Oil Expeller -Return to sustainability menu

There is a great learning curve on learning how to expell oil with this machine.First I had to take everything apart and clean it thoroughly.This new chinese machine was in terrible condition and could not have been run as it was, I also polished everything on the inside. It took many hours to get it running properly. Do not purchase one of these machines without seeing one in operation and getting to know how to operate one thoroughly!.

	August 5, 2008 The sunflower meal coming out
	Good close up of the oil coming out.
	Oil expeller in full operation. Note hte oil dripping out. We have refined the process somewhat but still more work to be done on the filtering. The washing machine on spin was excellent...but now the final bag filter needs a change.
	August 4,2008 Darlene operating the oil expeller.
	The centrifuge!.... yes my old washing machine!
	Jugs of oil settling. I have just converted my old wahingmachine into a centrifuge for filtering the oil. Preliminary tests worked out well.
	The pile of hot meal, note that the snow melts! This was quite surprising for me to see just how hot the pile got so this made me think that it must be producing methane so why don't I make a biogas pit and do some cooking off of the methane?
	Jan 8. 2008 After a day of oil expelling I take the machine apart and clean it..... now thats a job for an apprentice! Putting your hands in the oily parts makes very soft hands..... must be the vitamin E!
	Dec 31, 2007 Oil flowing. The oil is quite black looking but given a night sitting the oil comes to the top and it can be poured out. One wonders what the energy returned on energy invested. There was the planting, the harvesting, the delivery and now the expelling. My diesel seems to use very little fuel but if you add everything up I'm not so sure there is much return over the energy invested.
	The rings need cleaning after every session. They will gum up and the oil flow will not be adequate if left over night.
	Dec 31, 2007 The oil expeller disassembled. There is quite a learning curve to get this process to work just right. Finally I feel very successful but as always there is more imporvements to be made. The oil catcher needs modification, an ovcerhead lamp would be good, the sunflower meal catcher should be modified so that it falls away on its own etc. I fele like I am inventing the wheel over again.
	Finally on Dec 14, 2007 I have the oil expeller up and running again. It ran perfectly! But what a mess for me -I must make some adjustments to the way it catches the oil, some of the squirts come straight out the front and miss the bucket, sometimes getting on my pants. In all though a very good run!
	Fred Herman grew these sunflower seeds for me and then lent me the hopper wagon. only 2000 lbs to go!
	Finally got some pulleys and belts. The thing works and now to get some guards on those pulleys. And yes it now runs on a percantage of biodiesel!
	OK just how am I going to make these two work together???
	The expeller is mounted on the base, bolted to the floor and ready for operation!
	This is the oil expeller-- unfortunately from China!
	I got quite interested in this lister diesel. I at first did not want it because of its size but later I thought it would be very suitable for an oil expeller.