. my burner is def closer to my syrup pan, although yours may be a few inches closer to the front.Although its sort of pointed at a steeper ramp angle ill call it where mine is above it allowing for a path of least resistance.This is why i think i want to modify that.

what burner is that? I was wondering if other burners had that larger diameter cone around it. like can be seen in my photo on the other reply #8.

My stack temp was approaching 735 deg so i would like to recapture some of that back, and i thought maybe a barometric damper would help as i am running a 15 inch stack about 25+ ft tall so its creating some draft.

[Chasefamily]

Another thought is should my air chutter b set to wide open when switch over to high fire?

[Mead Maple]

15 inch stack?! What size arch???


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[Chasefamily]

It's a 3x10 with 7 ft flue pan. I backed the air shutter way down to less than half and now getting a stack temp of 675 and the boil looks good in flue pan and syrup pan looks much better. I don't see any smoke either. Doing a gph test starting now

[BAP]

Pull your burner out so the end is just about flush with the insulation.

[Chasefamily]

Pull your burner out so the end is just about flush with the insulation.

That's what i will do next. Although I have turned my air shutter to only about 1/2 inch open and stack temp was 585 last time I tested it and syrup pan boil really seemed to pick up. So hoping it's getting better

[Mead Maple]

Chase, I was in a rare case where a family member happens to be a burner tech and a former employee for D&G so I had all the goods rolled into one. But he was able to fine tune my arch (even with date oil) to be very efficient with fuel consumption, acceptable CO, and ideal stack temps. If you get crazy enough, might be worth a call to your oil company or a plumber friend who can fine tune for efficiency


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[Brian]

The blanket should be touching the bottom of your flues. Nozzle up and play with the pump psi then the air shutter to clean up the flame.The air shutter is what controls the draft. When you get all of that done then get an oil tech that under stands 701 burners to fine tune it. My son has a heating and plumbing business in Corinth and under stands them. Some tech try to nozzle them down for efficiency but that is not what we are looking for.

[BAP]

The blanket should be touching the bottom of your flues. Nozzle up and play with the pump psi then the air shutter to clean up the flame.The air shutter is what controls the draft. When you get all of that done then get an oil tech that under stands 701 burners to fine tune it. My son has a heating and plumbing business in Corinth and under stands them. Some tech try to nozzle them down for efficiency but that is not what we are looking for.
Good statement Brian about burner techs. Not all home heating techs can get an evaporator oil burner to perform well because they don’t understand that the end objectives are different than a furnace.

[Chasefamily]

The blanket should be touching the bottom of your flues. Nozzle up and play with the pump psi then the air shutter to clean up the flame.The air shutter is what controls the draft. When you get all of that done then get an oil tech that under stands 701 burners to fine tune it. My son has a heating and plumbing business in Corinth and under stands them. Some tech try to nozzle them down for efficiency but that is not what we are looking for.

Where should the ramp come flush with flues? Mine becomes flush with the bottom of the flues about 1/2 or 2/3 back of the flue pan. This was one thing i wanted to change the ramp to back it become flush at about 1/3 of flue pan.

Whats your sons business? Corinth isnt too far from me, well about 40 mins or so.

I will recheck my boil rate tonight since i have gotten the stack temp to 585 it seems to have a better overall boil everywhere. Not sure what i should expect to get for boil rate out of a 3x10 with 7 ft flue pan, but with wood i know i touched 120, although this was a with a freighted large fire box.

[Brian]

The flues should be 1/4 way in front of the ramp. The ramp is not that critical, you can have it square in the back the heat don't know the difference. It will travel the path with least resistance. the most important is to have a short combustion area, in other words keep the pump psi down to keep the ignition under the front pan. You don't want to force the flame back into your flues, you want the heat to heat up your front pan then travel back through the flues. Then you want to have the sap pan absorb the heat so its not going up the stack. It is also very important to make sure you have full combustion before it reaches your flues. William and I have talked about doing a reverse fire and building a box on the front for this reason.

[Chasefamily]

The flues should be 1/4 way in front of the ramp. The ramp is not that critical, you can have it square in the back the heat don't know the difference. It will travel the path with least resistance. the most important is to have a short combustion area, in other words keep the pump psi down to keep the ignition under the front pan. You don't want to force the flame back into your flues, you want the heat to heat up your front pan then travel back through the flues. Then you want to have the sap pan absorb the heat so its not going up the stack. It is also very important to make sure you have full combustion before it reaches your flues. William and I have talked about doing a reverse fire and building a box on the front for this reason.

Alright so that sounds like what i was thinking. I am going to fill in some of the area near the center of my flue pan as i believe i am a lil further back than that. I may experience with turning the pump psi down tonight as its still at 300 psi at the moment.

[Chasefamily]

Closed air until it started to smoke then added till it cleaned up. Looks to be right about 80 gals per hr. Stack temp was 575. Am I at a point that's good, or maybe nozzle up now?

[Mead Maple]

Chase, I am running a 2x8 this year (built arch, bought pans) and figured out my rates are not as high as I expected as well so do not lose hope. I am doing some things to get a better GPH as well. I actually adjusted my air today so that I had a longer reach towards to the flues while still maintaining a strong boil in my back syrup compartment (the one I draw from near flue pan). I’m hoping to tweak some things to get it a bit higher too


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[Brian]

Nozzle up because the stack temp is alittle low. This will cause the pans to soot up. the trick is when the sap in the pans is cold the heat hits the bottom of the pan and they will instantly soot up. Then have enough heat to maintain a good boil and also burn the soot back off the bottom of the pans.

[Brian]

You can go for a stack temp of 700 deg f if you are looking for more out of your evaporator. I believe any heat over that is going up the stack and over kill.I believe wood stack temp is 900+. Some sugarmakers have turn the stack pipe red hot.

[Chasefamily]

i believe i have picked up about 20 gals an hr from having my stack temp at 580 vs 735ish. Now im thinking i maybe able to nozzle up atleast from a 4.5 to a 5. that would put me at 8.5 gph on high fire. Not sure what a good boil rate or firing rate for a 3x10 is. but atleast im seeing the numbers follow in the right direction.

[Brian]

That is great to hear. Sometimes to much air flow blows the heat right up the stack too. Its a balancing act, move one thing and changes the whole game. My wife and I just finished boiling and made another 100 gallons we are up to about 500 gallons so far this year. We ro up to 20% so it makes it a little fun.

[Mead Maple]

I was having some growing pains with my oil rig too. Not much of a boil through the rear of the pans hardly at all. Removed some insulation from under the rear pans and was able to get a roaring boil out back but not even hardly enough bubbles in the front to make syrup. After adding some insulation two different times (And draining the system totally once and front pan 3 different times) I was able to add enough deflection to get the front boiling better than before and the rear even has a boil on the stack end of the flues. Oil is such a funny thing to work with given that these little alterations make a huge difference and once you finally find it, it’s all worth it!


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