Gentleman,

Wonderful work Andy!

We now can start to see what will work. I half suspected that the Naptha may lower the Cetane to such an extent at it may not work, but it may work with Bio-Diesel.

I called our local fuel dealer, which I found via the Internet, he was very happy to supply me with a 1 qt of B100 Bio-Diesel fuel. I have to wait until later next week to pick it up. The fuel cost $3.20 per gal USD. He also told me that it has a viscosity very similar to Diesel #2. He also promised me a copy of the spec sheets. He confirmed the fact that this fuel burns much cleaner that Diesel #2. He also claimed it had a higher Cetane rating than Diesel #2. I hope the spec sheet confirms this matter. From my evaluation of various web sights the Cetane rating is very dependent upon the source of the original veggie oil. Palm oil being the very best, and other seeds like canola in the middle range.

Next week I’ll mix up a batch and give it a try in a PAW .19 ball bearing motor.

If you do a search on RCU for the keyword “Biodiesel” you will find some interesting reading. Some claim that this fuel works well, which is encouraging. One of the good points I read was the fact the exhaust smelled like French Fries. I think this is a nice occurrence, and sure an improvement on kerosene.

I don’t know if B-20 will work well since you’ll only be getting a 20% concentration of the bio diesel, but it would be fun to try. Ask the folk that sell your B-20 if you can get a sample of B-100, my dealer was very interested in the fact that I was going to use it in a model engine. The industry is always looking for ways to promote how safe and clean a product like Bio-fuels can be represent to the public. You maybe able to secure a sample from the original blender just for the asking.

I thought I’d pass one other experiment on to all of you to illustrate how the Cool Power oil worked for me. This does not apply to our current fuel experiment directly, but here it goes.

I wanted to mix 50% normal glow fuel with 50% Coleman Stove fuel. It would not mix just my adding the two together, or with the addition of Amsoil Saber synthetic oil, but when I tried Cool Power (green) it mixed and stayed mixed. I ran this mixture in a Tower .75 engine and as you would guess the needles where sensitive, but it ran great. It ran very hot, but I did not have a way to measure the increase.

Not all synthetic oils are the same as far a blending with various fuels, thinners etc.

The Cool Power oils does not leave a trace of carbon in my TT .46 engine using just methanol and oil, but when I was using a castor mixed with synthetic oil in a 50/50 ratio it burned very black, hard deposits which were hard to remove. It also gummed up the engine after about 10 gallons of fuel to the point the carb was very sensitive and the idle was very hard to hold and control. I had to give the engine the hot antifreeze treatment in a slow cooker pot. Now with the use of Cool Power I don’t have any of these problems, plus I only use a mixture of 15% oil.

Andy, that is interesting that a simple flat disk work the best, I’m wondering if a copper disk or other metal disk insulated on the outside of the engine would help create the desired hotspot. Perhaps it’s just the fact that the disk represents a smaller heat sink and a concentrated area of extra heat to light off the fuel?

Any ideas? Can anyone think of an alloy that would interact with heavy fuel to work as a catalyst?

It appears that the D-Star engine only has to run at full power at all times thus idle is not a concern making it much easier to design and operate. One speed, one mixture setting and one compression setting. If you only operate like a generator at a very specific speed range everything can be programmed for this one speed zone.

I was able to find a series of lectures on the Internet given by several designers of MAV aircraft, in this forum D-Star talked about their little diesel engine. In this lecture they mentioned many interesting things, and I believe this is where I hear the fact that the generator set used a 1 minute preheat before startup. This make perfect sense if the are running JP-8 with a 3 % oil mixture. Wow, not much oil in that mixture!!

The Army has a One Fuel requirement, which happens to be JP-8. They want to get rid of batteries in the field too, so this little diesel engine is to run on JP-8 plus a bit of oil.

You can try to find these lectures by searching for MAV aircraft and D-Star Lectures. I sent Andy an email with this link attached last year, so he maybe able to find this data too. It as audio only.

They also built an engine for a little VTOL aircraft called Kolibri. It appears to be classified and very little info can be found on this aircraft. It uses one of their little diesel engines to extend the flight time to the maximum. D-Star has been able to get this little engine to idle, so there is hope for us too.

Do a search for “Darpa Kolibri”

Almost all of the links do not work for this device, which indicates that it must fly very well. I have found only two photos within PDF documents that show the craft. So I can’t cut and paste the photos for all of you. I was unable to see the motor in the craft.

I found this below. Note: they say multi-fuel engine, that is one of their diesel engines. I don’t know what other fuels it can handle?

Lutronix Corporation "Kolibri" micro-helicopter The Kolibri micro-helicopter built by Lutronix Corporation of Del Mar, California. The Kolibri (German for "Hummingbird") was larger than the other DARPA MAV prototypes, with a weight of about 300 grams. The Kolibri was built as a cylinder with rotors at one or both ends, using vanes moved through the rotor airflow by piezoelectric actuators for flight control. It was powered by electric motors or a tiny, highly-efficient multi-fuel engine developed by a company named D-STAR.

Andy did you happen to ask the owner about that preheat during your conversation?

I’m thinking that a CL engine would be very happy with Wide Open Throttle on No Ether, but it maybe difficult to achieve a good idle without ether. D-Star may not care or DDD for that matter. Just fire that dude up and make electricity.

Kelly