RE: Substitute for Ether
 

A wonderful flying session today [8D]

I used my 10ft wingspan glider and a couple of PAW diesels. There was very little wind and it was about 20C with clear blue sky.

First up was the PAW 09 (with RC throttle) this was used for 3 seperate flights of some 20 minutes each.

Next to go on the back of the glider was a PAW .15 (also RC throttle) a further 3 flights of some 20 minutes each.

Fuel ........???

It was 15% ether and 25 % castor oil. Around 12% of the castor oil lubricant was pharmaceutical grade castor.

That's around 2 hours flying today and I had a further 1 1/2 hours on a previous occasion when I also used the same fuel mix.

That gives me 3 1/2 hours of actual flying time and that followed an extensive period of testing last year. I reckon the 15% ether and 25% castor oil fuel mix is fairly well proven.... to my satisfaction at least. That's 3 1/2 hours of engine run time with fuel costing approx 1/2 the price of a normal model diesel commercial fuel mix.

The engines both ran and throttled well with only 15% ether. The 25% castor gives safe lubrication and, from experience, 15% ether is the minimum amount that is required in the fuel in order to prevent the 25% castor precipitating out. With 15% ether the fuel remains clear, less than this amount and the fuel starts going cloudy.... more so as the temperature drops.

That is very nearly all my 15% ether mix used up so the next stage will be to use the 10% ether mix with a combination of castor/olive and mineral oil. I am looking forward to flying this mix as it worked exceedingly well when extensively tested last year.

Just need some more wonderful flying weather next week.....

RE: Substitute for Ether
 

Sloper, this is the way! I am about to be convinced that olive can be added to castor without any previous "modifying" since the observed small increase in viscosity seems not to justify the work needed. Also double modifying does not affect measured viscosity, but only give a foggy appearance of suspect nature.
I am working on a new way to make lube, using vegetable oils in a way similar to the blending of mineral (and synthetics) ones.
So far fifty/fifty castor- olive seems the right base stock. This should behave as SAE40.... with added lubricity. I hope to publish observed viscosities for it till 150°C . If necessary I will follow the way of a vegetal viscosity improver for modulating the viscosity.
None did try the chainsaw oil TOTAL CHAINBIO? It seems a promising one.

Ugo

RE: Substitute for Ether
 

Ugo,
" Also double modifying does not affect measured viscosity, but only give a foggy appearance of suspect nature. "
All I can say is your olive oil stock must be vastly different to that I get here, as my modded oil shows a big difference in viscosity over std oil and comes out nice and clear. I will add that I have tried several different brands of olive oil and have found only 2 brands of virgin olive oil that gives good results and both of these are "generic/house " brands.
Stewart
OK just had a look at the oil bottles, 1 that gives good modified results is "Coles extra virgin olive oil " this is a Spanish oil, the other I havent the bottle but is a " Black n gold" Australian extra virgin olive oil .
Stewart

RE: Substitute for Ether
 

Ugo,
" but only give a foggy appearance "
after thinking on this , could your oil still contain water ? sounds like it too me, try recooking at a higher temp/ longer till it clears up, then let it cool n settle to see what you have.
Stewart

RE: Substitute for Ether
 

Stewart,
Just ended adjusting a new cup viscometer in order to cope with the low viscosities met at high temperatures. First calibration seems to perform well. Next I will make new batches of oil to test.
Also I was thinking to the possibility of some water trapped inside the oil, so I will test the end temperature. If more than 100°C for a consistent time,no water should remain in it.
Please note that as soon the bubbles end, the oil goes very quickly up in temperature, without any more bubbles. The temperature will rise up to the smoke point of oil in few minutes. For testing this condition it is sufficient to blow gently on the surface, you will clearly see smoke rising from it. Corresponding temperatures are higher than 190°C for fresh extravirgin, significantly lower for low quality or aged oil.. Glycerin should settle on the bottom, since it boils at 290°C, and I regularly find it there. If the oil is mantained for long time at high temperature, particularly with repeated processing, it will thicken, but it is a modification that will happen also wthout glycerin and soap.
Ugo
Ugo

RE: Substitute for Ether
 

There has been a pretty large amount of evolution is the progress of the olive oil - reduced either fuel and also the methods of polymerizing of olive oil.

I am interested in a 5 % or so either fuel. Is there a formula that has evolved as more or less standard as reduced either - vegetable oil that starts like purchased mix?

Something of a good starting point as well as treatment of the oil.

RE: Substitute for Ether
 

I still drive a babbit bearing truck It works great and has run well for the 25 years I've owned it. I'ts a '43 chevy 1 1/2 ton thus my forum name chevy43. It has shims for adjusting the rod bearings but I've never touched them. It also has dippers on the rods for oiling them as all Chevys did till they got pressure oiling in '53. At 7,000 lbs it doesn't win any drag races unless you are talking about dragging logs with a chain!

http://img97.imageshack.us/img97/7757/43chevy0rp.jpg

RE: Substitute for Ether
 

That is one neat truck. It resembles the 530B military fire truck that I cut my driver/pump operator teeth on in the USAF. The 530B was a 6x6 based fire truck that pumped, are you ready?, 530 gallons of water per minute. It was a tough old buzzard that just laughed at the kids driving it. It was bullet proof. Good thing that it was, too. <G>


Ed Cregger

RE: Substitute for Ether
 

Andyu, Stewart and Sloper
I am following my tests.
Now I have (double) modified a new batch of virgin fresh olive oil. It behaves similarly to the exceptionally old one I posted in the previous page. This time I stirred with a mechanical stirrer instead of manually. The resulting oil was slightly green-brown, with clear appearance. Some jelly-viscous mix of glycerin and concentrated detergent easily condensated in the bottom
Here I show preliminary viscosity data in seconds/cup BEFORE (crosses) and AFTER (dots) modifying. They have been used two cups, no 1 for HIGH viscosity, that is low temperatures, and no.2 for higher ones up to 150°C, so you will see two different lines.
The viscosity is expressed in seconds, next time I will show centistokes.
A first result appears immediately.As noticed with the old oil of previous post , the alleged " modification" has little practical effect on the low temperature behaviour, that is the measured viscosity remains about the same. Only at temperatures higher than 100°C some difference appear, yet to be confirmed by next tests. But the difference, if one, is not so relevant to justify so far the burden of modification . This is consistent with the nature of the oil used, being the olive one of the most stable oils due to its compostion. Following this, I will temporarily abandon modifying olive.
As a first conclusion I suggest to use straight olive, mixed with castor, as lubrificant.
I hope to introduce next a true vegetable "viscosity improver " to add to the base olive and/or castor .
Ugo

RE: Substitute for Ether
 

Here the first tentative numbers coming from the above olive oil batch
Due to the small differences between unmodified and modified oil, data are pooled in a single curve. The linear behaviour is confirmed as expected from the universal temperature-viscosity ASTM graph.
Note how olive performs better than (extapolated) mineral SAE 10W-30 at temperatures higher than 100°C.
The exceptional viscosity index, far higher than that from mineral oil, is confirmed as expected.
More to come
Ugo

RE: Substitute for Ether
 

Intresting how this thread really became an oil substitute instead of ether substitute thread..............

I've come to the conclusion there is no substute for ether. Obviously it is possible to run with very litte or in perfect conditons none.

If it all cost the same though you can bet I'd pick the standard either, castor, kerosene mix!!!!! That said I will still run the "Baker Black Brew" in OS LA 40 because I have that down to a science.


Treven.

RE: Substitute for Ether
 

C'mon Treven,
Let's get together and cook up a batch of olive oil - or not cook it (Merugo?)

I wish you guys would figure this one out already:)

Rob

RE: Substitute for Ether
 

The best thing, if you want to cook olive oil is to fry some chips, or much better some greasy fish as sardines , eat the fish and use the oil as lubrificant.... T H I S I S N O T A J O K E !!!!
The main quality of a diesel is to digest everything, but your diesel will be grateful for changing diet.
Note, if you don't like your airplane smelling as a seasoned fisherman, when you end frying fish, fry a slice of bread, it will deodorize and purify the oil.
Wait faithfully for some data after my wife finds fresh anchovies in the market..
Ugo

RE: Substitute for Ether
 

This is old news, we has biodiesel made of old oil from restaurants, household + fat of animals + oil from fish + rape oil. :)

The oil can not use direct at the engine before the oil are cleaned and done free for all stuff who are not good for the engine.

RE: Substitute for Ether
 

Jens, as usual you lose a good occasion for being silent!
I am speaking of L_U_B_R_I_F_I_C_A_N_T , understood? LUBRIFICANT!
To be used fried oil needs only to be decanted, and if turbid to be filtered.
Fuel is a TOTALLY DIFFERENT MATTER! It is destined to be B U R N E D ! while lubrificant definitely NOT. Its purpose is different.
Commercial diesels, including cars, cannot run on triglycerides, the main component of vegetable oils, that need to be chemically modified in order to get glycerin out from them.
Ugo

RE: Substitute for Ether
 

Hi Treven,
I think it became an oil substitute , as opposed to ether substitute, as nobody seems to know of an ether substitute.

Experimenting has allowed some of us to reduce the ether content of the fuel considerably and get good engine performance.

Reducing the ether content has led to finding alternatives to castor oil so we have a lubricant that will mix with only small percentages of ether in the fuel mix.

If there is a substitute for ether then it has yet to be found by members of the group.

It seems we have the following choices meanwhile....

Use a fuel mix with a much lower percentage of ether compared to a commercial mix. The ether content is determined by how easy you want the starting process to be.... more ether = easy starting. Less ether = priming with high ether content to start.

We can use a fuel mix with NO ether at all in it. This works and the engine can run well on it but
it requires several primes of high ether, or, heating of the engine to enable starting.

We HAVEN'T found a substitute for ether [&o]

We HAVE found some alternative lubricants that will work with either low ether content, or, no ether at all in the fuel :)

I do like that "black brew" of yours.... I reckon it doesn't get much simpler than that :)

RE: Substitute for Ether
 

Throat of scream, take it calm and not to be hot-headed!!, here are free for all folks in RCU to write what they want to mention :D

Are you sure??? No, with the hot bulb engine are the engine burning near all oils, both fuel and lubrificants such as mineral-, animal- and vegetable oils without problem and was demonstrated by Sabb motor A/S (Engine factory in Bergen). :)

RE: Substitute for Ether
 

Sorry Ugo , I have to agree with jens on this "Commercial diesels, including cars, cannot run on triglycerides, the main component of vegetable oils, that need to be chemically modified in order to get glycerin out from them."
There are 2 types of bio diesel in use currently, 1/ is just filtered waste/new cooking oils that is simply filtered to remove solids. diesels run fine on this , but it has 2 disadvantages/problems, 1/ is the likelyhood of containing water that can destroy the injection system and 2/ a higher wax point -due to containing triglycerides. they overcome these by 1/ starting and stopping on regular diesel fuel to stop water sitting in the injection pump/injectors, and 2/ if nessessary due to climate , a heated fuel tank, mostly all diesels useing waste oil fuel have a heated filter just befor the injection pump to lower the viscosity of the oil befor injection.
and secondly the converted waste/new cooking oils that have the glycerine stripped out , this runs in a std injection/fuel tank setup, but even this biodiesel suffers from a higher wax point so in colder climates is generaly sold or used blended with regular mineral diesel.
Stewart

RE: Substitute for Ether
 

Merugo, you forgotten the dieselengines has fuelpump who need lube from dieselfuel, also dieselfuel are both fuel and lubrificant.

RE: Substitute for Ether
 

Stewart,
you are confirming that commercial diesels cannot regularly run on triglycerides , straight or waste they are, unless in particular conditions or additional apparatus or running methods are used.
When glycerin is properly stripped out of oils, the resulting product can run on commercial diesels, but is so different from oil that I suggest you not to fry anything with it.;)
I am warmly suggesting to fry chips or fish with olive oil (better fish than chips), you will lubricate better your engine.....for free. Tomorrow friday maybe, as is usual here to eat fish, I will make this absolutely new superecological lubrificant using the same brand of oil of my last test . After proper measurements it will run on the Mars benchmark, maybe it should be better to find a marine version for this test!
Ugo

RE: Substitute for Ether
 

Ugo...

With or without triglycerides or glycerin are not important, near all oils will ignite of high temperature or naked flame (to example in case too high boiling temperature until it will ignite such as fry chips or fish in kitchen, oil lamp with vegetable oil). Rags dampened with boiled linseed oil are a fire hazard, because they provide a large surface area for oxidation of the oil. The oxidation is an exothermic reaction which accelerates as the rags get hotter.

Triglycerides are also split into their components via transesterification during the manufacture of biodiesel. The fatty acid monoalkyl ester can be used as fuel in diesel engines. Glycerine are produced as a co-product in bio-diesel synthesis. Now that biodiesel production likely will produce large quantities of co-product glycerine (about 0.1 lb of glycerine per lb of biodiesel), processes are being announced to manufacture propylene glycol and epichlorohydrin, traditionally propylene derivatives, from glycerine.

In the biodiesel produced from rapeseed who are made after DIN EN 14214 (an international standard) has 0.2% triglyceride, 0.25% total glycerine, 0.02% free glycerine, 0,2% diglyceride, 0,8% monoglyceride. Also not without triglycerides or glycerin in biodiesel.

RE: Substitute for Ether
 

Just musing as I smell my daughter removing her old nail lacquer ...

Has anyone tried acetone as a substitute for ether??

It is highly flammable, mixes with most gl*w fuel, and I suspect with kerosene ... and is readily available from paint / auto refinishing stores and reasonable cost.

Any thoughts from the knowledgeable?

fiery

ADDENDUM: After doing a forum search I see that AndyW (post #5) has tried this, with limited success. Hoooo well .... [&o]

RE: Substitute for Ether
 

Yes I have tryed it as well as some of the others here. It doesn't work well due to it's rather high autoignition temp.


This is getting to be a tought thread to read all the way through huh!!!

Treven.

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It seems like I saw in Model Aviation one month that after-run oil will kill combustion in a diesel. The guy used it one time on several motors and ended up having to disassemble the whole motor and clean them all to get any of them to run. Has anyone heard of this?

RE: Substitute for Ether
 

I use Corrosion X in my Diesels all the time, it keeps castor from congealing, I think that guys story is a load of BULL.