[Derek] sent in this electric ball valve he built for his bio-diesel reactor. If you haven’t checked, the commercial versions are pretty expensive. His solution was to mate a salvaged saturn wiper motor (sans control board) with a polypropylene bolted ball valve.
Oh, and happy birthday to me.
I just had a birthday and I always say happy new year to myself, for this is a new year for me(you too now), and I feel renewed with purpose. In that I wish you a good year, here’s to you Mr. Hackaday.
Posted at 2:27 am on Feb 4th, 2008 by afbcom
happy birthday! keep up that great work!
Posted at 3:16 am on Feb 4th, 2008 by foerdi
Happy Birthday! I love your website!
Posted at 3:54 am on Feb 4th, 2008 by Mastro Gippo
happy birthday!
Posted at 3:57 am on Feb 4th, 2008 by max
HAPPY BIRTHDAY !!!!!!!!
Posted at 4:31 am on Feb 4th, 2008 by Kashan Ahmad
They’ve shut down the main reactor, we’ll be destroyed for sure!
That is some nice work. looks like it’s well put together so it should hold up as long as that saturn wiper motor does!
Oh, and happy birthday to him.
Posted at 6:17 am on Feb 4th, 2008 by strider_mt2k
have a happy birthday. :D
and keep the hack’s comeing
love the site
luke
(great hack to!!!)
Posted at 6:56 am on Feb 4th, 2008 by luke the marsbar
Happy birthday!
What kind of cake did you have?
Posted at 7:35 am on Feb 4th, 2008 by Skyler Orlando
Nice pictures, where’s the process? A few details, maybe a manifesto on biodiesel production and use? I have always said that the city should use biodiesel it its buses, then I could invest in fast food restaurants and clean up!
Oh, and HB2U.
Posted at 9:24 am on Feb 4th, 2008 by PocketBrain
Happy birthday mate!
Posted at 10:04 am on Feb 4th, 2008 by groobo
happy birthday will!
Posted at 11:11 am on Feb 4th, 2008 by kirk
Happy b-day
Posted at 11:42 am on Feb 4th, 2008 by gesmes
Happy birthday!
Wheres the writeup? All I see are pictures!
And: what a coincidence. My rear windshield wiper motor just died on me yesterday. How often are windshield wiper motors on the front page of hackaday?
Posted at 11:43 am on Feb 4th, 2008 by atrain
Happy Birthday and keep up the great work!!!
Posted at 12:03 pm on Feb 4th, 2008 by Captain Zilog
What kind of cake did you have?
Skyler Orlando
There is no cake.
The cake is a lie!
Posted at 12:11 pm on Feb 4th, 2008 by jimmythecow
Happy B-day. This site’s been a source of inspiration.
Posted at 12:53 pm on Feb 4th, 2008 by ClutchDude
happy birthday!.. keep going, i love to stop by everyday.
Posted at 3:20 pm on Feb 4th, 2008 by Koray
Happy birthday to the birthday person. In the event this valve is used in a safety critical application, I see a flaw. No easy quick manual operation is evident.
Posted at 5:23 pm on Feb 4th, 2008 by Doug
this joker is lucky the production of bio-diesel is essentially done at atmospheric pressure. There’s a reason ball-actuated valves cost so much: cause they have a low failure rate, and if they dofail, they fail in a way that is safe.
Imagine for a moment one of these hacked valves in a high pressure system. Pressure builds up behind the valve and the valve suddenly fails to operate to relieve the pressure. Reactor vessel breaches, spews bio-diesel as both liquid and gas. Then they meet a method of combustion, and voila, you don’t have a house anymore.
But, low pressure system, it’s not likely to happen, so whatever floats your boat.
Mac
Posted at 5:33 pm on Feb 4th, 2008 by MacGyver
Once I get the bio processor all put together Ill write up a page all about it and Ill take pictures of it in the process of being put together, I will also take pictures of the next valve I make, I still need 4 more. Submitting to hackaday was an afterthought so I didnt take pictures of the valve when I was making it
Posted at 6:19 pm on Feb 4th, 2008 by Derek White
argh someone beat me to the cake is a lie, to twenty one, it is no more dangerous than the parts that went into it, a high quality ball value wont suddenly fail under rated pressure. the motor should be strong enough to move it comment made through opera mini on a phone yay. i wonder how many entrys site stats have for om…
Posted at 6:23 pm on Feb 4th, 2008 by Frogz
happy b-day
Posted at 6:25 pm on Feb 4th, 2008 by andres
A plastic valve should never be used for high pressure systems, thats kinda a obvious thing I would think, but as for a fail safe this valve does have one, I need to get a write up i guess so things are more clear, the 2 micro switches on the valve not only limit the travel of the motor but also tell the computer running the hole processor that the valve did or didnt make a full cycle, and the computer would shut the system down and tell which valve failed to move seems like a pretty effective fail safe to me nothing blowing up or burning. For my processor a poly valve is perfect, in other cases a brass or stainless valve may be a better choice just like anything else choose what fits the job best. On a high pressure system I would hope people would be smart enough to build in some kind of pressure relief valve so things dont blow up
Posted at 7:39 pm on Feb 4th, 2008 by Derek White
I stand corrected, you are not a joker, you know what you are doing. Sounds like you thought this through a lot more than what the pictures depict.
Yes, I’d hope that another person who built a contraption like this would know better than to use it without any safety precautions. However, America is the culture that invented the slip and slide, the dvd-rewinder, and the non-locking pocket knife, so forgive my initial scepticism?
Mac
Posted at 10:17 pm on Feb 4th, 2008 by MacGyver
I understand what you mean completely people arnt to smart some times, Im a mechanic by profession and seeing some of the things people do when they try to fix there own cars just makes you want to pull your hair out.
no hard feelings just wanted to clarify things
Posted at 10:34 pm on Feb 4th, 2008 by Derek White
Hey! February 3rd is a good birthday! ;) I too aged a year on the 3rd. Hope you had fun!
Posted at 3:44 am on Feb 5th, 2008 by Gigawatts
Frogz –
The issue isn’t with the ball valve, the issue is with the ‘hacked’ together actuated piece. If the motor fails, or the controller fails, or if a short gets into the system (and it can), the ball valve might not open when it’s supposed to. If this were high pressure, that would be scary. Luckily, the hacker knows what he’s doing and won’t be doing anything crazy with it.
I’m sure the ball valve is a wonderful piece of engineering, -the problem is that it is being controlled by a salvaged piece of equipment-.
“Should” is not a word that is used in process control. “Should” costs millions of dollars in damages and could kill people. “Should” causes disasters like the Texas City Refinary incident, the Tacoma Narrows brigde collapse, and the Columbia Space Shuttle disaster.
I really need to stop coming back to this thread.
Mac
Posted at 10:39 am on Feb 5th, 2008 by MacGyver
Derek,
Very interesting project. Could you post some more pictures of your valve? Also, where did you get it/Who made the valve? I’d love to get the specs.
Thanks,
Pat
Posted at 6:28 pm on Feb 6th, 2008 by Purdue_Engr
I would be glad to take more pics, what do you want to see better on the valve ? I also posted a video of it in operation. I got the valve at a Big R, its a farm supply store, I dont see a name on the valve but it should be similar to http://www.jmesales.com/item/32174/banjo-polypropylene-bolted-ball-valves.aspx
Posted at 8:29 pm on Feb 7th, 2008 by Derek White
Very cool, I build biodiesel processors which turn waste vegetable oil into biodiesel. It is really amazing how simple the process is, as well as saving the customer $2-3 per gallon at the pumps. Algae biodiesel looks even more promising. As the other poster said, we just need to keep moving in the right direction.
Posted at 4:26 pm on Sep 27th, 2008 by biodiesel processor
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Happy Birthday!!!
Posted at 1:01 am on Feb 4th, 2008 by jimmythecow