Heat exchanger

Latest addition to the fire ,16 section's of box section firetubes (650x50) which works out at 2.08m² (22.389ft²) its a 2 pass

Welded on both sides bit tricky (tight space) will have to see how this holds up to the heat (normally firetubes are an expansion fit)

This will be the diversion plate.Directing the heat through heat exchanger.This will still enable wood to be burnt.

All Tubes welded in both side's.Just got to encapsulate in tank .

Flame starts in bottom where wood fire  used to be everything is water jacket except front door 

 Here you can see smoke/heat travel

Due to lack of heat exchanger im proposing putting one on the back of the fire and making it a 2 pass exchanger

Flu boiler

 Cycle times are a bit long so decided to put a tank in the flu .I had one here originally when burning the wood .This time its a little smaller as before it took too much heat out causing loads of tar build up in the flu.

 Tank is 350mm x 400mm x 70 through the middle are 50mm box section's to help increase surface area .Around the tank is 75mm clearance ,kinda hoping that we get no soot bridges ...time will tell.

 Top View

 Top view no flash

 Tank installed in back of fire / flu .Quick release over center catch's aid cleaning

Update on the waste oil scenario

 After too over fills in the constant level tank I've made my own float switch with micro switch(not so micro) and cork floats seems to work ok fingers crossed

 Due to the high viscosity of some gear oil .A water pre-heater was made so oil will flow to constant level tank

 Standard central heating pump circulates water round pre-heater

 Bottom of pre heater with new filter arrangement ,also water trap before and after filter

 The constant level tank was moved to other side of fire as the heat from it was melting the motor and control box.Still bolted to the door which pre-heats the oil with no electric(after initial start).Tank is aluminium.

 Regulator was pants on the little compressor ,so here we have a modified acetylene gauge which gives very accurate pressure through all temperatures .

 Bottom of pre-heater showing tap for water drain

Flame in fire box with an angle target plate ,this stops flame touching the boiler plate and spreads heat a little more even

Waste oil (out with the wood )

Well after 2 years of wood , this year I have gone back to oil .....Waste oil tho !!!!!
Still retaining the wood burner (in case I have to revert back) only change is a new front door to hold the burner .

First mock up on bench using a rotorvane pump i made,This proved to be too much for the motor ..i may come back to this at a later date 

Flame with on board compressor (rotorvane)

Temp pid for the control of oil preheater

First fit on boiler ,this proved to be too far away from back of boiler .

Second Fit door modded to let motor in .This puts flame near back of boiler, also done away with  rotorvane  and using outboard compressor

Cold weather thick oil ....oil heater just needs plumbing in this should allow the oil to pass through filter faster

Piped up and producing heat ....yeah ...all i have to do now is press the button .Beats the hell out of chopping wood ;-)

L matching

Well after much pratting around with this antenna setup ...trying to match the wrong  antenna i finaly worked out a network to make this vertical work on 80 and 40 m.By making the antenna longer on 80 to get the 50 ohms i had made it 5/8ths on 40 hence the previous network not working.

 Anyhow this is what i ended up with

Swr on 80 is 1.3 from 3640 upto 1.6 at top of band 40m is 1.2 for most of band rising to 1.5 at its highest so swr wise it seems ok .The large coil on the right  i ,maybe, could do with out but it seems to lower the Q some what and give a little more bandwidth ,also a dc ground .Well time will tell how it performs as we move into dx season for the lower bands.

L network to use vertical on 40 as half wave endfed.Pinched the idea from k6mhe ,no switching needed .Bit of a head ache tuning this system .Im still working on it nearly there !!!




Here mounted on base of vertical ip64 case reinforced
with stainless to keep it sheep proof lol

A quickly knocked up mole plough makes for light work when laying radials

I removed the solder ring which was a pain to add radials to and replaced with some 304 folded in the middle to aid fitting with out having to move the tower .Numerous holes drilled with m6 stainless bolts to attach the radials to 

Notice here the mole grips used to hold some slack back while putting radial in with above tool