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All Forums >> Glow Engines, Gas Engines, Fuel & Mfg Support Forums >> RC Fuels >> RE: How so?
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RE: How so? - 11/29/2003 9:14:46 PM   
3d-aholic



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From: Austin, TX, USA
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quote:

ORIGINAL: POWERMASTER

Hobbsy
The manufactures try to keep the fuel as low in moisture content as possible in
order to have a fuel that will run consistant each time that the engine is used.

Well if thats the reason that do it....its stupid. Because it would make more sense for them to distribute a product that it is at least close to an equilibrium state......as opposed to a state that is nearly instantly broken as soon as the MeOh fuel bottle is cracked open. The more the fuel is at an equilibrium state with nature, the less likely it will be to change.

Anyway, I don't believe for one second that fuel manufacturers do anything to extract water from the MeOh they use. They simply buy it from Burdick & Jackson or some other solvent distributor and mix it up. The purity of solvents dictates their price. At the currently price of fuel, we are talking about simple reagent grade methanol or worse....doubtfully even 1 nine....probably 99.5% or below. That other .5-1% is water, acetic acid, acetone, formaldehyde....and if you open the clear-plastic fuel bottle, drain half of it, and let it sit in the sun for a day or two, mother nature will make sure its at 99% no matter what you start out with anyway.

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       Post #: 26

RE: How so? - 12/13/2003 3:36:52 AM   
boater


 

Posts: 88
Joined: 12/9/2001
From: Sacramento, CA, USA
Status: offline 		2Much, Powermaster didn't say they tried to extract water from the methanol, he said they try very hard to keep as much as possible out, ie they try very hard to keep atmospheric water out of the methanol and fuel while in thier factory. Being that it is impossible to remove water from the methanol ( except by triple distillation) I don't think they (Powermaster or any fuel manufacturer) have a chance in hell of decreasing the amount in the methanol, but they do have the ability to keep it from rising any higher. My.02 Rudy

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       Post #: 27

RE: How so? - 12/14/2003 2:46:13 AM   
BUGGIES_R_US



Posts: 3340
Joined: 12/26/2002
From: Norcross, GA, USA
Status: offline 		LearjetMech,

I'd really like to see that video you guys are talking about where water was "fed" to this jet!

Please post a link if you see it!

I watch tthese channels quite often but I havent seen it!

ram

(in reply to boater)
       Post #: 28

RE: How so? - 12/15/2003 12:13:24 AM   
downunder



Posts: 3168
Joined: 10/10/2002
From: Adelaide, AUSTRALIA
Status: offline 		Spraying water with a detergent down the intake of gas turbines is a routine maintenance operation. I can't remember the interval now but we did it regularly with the F111 and the sole purpose was to clean off the slime that accumulates on the fan/compressor blades after they've sucked in a billion bugs or a bird. The only thing that had to be done after was to check the water traps which were part of the fuel system.

What was always interesting though was looking down the intake on a humid day. Because the F111 intake is quite long there's a large pressure drop when run at high power and this would lower the temperature of the intake air to below the dew point when all the moisture in the air would suddenly condense and there'd be this opaque blanket of fog suddenly appearing. It looked neat

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       Post #: 29

RE: How so? - 12/15/2003 4:27:01 AM   
LearjetMech


 

Posts: 515
Joined: 9/22/2003
From: Corinth, TX, USA
Status: offline 		Buggies,
Usually it is on the History Channel, TLC or Discovery. They had one on the other night on one of those channels called Mega Machines. They pumped 1500 gallons of water a minute through the GE90. It never sputtered. It was awesome!!

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       Post #: 30

GE90 - 1/25/2004 5:00:47 PM   
xlr82v2


 

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From: Ellis Grove, IL, USA
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quote:

ORIGINAL: LearjetMech

Buggies,
Usually it is on the History Channel, TLC or Discovery. They had one on the other night on one of those channels called Mega Machines. They pumped 1500 gallons of water a minute through the GE90. It never sputtered. It was awesome!!



I wonder if that was with air ignition on or off???


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(in reply to LearjetMech)
       Post #: 31

RE: GE90 - 6/1/2004 10:07:07 PM   
Hobbsy



Posts: 10554
Joined: 12/2/2001
From: Colonial Beach, VA, USA
Status: offline 		For the Guys who don't like the idea of H2O in your fuel, I've worked out a solution. If you have a jug of fuel that you think has been contaminated with water, go and buy three really high quality tennis balls and about dozen cheap ones. Now take the suspect jug of fuel into the house "best done with the AC on or take it to Arizona to avoid further contamination". Next pour the fuel into an open pan, now, take one of the high quality tennis balls which have had the fuzz treated to resist water so your balls won't get heavy when playing tennis in the rain. If it floats real high, like with almost none of it below the surface, you know you have a water problem because the tennis ball is trying to stay away from the water in the fuel. Remove the good ball and procede to toss in the cheap ones one at a time. The cheap ones will only soak up water, not fuel, after 5 or 6 balls give each additional ball a few seconds, when a ball stays dry you are done. Now we can all relax about the water in the fuel thing. Amen

< Message edited by hobbsy -- 6/1/2004 5:09:18 PM >

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       Post #: 32

RE: GE90 - 6/2/2004 2:26:05 PM   
Sport_Pilot



Posts: 7651
Joined: 1/21/2002
From: Acworth, GA, USA
Status: online 		Starting your own fuel myth Hobbsy?

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       Post #: 33

RE: GE90 - 6/2/2004 2:37:55 PM   
Hobbsy



Posts: 10554
Joined: 12/2/2001
From: Colonial Beach, VA, USA
Status: offline 		Just a little light hearted humor Sport, it seems that a lot of folks take this hobby more seriously that they do their jobs.

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       Post #: 34

RE: Water in glow fuel may be good? - 6/2/2004 7:26:10 PM   
POWERMASTER


 

Posts: 46
Joined: 10/27/2002
From: Elgin, TX, USA
Status: offline 		Downunder
Wonder how wide the smile on BOCA bearings face is.
Wendell

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       Post #: 35

RE: GE90 - 6/8/2004 5:57:36 PM   
Sport_Pilot



Posts: 7651
Joined: 1/21/2002
From: Acworth, GA, USA
Status: online 		Actually a small amount of water in solution shouldn't contribute to corrosion. As you may know water doesn't cause rust directly, rather it provides the electrical path. Unless the oil is coming out of solution, the small amount of water we have been discussing shouldn't be a problem.

(in reply to POWERMASTER)
       Post #: 36

RE: How so? - 3/7/2006 1:43:55 AM   
rcheliflyer01


 

Posts: 42
Joined: 1/19/2003
From: USA, USA
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: BUGGIES_R_US

LearjetMech,

I'd really like to see that video you guys are talking about where water was "fed" to this jet!

Please post a link if you see it!

I watch tthese channels quite often but I havent seen it!

ram


Hey guys you got my curiosity going and I know this is an old post but I located the engine testing videos and they
are AWSOME and worth a look.

http://www.777.newairplane.com/

enter the site and click on the GE90 turbofan engine , click on saftey and see learn more at bottom for the test videos.



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       Post #: 37

RE: Water in glow fuel may be good? - 4/2/2006 2:25:03 AM   
sopwith


 

Posts: 29
Joined: 3/12/2006
From: Canon City, CO, USA
Status: offline 		I have been mixing my own fuel for a few months now, and have tried various things. I find that using 10% Morgan fuels Gold heavy 4 stroke oil and 10% water works well in 2 and 4 stroke engines. It is much cleaner and I get a little higher rpms than when using 20% oil. I have used 5% water and get more power still. I have only been using these mixes for a few weeks, so don't know the long term effects. The latent heat of vaporization is very high for water and is much more efficient than oil for cooling. I have noticed there is less needle valve sensitivity as well. If you use caster oil, it will not mix with the water, so you must use synthetic oil. The Morgan fuels oil is cheaper than caster oil so it works out fine.

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       Post #: 38

RE: How so? - 4/2/2006 2:51:27 AM   
sopwith


 

Posts: 29
Joined: 3/12/2006
From: Canon City, CO, USA
Status: offline 		P.S. for my last post. I am in Colorado and the temperatures have been between -5 F and 50 F for the whole time I tried these water/fuels mixes. The Morgan fuels oil I used has a little caster oil in it but didn't seem to have any oil separation problems. Perhaps a little caster oil would accumulate on the jug bottom but I didn't notice. When using caster oil, all the oil would separate and sit on the bottom. Next time I will pay more attention to temperature effects. When it gets below freezing it is just not pleasant trying to fly (frozen fingers) so I don't do much, so I don't recall if I tried flying with the water mixes at that low a temperature.

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       Post #: 39

RE: Water in glow fuel may be good? - 4/8/2006 3:36:44 AM   
loughbd


 

Posts: 2111
Joined: 11/29/2003
From: Bremerton, WA, USA
Status: offline 		If putting water in glow fuel was such a great idea, all the manufacturers would do it and then use that as an advertising gimick. Notice that none do. What does that tell you??

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       Post #: 40

RE: How so? - 4/17/2006 9:26:38 AM   
griz11


 

Posts: 136
Joined: 8/22/2005
From: Granite Shoals, TX, USA
Status: offline 		I worked in a chem lab one time that used very dry methanol in one of the experiments. We couldn't keep that stuff in a container for any length of time or it would grab up enough water to make it unusable to us. We had a still going all the time to supply methanol to the experiment. Methanol will grab water like crazy. I don't think the methanol in fuel is anywhere near this pure. It would be too costly to make and store. You can use specific gravity to see if fuel has grabbed up water. Nitric acid is the primary corrosive element in model engines. As discussed in a previous post the methanol breaks down into an acid eventually. Nitromethane also breaks down and somewhere along the line nitric acid is formed. When you run a model engine in very humid conditions the water in the air gets spun out by the crank and from flowing through the carb and intake system. Like the fog in the Jet engine intake mentioned above. It comes in contact with the methanol in the fuel and contaminates it immediately. I race in San Antonio Tx and sometimes it gets oppressive with the moisture in the air. You just can't get a nitro engine to preform well in those conditions. We lower the nitro % and pull the pipe a bit to retune it because you can't get the rpm you can when its drier. Igniting the nitro takes a lot of heat. A 700 degree flame front if I remember correctly. The methanol provides a lot of that heat. If you are running in high enough humidity so your methanol is getting contaminated getting into the engine you can't get enough heat from the methanol to get the nitro lit totally. We usually run 50 to 60% nitro in a top fuel dragster. We go down to 40 when it gets 'wet'. I can see where the guy from Colorado gets more with water in the fuel. The air is so thin there the O2 released when the fuel is burned compensates somewhat for the poor partial pressure of O2 in your locale. I used to race off-road in Denver. Tuning there was a piece of cake compared to Texas. I smoked a couple of engines when I moved learning to deal with the atmosphere here.

Griz

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